Sadiya Sahal was returning to her home in St. Paul Wednesday afternoon when she made a phone call to her relative in Minneapolis a half hour before the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed. The relative didn’t answer that call, but now he wishes he did.

No one has heard from the 23-year-old mother since then. Her 19-month-old daughter, Hana Mohamed, was with her in the family’s Toyota Highlander.

Sahal, who is five months pregnant, is a refugee from Somalia.

"The family is devastated and is in complete shock," said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center.

As a leader in the Somali community, the family enlisted Jamal’s help to find Sahal.

Leaders of the Somali community were at the family’s house most of Thursday to console the family. He said he’s organizing a fund-raiser to try and put the word out.

"The family is hoping that [Sahal] is in the hospital or somewhere else," Jamal said. "We will do everything possible to locate her."

Jamal said authorities were supplied with information about the car Sahal was driving. Hospitals and other health facilities in the Twin Cities were checked with no luck.

Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan told the press Thursday that "a number of vehicles… are underneath big pieces of concrete, and we do know we have some people in those vehicles."

Even under that grim prospect, Jamal said the family is hoping a miracle will happen.

August 1st, 2007 is a day that many Minnesotans will remember for years to come. When news broke that the bridge over the Mississippi River on interstate 35W had collapsed during rush hour, many Minnesota residents reacted with shock and disbelief.

As the shock begins to wear down, questions on why this happened are being asked. As authorities investigate the tragedy, Twin Cities residents attempt to come to terms with this disaster and continue with their lives.

The Mshale community would like to extend our sincerest condolences and well wishes to those who have lost family and friends, and those injured in the tragedy. 

The State, with federal assistance, has set in motion several programs to assist those that have been directly affected by this tragedy.

The Red Cross, Twin Cities chapter provided mass care at the site, and is providing mental health counseling through their grief counselors and other services at their family assistance center. It is also a place for those waiting for word on their loved ones.

The Family Assistance Center is located at:

 Holiday-Inn Metrodome
1500 Washington Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55454

To search for information on a missing person, please visit their website here or call (612) 871-7676.

For alternate routes visit the Minnesota Department of Transportation here.

MINNEAPOLIS – Merchants of the largest African immigrant mall in the Twin Cities are involved in a dispute with their landlord, who they accused of threatening and harassing them.

The conflict at Karmel Plaza began towards the end of June, when Basim Sabri, the mall’s owner notified his tenants that he planned to introduce a pay-to-park scheme, charging customers  between $2 and $10. Sabri said the fees were aimed at easing congestion at the mall. Merchants of the mall, most of them Somali immigrants, responded by rioting and refused to make rent payments.

The mall, which is usually busy during the weekend, was a no-go zone during the last week of June as tenants decided to barricade the entrance to prevent vehicles from entering the premises. Several traders also opted to close down their shops in protest. Some of the merchants told Mshale that the troubles with their landlord were not new.

"The problem in Karmel didn’t start yesterday,” said Mohamed Osman, who owns a shop at the mall. “It’s perennial and has been brewing for years. Hardly does one year end before a fresh one erupts.”

Mohamed said before the parking matter, there was one about power outages.

In a letter addressed to Sabri, Karmel Plaza Business Association members rejected the introduction of parking fees imposed on customers entering the establishment. They termed such a move a breach of contract and an effort to scare their clients away.

The tenants’ association called for an unconditional two-hour free parking for customers and the reservation of the underground parking lot for the tenants. They also demanded a two-year minimum rental contracts with the management and the end of what they said was “harassment and threatening behavior of tenants by the landlord.”

Another businessman, a cafeteria owner who did not give his name, said he had to seek the help of a lawyer to put an end to what he called “continuous harassment” from the landlord. He said that Sabri threatened to evict him every time they had a disagreement.

“Its only after he realized that I meant business (by hiring a lawyer) that he stopped coming to my premises to threaten me,” the cafeteria owner said.

