San Antonio Express-News
By: Sarwat Husain
3/28/2009
Throughout history, women all over the world had to struggle for equality in a male-dominated world. During International Women's Month, it's worth considering how Islam's teachings were an early harbinger of gender equity contrary to a common misperception.
Prior to Islam, a female child was often regarded as a threat to the economic welfare of the family and some were even buried alive as soon as they were born. As an adult, she was a sex object that could be bought and sold. From this inferior position, Islam raised women to a position of influence and prestige in the family and in society.
Many of the rights conferred on women by the Prophet Muhammad more than 1,400 years ago have only partially and grudgingly been given to women in other cultures in recent centuries.
With respect to gender equity, the essential human dignity and fundamental equality of women in Islam is at one with the feminist movement of the West, despite images of Muslim women in the media and some agenda-driven circles as ignorant, oppressed and submissive. The perception that Islam subjugates women is far from the facts.
Most Muslim women have a firm conviction in the Islamic concept of family cohesiveness and happiness. Their own individuality ensures their sense of self-fulfillment.
Islam has defined the rights and duties for women as well as men based on sexual, biological and social realities, not from romantic idealism. The Quran, Islam's revealed text, says in 49:13 “O mankind! We made you from a single (pair) of male and female.”
Women are viewed as equal partners with men in life as well as in religion. Islam does not teach that women are inferior. “O Mankind! Reverence your Guardian-Lord, Who created you from a single person, created of like nature his mate, from them scattered countless men and women, Fear God, through whom you demand your mutual rights and reverence the wombs (that bore you), for God ever watches over you.” (Quran, 4:1)
If any abuse occurs in Muslim homes it is due to the same destructive motivations that cause men to abuse their wives in the rest of the world. Clearly such husbands are not following the teachings of their faith.
The Quran considers women as vital to any society's life as men. It refutes the idea that Eve tempted Adam to disobey God and negates the idea that women are a source of evil.
Women have as much right to education as men. The Prophet Muhammad declared the pursuit of knowledge is incumbent on every Muslim, male and female.
Marriage in Islam is based on peace, love and compassion. A husband is responsible for the maintenance, protection and overall leadership of the family in consultation with his wife. No woman can be forced to marry somebody she does not like.
Muslim women have been elected leaders of their countries and serve in all levels of public offices. They are granted equal rights to establish contracts, to engage in business and to earn money and possess property independently.
Islam gave women their own identity. A Muslim woman is a responsible being in her own right and carries the burden of her moral and spiritual obligations. “Never will I waste a worker among you, whether male or female, the one of you being from the other.” (Quran 3:195)
Sarwat Husain is president of the Council on American Islamic Relations-San Antonio, and is a CAIR national board member. She can be reached at shusain@cair.com.
About Me
- Hussam Ayloush
- Hussam has been a lifelong human rights activist who is passionate about promoting democratic societies, in the US and worldwide, in which all people, including immigrants, workers, minorities, and the poor enjoy freedom, justice, economic justice, respect, and equality. Mr. Ayloush frequently lectures on Islam, media relations, civil rights, hate crimes and international affairs. He has consistently appeared in local, national, and international media. Full biography at: http://hussamayloush.blogspot.com/2006/08/biography-of-hussam-ayloush.html
Saturday, March 28, 2009
East Grand A Muslim convert challenges popular image of his faith
Posted by Charles Honey | The Grand Rapids Press March 28, 2009
Muhammad Rasoul, right, relaxes with friend Yusef Ali.EAST GRAND RAPIDS -- Muhammad Rasoul, chief operating officer of Global Forex Trading, has been in back-to-back meetings since 5:30 a.m., starting with a conference call to Japan and London. He hopes to be home in time to put his two younger kids to bed.
But in this typical wire-to-wire day, Rasoul also will make time for something sacred: the five prayers Muslims are expected to make each day.
"Anytime, I can close that door and do whatever I have to do," Rasoul says of his airy office at 4760 E. Fulton St. in Ada Township. "I really benefit from having that five minutes of peace and quiet to myself. It's almost like a meditation."
Prayer is an obligation Rasoul takes seriously, as he does all other aspects of his adopted Islamic faith. Whether it's flying to Singapore on business or teaching his children about God, Islam is his guidebook for doing the right thing.
If you think you know who Muslims are, meet Rasoul and think again.
