From: Travis
Date: Tue, Jun 16, 2009
Subject: ACLU Report Complains Antiterror Fight Undercuts Liberty of
Muslims to Support Terrorists
(More crap from the most anti-American organization in the country.)
June 16, 2009
A.C.L.U. Report Says Antiterror Fight Undercuts Liberty of Muslim Donors
By STEPHANIE STROM
New York Times
The fight against terrorism has dealt a harsh blow to Muslim charities
and interfered with their donors’ religious freedom, a new report by
the American Civil Liberties Union concludes.
The report says statutes that it describes as overly broad and
enforced in a discriminatory manner, coupled with a lack of due
process, have starved Islamic charities of money and impeded Muslims’
ability to fulfill zakat, their religious requirement to make
charitable donations.
The report is based on interviews with more than 100 Muslim community
leaders as well as experts on antiterrorism laws and regulations.
Though it gives no estimate of the decline in donations to Muslim
groups, it says a total of nine Islamic charities have closed as a
result of government action against them since the Sept. 11 attacks.
That action ranges, it says, from declaring a group to be under
investigation to designating it a terrorist organization and freezing
its assets.
“While there is a legitimate concern about the use of charitable funds
to finance terrorism, it does not outweigh the rights of American
Muslims to fulfill their religious obligations or override
constitutional requirements for due process,” said the author,
Jennifer Turner, the A.C.L.U.’s human rights researcher.
President Obama mentioned the issue in his speech in Cairo this month.
“In the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder
for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation,” Mr. Obama said.
“That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure
that they can fulfill zakat.”
Natalie Wyeth, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, which is
charged with oversight of charitable activity, said the department was
working to address some of the concerns.
The report notes that independent bodies like the Sept. 11 commission
have found that evidence used to seize assets is often secret, making
it impossible to challenge, and has in some cases included hearsay or
been based on news reports.
Advocates for Muslim donors and organizations say the rules governing
charitable giving are opaque or poorly defined. Donors could, for
instance, find themselves in trouble for past gifts to an organization
newly designated a terrorist group.
“It’s absolute madness how this policy has been put together and
practiced,” said Maja Freij, chief financial officer at Access, a
large Arab-American social services group based in Dearborn, Mich. “It
makes you guilty by association, offers no due process and lacks
checks and balances.”
Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, said, “American
Muslims with U.S. passports are returning from abroad and being asked
about their charitable donations by customs and immigration agents.”
Paradoxically, two of the largest mainstream Arab-American charities —
Access and Islamic Relief USA — say they have benefited from
aggressive enforcement of antiterrorism laws.
Islamic Relief USA, an aid organization with affiliates around the
globe, has seen annual donations rise to about $25 million last year
from roughly $7 million at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, with an
additional $50 million in in-kind gifts, said the group’s spokesman,
Mostafa Mahboob.
At least part of that increase can be attributed to the decline of
other Muslim charities, Mr. Mahboob said, though his group has also
been working to emphasize its work in places with relatively little
Islamic presence, like New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina.
Ms. Freij, of Access, said support for her organization by companies
like Ford, and the fact that more than half its financing was
government-provided, had helped it retain and even add to its Muslim
donors. “While they are scared to make a charitable donation to a
mosque,” she said, “we are a safe haven for them to write that check.”
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