Trials of Muslim Charities Likened to a Witch-hunt
NEW YORK - The U.S. government’s anti-terrorist financing programmes are based on the “guilt by association” tactics of the McCarthy era and have had a widespread negative impact on U.S. charities, critics say.
That is the view of Kay Guinane, director of the Nonprofit Speech Rights Programme for OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Watch, an independent not-for-profit government watchdog group. Guinane told IPS that government actions have resulted in programme cutbacks and increased fear of speaking out on important public issues.
The organisation accused Congress of continuing “an unfortunate pattern of insufficient congressional oversight of anti-terrorist financing programmes, neglecting to address the unnecessarily harsh impacts the programmes have on U.S. charities and philanthropy.”
As an example of insufficient congressional oversight of charities’ alleged support of terrorist organisations, OMB Watch cited a recent hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in which the only witness was a government official. The witness was the under-secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, Stuart Levey, who plays a lead role in identifying charities that the Treasury Department claims are supporting terrorist causes.
OMB Watch asked the committee for an opportunity to testify, but was not invited.
The McCarthy era refers to a 1950s Cold War campaign led by then Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. McCarthy charged that communist “subversives” had infiltrated the U.S. government and were undermining national security and disclosing secret information. He accused the administration of President Harry S. Truman of sheltering such subversives rather than investigating and ousting them.
Hundreds of citizens were eventually “blacklisted” and lost their jobs. Congress made membership in the Communist Party a criminal offence, in a statute known as the Smith Act.
In his opening statement at the Senate hearing, committee chair Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, referred to failed criminal prosecutions of charities suspected of having ties to terrorism, asking if the prosecutions “were off base” or if the government should “do a better job of monitoring these organisations?”
Baucus was referring to the government’s prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the largest and best-known organisation supporting Muslim causes.
In December 2001, the group was designated as a supporter of terrorism, shut down and had its assets frozen. At that time, President George W. Bush, accompanied by then Attorney General John Ashcroft and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, charged that “Hamas has obtained much of the money that it pays for murder abroad right here in the U.S., money originally raised by the Holy Land Foundation.”
But by the time of the trial, in 2007, prosecutors no longer claimed HLF provided support to Hamas or paid for violent acts. Instead, prosecutors admitted all the money went for charitable aid but said the local charities that delivered the aid to Palestinians were controlled by Hamas.
In October 2007, a federal jury in Texas deadlocked on all charges against HLF and most of the charges against five of its leaders. The former board chair and endowment director, Mohammed el-Mezain, was acquitted of 31 of 32 charges against him, with the jury deadlocking on the remaining charge.
The government has indicated that it will retry the case. But, according to OMB Watch, it will again face the problem of secret evidence that unraveled when subjected to scrutiny and the fact that none of the charities HLF was accused of funding are on government lists of terrorist organisations.
In his Senate testimony, Levey noted that Treasury has “designated approximately 50 charities worldwide as supporters of terrorism, including several in the United States, putting a strain on al Qaeda’s financing efforts.”
But OMB Watch says, “Witnesses from charities and foundations could have provided the committee with a full picture of the real damage the financial war on terror is causing charities, foundations, and the people we serve. Instead, the public record is left incomplete, which will likely lead to continuation of flawed programmes that do little or nothing to stop terrorism.”
Georgetown University law school professor David Cole, one of the U.S.’s preeminent constitutional scholars, told IPS, “The ‘material support’ principle is ‘guilt by association’ in 21st-century garb, and presents all of the same problems that criminalising membership and association did during the Cold War.”
In the name of cutting off support for terrorist organisations, the government has adopted the “paradigm of prevention”, Cole says. “That term, coined by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, describes an amalgam of tactics in which the government employs highly coercive and intrusive measures against groups and individuals based not on proof of past wrongdoing, but on necessarily speculative fears about what they might do in the future.”
In a chapter of a forthcoming book, “Counterterrorism: Democracy’s Challenge”, to be published later this year, Cole writes, “The United States law now makes it a crime to provide anything of support — from dues to volunteer services — to any organisation or individual that the government has labeled ‘terrorist’. The prohibition is not limited to those who intend to support the illegal or terrorist acts of so-called terrorist organisations. It criminalises any and all support — including support that is otherwise entirely lawful, peaceful, and nonviolent.”
“Hundreds of individuals and groups have been placed on this ‘terrorist’ list since 2001,” Cole says, adding, “Remarkably, there is no definition in federal statutes of a ’specially designated terrorist’ or a ’specially designated global terrorist’. Thus, the president and the secretary of treasury can apply this label to literally anyone or any group.”
He told IPS that the problem requires fundamental changes in the terrorism-financing law. He recommends that the Treasury Department be required to permit closed charities to direct their collected funds to charities mutually approved by the frozen charity and the government.