With his Christian, Allendale upbringing, reddish-blond hair and Amish-style beard, he doesn't fit the popular image of a typical Muslim. But Rasoul strives to follow God's word and the Prophet Muhammad's example in all things -- including his high-powered job as an international currency trader.
A colorful prayer rug hangs near his office door and prayer beads dangle next to a white board. On it, over a diagram of the company's international offices, is written in Arabic, "In the name of God, the most merciful, the most beneficent."
"I put it up here just as a reminder," says Rasoul, 36, intensely talkative and friendly in a guy-next-door way. "It wouldn't be possible for me to work the way I work if I didn't have a firm understanding of why I'm doing it."
Taking a cue from the popular WWJD bracelets, he will ask himself in every major decision, "What would Muhammad do?"
Muhammad Rasoul prays in his office at Global Forex, a fast-growing online currency trading firm."Those values I have for the right way of doing things -- I can't separate that from my job or my home," he says.
That conviction has served him well at Global Forex, a fast-growing online currency trading firm that operates under the brand GFT.
Since he joined as the firm's third employee in 1996, it has grown to 350 employees worldwide, with more than 150 working under him. GFT has three U.S. offices and five others from the United Kingdom to Dubai, with customers in more than 120 countries.
His job as executive vice president and COO is turbo-charged, piling up 500 to 800 e-mails a day and flying more than 120,000 miles a year. He has risen through the ranks quickly since joining GFT founder and president Gary Tilkin as a college intern.
Rasoul's confidence, quick thinking and fair treatment of employees fueled his rise, says Kurt Hoeksema, vice president of trading and risk management.
"He's very, very driven," says Hoeksema, 32, of Byron Center.
Hoeksema was surprised when he met Rasoul 10 years ago and found his boss named Muhammad was a white guy from Allendale.
Shared foundation
They have become friends since then, finding common ground in faith and family despite differing beliefs.
"Faith is the most important thing in my life," says Hoeksema, who attends Mars Hill Bible Church. "I believe the same is true for him."
Rasoul says Islam has helped him do his job well and ethically. He looks to the record of Muhammad's behavior for a role model.
"When my job gets stressful, I try to follow that example of being calm, watching my tone, making sure I'm listening to all the perspectives."
He extends those values to his family and their 1908 home on a broad, tree-lined street in East Grand Rapids. Children Nadia, 8, and Yaseen, 6, go to Wealthy Elementary. Nadia takes dance, and Yaseen plays soccer. His wife, Michele, minds them both while Michael, 18, her son from a previous marriage, takes martial arts and cooks delicious dishes.
A traditional lifestyle
It's a largely typical American family though they don't celebrate Easter. And while the kids enjoy Christmas gatherings with their grandparents, Muhammad and Michele teach them Islamic values and the meaning of the holy month of Ramadan.
Michele's hopes for the children are the same as those of most mothers.
"I want my kids to grow up to be happy and to be accepted for who they are," says Michele, 39 explaining she feels at home with Islam, a faith she adopted three years after marrying Muhammad in 1996.
"I had these ideas about what a Muslim woman was," says Michele, who grew up attending Baptist Sunday School in Comstock Park. "I thought women wore hijabs (head coverings) because guys didn't want their wives to be seen."
In reality, she has found women are "honored" by Islam and that she is not obligated to wear the hijab. She rarely does because she doesn't like drawing stares, or cashiers shouting "DO YOU WANT PLASTIC OR PAPER?" as if she didn't understand English.
But she appreciates the direct relationship to God she feels Islam affords, that she doesn't "have to go talk to some man and have him tell me all the things I had to do to get right with God."
Soulful discoveries
Muhammad also had misconceptions about Islam before he learned its basics from a deli clerk. That was in 1993, when he was still named Russell V. Brown III and worked the night shift at Kinko's.
Raised in the conservative Anglican Catholic Church, he moved from Grand Rapids to Allendale around age 6. As a teen, he loved hip-hop music and dreamed of being a rapper. But he says he got with the wrong crowd, made bad decisions and ended up on probation for carrying a concealed weapon.
Muhammad Rasoul, a devout Muslim, laughs at home with his wife, Michele.Then he went to the deli near Kinko's one night and saw Yusef Ali wearing a turban. Rasoul asked about it, and Ali told him about Islam.