Sabri denied having threatened his tenants and said he had built a good reputation spanning more than two decades. He said that during his 27 years as a landlord, he had evicted only three tenants.

“You have to push me hard to evict you,” Sabri said. “There is no single landlord in this state who can tolerate what I go through.”

Sabri, who also owns several shopping malls leased by Somali and Latino immigrants in Minneapolis, said the parking solution required an investment of approximately $100,000, an amount that he said could not be raised overnight. He said that despite constructing a new lot with 100 parking spaces in the adjacent building, one block from the mall, the tenants refused to park there. Efforts to find a lasting solution to the problem had failed, he said.

Without giving names, Sabri accused a group of his tenants of inciting other merchants by spreading lies about him. But two tenants displayed eviction letters giving them a 30-day to move out of Sabri’s property. They said they went to the tenants’ association, which quickly demanded an unconditional revocation of the order. The association accused the landlord of victimizing some of its members for their outspokenness.

After accusations and counter accusations, the warring parties met at Sabri’s office in an attempt to resolve their differences. Tenants reported that a heated debate took place, with each group accusing the other of causing the problem. In the end, they temporarily agreed to try for two months a system that offers customers free parking for the first hour, to test its viability.

Sabri also agreed to give the tenants the two-year contracts they asked for. But he was quick to point out that only those with a history of paying rent on time would benefit from the deal.

Osman expressed doubt that the agreement was going to end the quarrels between Sabri and his tenants.

“It’s hard to tell if this agreements is gonna hold, but who cares,” Osman said. “We’ll wait and see.”

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The United States should stop supporting the Ethiopian government’s aggression against its opposition if there is to be peace in the Horn of Africa region, an official of the Oromo Liberation Front said.

 Hassan Hussein, the foreign relations head of the Ethiopian-based OLF, accused the U.S. government of continued collaboration with the Ethiopian regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, despite consistent reports of human rights abuses in that country.

“Zenawi is an enemy of peace, not only inside Ethiopia, but look what’s happening in Somalia, where his troops are killing innocent civilians,” Hussein told a crowd of nearly a thousand people, who gathered outside the State Capitol to demonstrate against Ethiopia’s treatment of Oromos.

Hussein said time had come for the U.S. government to cease its diplomatic ties with Zenawi’s regime. Instead, Hussein said the Bush administration could play an active role as a mediator between the OLF movement and the Ethiopian government. Hussein appealed to Washington to initiate space for dialogue with the Ethiopian government that would bring the two sides to the negotiating table to meet face to face and talk about ways of resolving their differences peacefully.

The Oromos, who make up an estimated 32 percent of Ethiopia’s 76.5 million people, have been involved in a conflict with the central government for over a decade and a half. One of the major issues of the conflict is the state of Oromo prisoners in Ethiopian prisons and the continued handing down of sentences against Oromo people on what many feel are trumped up charges. Oromos also say their kinsmen in refugee camps around the Horn of Africa live in constant fear of being kidnapped by Ethiopian security agents.

Hussein told the crowd that the Ethiopian population and the government were being led by a person who ruled with “an iron fist.”

The demonstration, which was organized by the International Oromo Youth Organization, brought together hundreds of people from the Oromo ethnic community in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Dubbed the Annual Oromo Convention, the gathering, according to Damee Ormaa, the immediate vice president of the youth association, was meant to bring the community together.The convention was also aimed at raising funds for several developmental projects in and out of Ethiopia.

The demonstration kicked off at the intersection of Dale Street and University Ave. in St. Paul before snaking through traffic on its way to the State Capitol. Waving placards that condemned torture and illegal detention by Ethiopian security forces, the participants, dressed in traditional Oromo regalia, braved the scorching heat to hear their leaders speak.

“You cant imagine a government functioning like this, rounding up people in a village and taking them to mountains to be shot and their bodies left for hyenas to feed, only because they are suspected to have links with the OLF,” said Ormaa. “It’s against anybody’s imagination”

Ormaa alleged that students from his community were being expelled from schools and universities for engaging in demonstrations against the Ethiopian regime.