He also says that Congress should enact a statutory definition of a “specially designated terrorist”.
“Right now the Treasury Department makes such designations entirely on the basis of an executive order, and accordingly Congress has given the president essentially a blank cheque,” Cole told IPS.
Treasury should allow designated entities to use their own funds to pay for their own defence, he argues. “Treasury not only shuts down charities in a secretive one-sided process, but then bars the charities from using any of their own money to defend themselves against the designation,” according to Cole.
And the criminal material support statutes should be amended to require proof that an individual supported a proscribed group with the intent to further its illegal activities.
“Today,” according to the government, “even aid intended to discourage terrorist activities is a crime under the material support laws,” Cole says.
OMB Watch says the “material support” effort has resulted in the government shutting down charities that were not on any government watch list before their assets were frozen.
The organisation says the result is that Muslims have no way of knowing which groups the government suspects of ties to terrorism. “Organisations and individuals suspected of supporting terrorism are guilty until proven innocent,” it says.
OMB Watch told IPS, “A group could comply 100 percent and still be shut down ‘pending an investigation’.”
© 2008 Inter Press Service
And they asks why the Muslims are donating to charity. It is because of this stupid witch hunt that is causing headaches for folks who wants to donate to Islamic charities. any money going to Occupied Palestine is almost always suspect. israel deems any money going to Palestine as terrorist funding, but allows terrorist funding to illegal settlement occupied by terroristic JEWS
“No Home, No Food, No Job, Veteran” read the sign he was holding.
I used to stop and give what I had until Bush got into the act. Now, if the starving homeless share their mites and crumbs with a Muslim, I can suddenly be ’supporting terrorism’ and run the risk of the tortured and disappeared. I think Pogo got it right - We Have Met The Terrorists And They Are Us. We can pray for sanity but I doubt that even Devine intervention can save America from itself.
Aren’t these charities eligible for faith-based contributions, or is that just for OUR fundamentalist wackos?
Would it not be an ideal world if members of the GOP and ultra-right Christians receive a taste of their own medicine? Indeed, it was due to said groups that Communists and Muslims are blacklisted in the USA. The GOP and holy rollers are the ones who dictate the tone of who is considered un-American; they even created the framework for judging whether an American is a “terrorist” or not. Yet, the GOP and holy roller Christians are perhaps the greatest terrorists to exist in several centuries.
Many people who afiliate with either the GOP and/or who are ultra-right Christians are unable to be reasoned with. Hopefully members of these groups could be tried for treason or sent a secret prisons, without trial and be tortured for their afiliations. In other words, allow the people who advocated for torture to experience it. Let us remember please, these groups DO condone torture and it was due to these two groups that Habeus Corpus was abolished. They consider torture and people sent to secret prisons without trial to be noble and virtuous - when obviously they are not. Let us see how quickly such people would feel regret for taking such positions once they experience torture and cut off from their loved ones indefinitely - with no way to be represented in court. How would GOP and holy rollers feel about that? Hmmmm…? Such cleansing if it were to take place would be a very happy day for the USA. If the Communists and the Muslims can go through that; so can GOP members and ultra-right wing Christians.
Most of the above does resonate with lots of folks, but these “Christians” are about as Christians as Roman troops who put Christ on the cross.
See that weasel in the shadow of Mc Carthy? He is the incarnation of every piece of scum that should rightfully have died at birth. He caused himself and everyone who knew him (and many who didn’t) a lifetime of pain, all the while convincing many that he was good, true, cool, charming.
I had hoped he was rotting in hell. Unfortunately he has been reincarnated as George Bush and each member of his cabinet.
“Then that demon went out and found seven more demons more horrible than himself; and the last state of that man was worst than the first.”—Matthew
His name does not matter. What matters to humanity is that he has always been and will always be. Apparently he was never born and can never die.
The word “put” should go between the words “who” and “Christ.”
Civilization is in a race to the bottom.
This country has never seen a more whips and chainificationized tyranny in its history as it goes through today. May we overcome all this disgraceful evil that is abroad in this land worst by far than George III ever was.
I find this an extremely disturbing yet enlightening article.
The guilt through association is a very very insidous idea because it is inherently open ended concept by means of which anybody can be accused of anything and reputations and lives can be ruined. The saga of the Holy Land Foundation where an Islamic charity was investigated and closed down for allegedly financing terrorism is a case in point.
horrified - suppose some of that charity money went to finance a bomb that blew up your neighborhood and killed your family. What would you be horrified at then?
Nietzsche - So now you’re a Nietzschean who quotes the New Testament and paraphrases the Catholic Catechism.
An Ubermench with a Cross. Hmmmm….
If civilization is as you say, a race to the bottom: is this just your theory? Or may we assume you’ve beaten the rest of us there and already speak from experience?