"As soon as I saw him, I was like, 'There's something different about this guy,'" recalls Ali, 37. "He was charismatic, and he was interested in learning. Before we knew it, we were off and running."
Rasoul was ready. He had been wrestling with doubts about the God he had been taught and studying other religious traditions. Ali began feeding him books on Islam. Rasoul devoured them.
Through reading and meeting Muslims, Rasoul found Islam clicked. He saw it as an extension of Christian teaching though it portrayed Jesus as a prophet, not God's son.
"Really, it didn't go contrary to the way I was brought up," he asserts. "In fact, it confirmed what I felt was right about how I was brought up and clarified things I had issues with."
He made his declaration of faith, or shahada, at a gas station where Ali worked. Soon after, he moved into a house with Ali and others that functioned as a prayer and teaching center. Eventually, they established Baitul Shukur, a mosque on Jefferson Avenue SE where Rasoul is treasurer.
He took the name Muhammad Al-amin Rasoul, Arabic for "Muhammad the trustworthy messenger." The name is apt, he says, because, as a Caucasian, he delivers a message by dispelling people's preconceptions about Islam.
"There are plenty of times in a business meeting (when) one guy says, 'I have never met someone named Muhammad who looks like you.' It gives me an opportunity to explain and expand their understanding of what Islam is."
New goals
Rasoul says Islam changed his life for the better, and fast.
"Before, it was all about me, about what I wanted. (Now), my motivation is totally different -- doing right by God, right by my family and right by me. When things are in that order, it's hard to screw up."
Still, he's keenly aware of his shortcomings but is confident God understands.
"At the end of the day, we've just got to do the best we can," he says, "and God will be all right with that."
E-mail Charles Honey: choney@grpress.com
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Rift develops between Muslims, FBI over mosque surveillance
Thursday, March 26, 2009
By SEAN EMERY
The Orange
The announcement by the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections comes on the heels of Irvine resident Craig Monteilh's admission that he spent more than a year pretending to embrace Islam in various
Monteilh claims that the conversations he recorded helped lead to the arrest last month of Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, a
Monteilh's admission, as well as Niazi's arrest, have shocked and frightened the local Muslim community, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Council on Islamic American Relations (CAIR), a member of the American Muslim Taskforce.
Ayloush said Monteih, who had previously served a prison term for conning two women out of more than $150,000, violated the sanctity of the Islamic religion.
"The government was paying a convicted felon who would probably not be trusted to be a cashier at a supermarket,'' Ayloush said. "Yet the FBI found it acceptable to entrust this convicted felon with national security issues.
"We're not talking about a sending an informant to track a specific suspect,'' he said. "Based on the admission of the informant himself… he was just fishing around for potential victims. These are not the acts of an agency interested in an honest dialogue or partnership."
The FBI has not addressed the specific allegations brought by the Islamic groups, but has urged continued cooperation.
"Limiting honest dialogue, especially when complex issues are on the table, is generally not an effective advocacy strategy," FBI spokesman John Miller said in a written release. "The FBI has continued our outreach efforts, across the board, with a number of concerned groups and where we agree -- or disagree -- most have concluded the best results are achieved through continued conversation. We believe that too."
Ayloush described the threat to cease working with the FBI as a "cry for help." The Islamic organizations feel betrayed by a "nationwide pattern of abuse and violations of civil rights, as well as religious rights," Ayloush said, particularly during the Bush administration.
"If the FBI is incapable of reforming its mindset as it deals with American Muslims, we need to help the FBI change," Ayloush said. "We have a president and an attorney general who represent an administration that has made commitments to protecting the civil and religious rights of all Americans, and undo much of the policies and culture of polarization and demonization against Muslims."
CAIR has had its own rocky relationship with the FBI, which recently announced that it has ended formal partnerships with the group. CAIR had previously assisted the FBI with outreach efforts to Muslim groups in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and also helped with cultural sensitivity training for government agents.
But CAIR came under fire in 2007, when it was among 300 Muslim groups and individuals named as unindicted co-conspirators in a terrorist funding case against the Holy Land Foundation, which ended in a mistrial.
Several individuals with ties to CAIR have also been convicted or deported for their connections to terrorist groups. CAIR officials strenuously deny any terrorist links, however, and accuse political opponents of tarring them with guilt by association.