The group, under the umbrella of the International Oromo Youth Association, has already written a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Rep. Keith Ellison and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Norm Coleman to bring to their attention the “trials and tribulations of the parents, relatives and friends in Oromia and other parts of Ethiopia feeling the pain and sufferings of their compatriots who are denied the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness because of their yearning for democratic governance.”

What do Muslim airport cab drivers and the Amish have in common?

In filing a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Airports Commission, a lawyer for the cabbies has cited a 1990 Minnesota Supreme Court ruling that granted Amish plaintiffs their desire to avoid using the state’s safety symbols on their buggies.

Like the Amish case, the lawyer, Jeffrey Hassan, is hoping that the judge presiding over his case will rule that his clients’ freedom of religion is violated, and that they were discriminated against.

According to the complaint, filed in Hennepin County Court District late last month, 11 drivers want a judge to issue an injunction asking the commission to suspend a new penalty for cabbies who refuse to transport alcohol-toting customers.

In April, the commission unanimously approved a tough penalty system that went into effect in May. Drivers who refuse to transport customers for any reason beyond safety would lose their licenses for 30 days for the first offense and two years for a repeat offense.

Nine of the plaintiffs are Muslims; the other two are non-Muslims, according to the complaint. They are all African immigrants.

Based on "sincerely held religious beliefs," the Muslim plaintiffs claim that ferrying passengers with "exposed" alcohol "is considered a major sin." They also join the two non-Muslim drivers who accuse the commission of discriminating "against them and other similarly situated black and African-origin taxi drivers by employing a system that degrades, dehumanizes and treats them differently."

Nearly 70 percent of the airport’s taxi drivers are African immigrants, and most of them are from Somalia and Ethiopia.

The plaintiffs also claim that white-dominated limousine and shuttle service drivers are given preferential treatment. For example, taxi drivers have to wait for the next fare in a fenced "holding" area adjacent to the airport. These rules don’t apply to limousine drivers, the complaint said.

Insufficient bathrooms and running water in the fenced area "is remindful of a third-world refugee camp," the complaint said. Drivers are not allowed to leave their vehicles while waiting for the next fare, which can take two to three hours, according to the complaint.

A spokesperson for the commission declined to comment.

Amish won similar case
In a memorandum attached to the complaint, Hassan cites a 1990 landmark case in Minnesota. The state Supreme Court ruled in favor of Amish plaintiffs who, because of their religious beliefs, disobeyed a traffic statue requiring them to display a triangular orange symbol on the rear of their buggies. The state of Minnesota claimed the glow-in-the-dark symbol was supposed to protect both the buggy drivers and automobile drivers.
In that ruling, the court said the state’s Constitution has a "distinctively stronger character than the [First Amendment,]" which broadly addresses freedom of religion.

To prove "compelling" public interest, the court said that "the state should be required to demonstrate that [the matter] cannot be achieved by proposed alternative means … and less restrictive ways."

The airport drivers’ lawsuit cites an alternative agreement reached with the commission last September. Under that agreement, teetotaler cabbies agreed to pay for a distinctive top-light that would signal to booze-wielding passengers that they wouldn’t transport them.

Hassan says that would have been a less-restrictive measure.

The commission scrubbed that plan under immense public pressure. Among other things, the commission cited fears that customers would begin to choose non-Muslim cabbies, which would lead to potential discrimination suits.

Michael Jordan, a law professor at William Mitchell College in St. Paul and expert on employment law, said the burden of proof is on the commission.

"The thrust of the complaint…is to do whatever possible to accommodate deeply rooted religious beliefs," he said. "[The commissin] has to show evidence of its fear and that it exhausted alternative means to address the issue."

Cabdrivers are seeking compensatory damages of $50,000 and attorney fees.

 
The case is still pending.