Oh what a wicked web we weave when we first seek to deceive. The Federal Judge in any prosecution case can very easily shut down the uncontrolled over-reaching from the GRF’s simply by saying in open court to the prosecutors;
“Well if the American Red Cross goes around providing medical assistance to Palestinians or Lebanese digging them out of an earthquake or other natural catastrophe, or they do the same in Iran, isn’t that providing material support to terrorists? What if they do that in South American Dictatorships? Shouldn’t we prosecute the American Red Cross for going around aiding terrorists and communists? If you Mr. Prosecutor, donated $10.00 to the American Red Cross; shouldn’t I prosecute you for providing material support to an organization (The American Red Cross) who aids and abetts terrorism?
Providing shelter, food, clothing, and medecine is aiding and abetting isn’t it Mr. Prosecutor?
If I was the Judge the next thing I would say is; “I want everybody out of my Courtroom, right now, before I call a squad of Federal Marshals to come in and haul you off to jail”.
Case closed.
SRD
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html
The climate of fear in the US, caused by the republican party, is comparable to the bad old days of Joe McCarthy. It’s disgusting. It’s old.
As far as I’m concerned republicans can pack and go. They have nothing to offer America. They lack the “progressive gene.” Instead, they are strangely proud of the “recessive gene.”
Their tactics are designed (they think) to win elections. But there is no substance to any of this that would profit America. They literally have nothing to offer but the past. America nedds a future.
This has become a disturbing pattern for the Bush Administration. To jail people for years with secret evidence no one but them is privy too. It almost always falls apart when it reaches the light of day. It’s been the same old story at Gitmo for several years. It is amazing that the people who scream ‘terrorist’ the loudest have indeed become the ‘terrorist’s’ they rail against.
Really now, if you’re going to jail people because they’ve given material or financial support for terrorists; Why isn’t Ted Kennedy in jail for supporting the IRA?
Read about what happened to Riad Hamad Esolh, the head of a charity for Palestinian children, in Austin, TX:
http://www.infowars.com/?p=1651
It will be justice for the assassins to return to Israel, and there make a vibrant home for themselves, paying back the culture that created them so tenderly - by continuing their psychotic ways long after “retirement”.
Karma’s knives are far sharper than Mossad’s
If it is acceptable to condemn by association, then let us ask what is a man with named Stuart Levey doing working for the US government giving “evidence” against Muslim charities?
“the only witness was a government official. The witness was the under-secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, Stuart Levey, who plays a lead role in identifying charities that the Treasury Department claims are supporting terrorist cases”
My questions are; Does Mr. Levey hold dual Israeli nationality like many in the present administration? Does he or his wife support AIPAC? Is he a member of the Likud Party? Has he ever been a member of, or support the Likud Party? Is he a Zionist. Does he sympathise with the Zionist cause? Does he believe in the first testament?…:
“When the Lord your God brings you to the land you are entering to possess, and drives out before you any nation…. and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally…
Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy, do not allow any of them to live.
This is what you are to do with them: Break down their alters, smash their sacred stones….
For you are a people chosen by the Lord over all others on the face of the earth.”
Deuteronomy 7: 1-2, 5-6.
McCarthy charged that “subversives had infiltrated the US Government and were undermining national security…. Well have they?
Haaretz, March 5, 2007. “U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey, is due in Israel today for talks on tightening the economic boycott on Iran. He will meet with senior figures of the Mossad, the Foreign Ministry, including Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the National Security Council, and the Atomic Energy Commission.”
Who does Mr. Levey, really work for? And who’s war is Mr. Levi fighting and with who’s money?
Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud chairman and opposition. On 16 April 08 “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” The Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events “swung American public opinion in our favor.”
Democracy Now “The Palestinian professor and activist has been in prison for five years on charges that he was a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Two years ago, a Florida jury failed to return a single guilty verdict on any of the seventeen charges brought against him. Despite the jury’s findings, Al-Arian remained behind bars.
March 21, 2008: Al-Arian Enters 19th Day of Hunger Strike in Protest of ‘Government Harassment’ http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/21/al_arian_enters_19th_day_of
Jailed Palestinian Professor Sami Al-Arian has entered the nineteenth day of a hunger strike to protest what he calls continued government harassment. He was brought before a third grand jury Thursday, but did not testify. Democracy Now spoke with Al-Arian’s eldest daughter, Laila, and his local counsel in Virginia, Will Olson.”
TimDD; Common, get real! 48 cents of every US tax dollar supports terrorists, allowing Washington and Tel Aviv, to blow up neighbourhoods in Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan, and Somalia, just to name a few.
Lucitanian -
I know. I agree with you. I was only intending to illuminate smaller, closer-to-home impossible-to-resolve contradictions within the obviously bigger ones.
My point was: they’re impossible to resolve BECAUSE of the bigger ones — as you say,