"CAIR still has the same access to the FBI as any other person or group to report hate crimes, civil rights violations or any other threat or violation of federal law,'' Miller said in the written statement. "What we have sought to limit are any formally constructed partnerships between CAIR and the FBI.
"Our concerns relate to a number of distinct narrow issues specific to CAIR and its national leadership,'' he said. "We have made CAIR's national leadership aware of these issues."
FBI Spying on Mosques Draws Senate Attention (OC Weekly)
FBI Spying on Mosques Draws Senate Attention; Rights Workshop Helps Local Muslims Deal With the Feds Thursday, Mar. 26 2009 @ 2:08PM
By Matt Coker in A Clockwork Orange, OC Religion
A Senate Judiciary Committee questioned FBI Director Robert Mueller Wednesday about a Muslim coalition's consideration of breaking ties with the bureau following the highly publicized federal government spying on an Irvine mosque.
Meanwhile, a workshop has been organized for this Sunday to help local American Muslims deal with this frightening new twist in the "Global War on Terror." Details on that in a bit.
First, as mentioned here last week, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), a coalition of major national Islamic organizations, announced they were considering suspending outreach relations with the FBI over recent incidents in which American mosques and Muslim groups have been targeted. "In California, the FBI sent a convicted criminal to pose as an agent provocateur in several of that state's mosques," read the statement. "An FBI agent allegedly told one of the mosque attendees that the agency would make his life a 'living hell' if he did not become an informant."
The mosque attendee is 34-year-old Afghan native Ahmad Niazi, who was arrested at his Tustin home on Feb. 20 on five fraud and perjury counts. Irvine fitness instructor Craig Monteilh has identified himself as the informant. The FBI has remained mum. The Orange County Register and Christian Science Monitor have editorialized against the spying.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) told Mueller he was "disappointed" to learn of the AMT statement in light of recent discussions urging "the FBI to gain the trust of the American Muslim community to assist in the effort to stop terrorism."
Reading from a news report where AMT claims the FBI has pressured Muslims to become informants, labeled civil rights advocates as criminals and spread misinformation, Feingold had a question for Mueller: "Can you determine and report to this committee whether mosques have been entered by FBI agents or informants without disclosing their identities under the authority of the attorney general guidelines and, if so, how many?"
(New Justice Department guidelines that took effect in December have lowered the threshold for beginning FBI investigations, allowing race and ethnicity to be factors in opening a probe. The ACLU has a fact sheet on the guidelines here.)
Replied Mueller: "I will say that we do not focus on institutions, we focus on individuals. And I will say generally if there is evidence or information as to individual or individuals undertaking illegal activities in religious institutions, with appropriate high-level approval, we would undertake investigative activities, regardless of the religion. But it would -- we would single that out as an exceptionally sensitive circumstance that would require much vetting before that occurred..."
Feingold then asked if the new attorney general guidelines are helping or hurting the FBI's relationship with the U.S. Muslim community, and what the bureau plans to do in light of the AMT statement to improve relations. Mueller responded that his "expectation is that our relationships are as good now as before the guidelines" and he added that the Muslim community "has been tremendously supportive and worked very closely with [the FBI] in a number of instances around the country."
The souring relationship between the federal government and American Muslims prompted various groups to sponsor Sunday's workshop aimed at reminding local followers of Islam "of their civil and civic responsibilities." The "Know Your Rights" workshop -- sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations Greater Los Angeles Area Chapter (CAIR-LA), the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, Muslim Public Affairs Council and Muslim American Society West -- begins at 5:15 p.m. at the Islamic Institute of Orange County, 1220 N. State College Blvd., Anaheim.
Speakers include Jim Lafferty, director of the National Lawyers Guild--Los Angeles; Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR-LA; Shakeel Syed, director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California; and Imam Abdul Karim Hasan.
By Matt Coker in A Clockwork Orange, OC Religion
A Senate Judiciary Committee questioned FBI Director Robert Mueller Wednesday about a Muslim coalition's consideration of breaking ties with the bureau following the highly publicized federal government spying on an Irvine mosque.
Meanwhile, a workshop has been organized for this Sunday to help local American Muslims deal with this frightening new twist in the "Global War on Terror." Details on that in a bit.
