According to Debra Burlingame’s most recent article in the Wall Street Journal, the six imams detained on the US Air flight had all gathered in Minneapolis for a conference sponsored by the North American Imams Federation. One of the workshops offered to the attendees at this particular conference was “Imams and the Media”.

Apparently, similar educational opportunities are catching on with other Muslim civil rights organizations, who are sponsoring an identical conference in the nation’s capitol this weekend. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the same civil rights organization who came to the defense of The Flying Imams, is now sponsoring a “media relations conference” in cooperation with the D.C. Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations and the Fairfax Institute.

The following was advertised on CAIR’s website this week:

HERNDON, VA, 12/1/06) - On December 9, the Maryland and Virginia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MD/VA), in cooperation with the D.C. Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations (DC-CCMO) and the Fairfax Institute, will hold its first annual Imams’ media relations conference in Herndon, Va. The one-day conference is designed to teach Imams, community leaders and activists how to interact effectively with media professionals. Sessions will cover basic media relations skills.

I’m sure we are all looking forward to seeing if any of these conference attendees put their newly aquired sklls into action while returning home on their flights out of Washington, D.C.

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