First, as mentioned here last week, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), a coalition of major national Islamic organizations, announced they were considering suspending outreach relations with the FBI over recent incidents in which American mosques and Muslim groups have been targeted. "In California, the FBI sent a convicted criminal to pose as an agent provocateur in several of that state's mosques," read the statement. "An FBI agent allegedly told one of the mosque attendees that the agency would make his life a 'living hell' if he did not become an informant."
The mosque attendee is 34-year-old Afghan native Ahmad Niazi, who was arrested at his Tustin home on Feb. 20 on five fraud and perjury counts. Irvine fitness instructor Craig Monteilh has identified himself as the informant. The FBI has remained mum. The Orange County Register and Christian Science Monitor have editorialized against the spying.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) told Mueller he was "disappointed" to learn of the AMT statement in light of recent discussions urging "the FBI to gain the trust of the American Muslim community to assist in the effort to stop terrorism."
Reading from a news report where AMT claims the FBI has pressured Muslims to become informants, labeled civil rights advocates as criminals and spread misinformation, Feingold had a question for Mueller: "Can you determine and report to this committee whether mosques have been entered by FBI agents or informants without disclosing their identities under the authority of the attorney general guidelines and, if so, how many?"
(New Justice Department guidelines that took effect in December have lowered the threshold for beginning FBI investigations, allowing race and ethnicity to be factors in opening a probe. The ACLU has a fact sheet on the guidelines here.)
Replied Mueller: "I will say that we do not focus on institutions, we focus on individuals. And I will say generally if there is evidence or information as to individual or individuals undertaking illegal activities in religious institutions, with appropriate high-level approval, we would undertake investigative activities, regardless of the religion. But it would -- we would single that out as an exceptionally sensitive circumstance that would require much vetting before that occurred..."
Feingold then asked if the new attorney general guidelines are helping or hurting the FBI's relationship with the U.S. Muslim community, and what the bureau plans to do in light of the AMT statement to improve relations. Mueller responded that his "expectation is that our relationships are as good now as before the guidelines" and he added that the Muslim community "has been tremendously supportive and worked very closely with [the FBI] in a number of instances around the country."
The souring relationship between the federal government and American Muslims prompted various groups to sponsor Sunday's workshop aimed at reminding local followers of Islam "of their civil and civic responsibilities." The "Know Your Rights" workshop -- sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations Greater Los Angeles Area Chapter (CAIR-LA), the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, Muslim Public Affairs Council and Muslim American Society West -- begins at 5:15 p.m. at the Islamic Institute of Orange County, 1220 N. State College Blvd., Anaheim.
Speakers include Jim Lafferty, director of the National Lawyers Guild--Los Angeles; Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR-LA; Shakeel Syed, director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California; and Imam Abdul Karim Hasan.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
FBI and American Muslims at odds
An informant at a California mosque has hampered efforts to find home-grown terrorists.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 25, 2009 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0325/p02s01-ussc.html
Law enforcement efforts to root out home-grown terrorists are jeopardized by deteriorating relations between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Muslim and Arab-American communities.
The situation began last fall when the FBI quietly withdrew formal relations with all local chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), one of the largest Muslim American civil rights organizations. The FBI cited "a number of distinct narrow issues" that it has refused to make public.
The situation worsened in February, when it became public that the FBI had planted an informant at a California mosque who, a coalition of more than a dozen Muslim American groups charges, actively tried to recruit terrorists.
Last week, the coalition accused the FBI of engaging in "McCarthy-era tactics" and announced it was considering suspending all ties with the FBI unless it made public its concerns with CAIR and "reassessed its use of agent provocateurs in Muslim communities."
The FBI would not comment, except to issue a statement saying: "Limiting honest dialogue, especially when complex issues are on the table, is generally not an effective advocacy strategy."
That has not satisfied many in the Muslim and Arab-American communities, including some who have not joined the coalition threatening to terminate FBI ties.
"We believe that we have to keep our place at the table in this discourse. We believe it's too important for our community's interest and America's interest to leave the table," says Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. "But the damage was done [when the FBI planted the agent].... The way the FBI handled the case stigmatized the whole mosque community, and the disengagement from CAIR field offices was a mistake because people don't understand it – there's no explanation."
In the aftermath of 9/11, the FBI made an aggressive effort to reach out to Muslim and Arab-American organizations throughout the country. In general, the effort was viewed as a success by all parties.
Relations had been good
On its website, CAIR lists dozens of laudatory quotes from FBI officials they cooperated with since the attacks. FBI officials regularly attended their banquets, mosques and community outreach efforts.
CAIR officials said the FBI's decision to sever formal ties with its 30 field offices in 19 states came as a shock.
"Historically, we've had very good relations with the FBI at the local, state, and federal levels," says CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper.
The FBI declined to say what "distinct narrow issues" had prompted it to suddenly sever ties with CAIR. But in a statement, FBI spokesman John Miller said, "We have made CAIR's national leadership aware of these issues."
CAIR's Mr. Hooper says that is not the case.
"They have not communicated specific issues to us, and when we ask, they say, 'Well, let's have some future conversation about it'," says Hooper. "And we say, 'No, we'd like to know now.'"
CAIR believes the decision goes back to May 2007, when it was named along with 300 other Muslim American groups and individuals as an "unindicted coconspirator" in the controversial terrorist funding trial of the Holy Land Foundation, which was once the largest Muslim charity in the United States.
After a mistrial in 2007, the charity and some of its officials were found guilty in 2008 for ties to Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization.
In a letter to the FBI, CAIR argues that the "unindicted coconspirator" designation should never have been made or made public.
"Making this unjust designation public violates the Justice Department's own guidelines and wrongly implies that those listed are somehow involved in criminal activity," the CAIR letter states.
A source within the FBI confirmed that the alleged ties to the Holy Land Foundation were the basis for the FBI's actions. He also said, that as a result of the final conviction in the Holy Land case, "there was a public policy problem with us going forward" in formal relations with CAIR.
Muslim and Arab American groups are also upset with the FBI's decision to allegedly place an ex-convict as an informant in the Muslim American Community in Orange County, California.
The informant posed as a new convert to Islam and reportedly espoused terrorist ideology to several members of the Islamic Center of Irvine. That prompted two members of the mosque, including a man named Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, to report the informant's inflammatory statements to the FBI and ask for a restraining order against him.
FBI officials then began investigating Mr. Niazi and asked him to become an informant, according to the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, which has formally filed a complaint with the FBI. When Niazi refused, an agent told him he'd make his life "a living hell." Niazi has since been arrested and charged with making false statements to gain his citizenship and failing to disclose that his sister is married to an Al Qaeda operative, according to court documents.
At his bail hearing, an FBI Agent also said Niazi had allegedly been recorded discussing terrorist ideology, jihad and plans to blow up abandoned buildings. Niazi pleaded innocent."
An 'agent provocateur?'
Members of the Muslim American community say they're incensed by the FBI's use of what they call an "agent provocateur" within its community.
"It's pretty devastating, it came as a shock," says Kareem Shora – executive director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
"What this has done is undermine what was a 10-year relationship of trust, or what we thought was trust," says Mr. Shora.
The FBI insists it is not targeting mosques or the community, but individuals.
"We do not target places, we don't investigate mosques. We identify individuals who merit investigation under a set of laws and guidelines," says the FBI's Mr. Miller.
"In the course of those investigations sometimes those people will take us to the places they go," Miller said.
But the FBI informant, a man named Craig Monteilh, told reporters last week that he was sent to several mosques and that he had alerted the FBI about Niazi's alleged terrorist sympathies.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 25, 2009 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0325/p02s01-ussc.html
Law enforcement efforts to root out home-grown terrorists are jeopardized by deteriorating relations between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Muslim and Arab-American communities.
The situation began last fall when the FBI quietly withdrew formal relations with all local chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), one of the largest Muslim American civil rights organizations. The FBI cited "a number of distinct narrow issues" that it has refused to make public.
The situation worsened in February, when it became public that the FBI had planted an informant at a California mosque who, a coalition of more than a dozen Muslim American groups charges, actively tried to recruit terrorists.
Last week, the coalition accused the FBI of engaging in "McCarthy-era tactics" and announced it was considering suspending all ties with the FBI unless it made public its concerns with CAIR and "reassessed its use of agent provocateurs in Muslim communities."
The FBI would not comment, except to issue a statement saying: "Limiting honest dialogue, especially when complex issues are on the table, is generally not an effective advocacy strategy."
That has not satisfied many in the Muslim and Arab-American communities, including some who have not joined the coalition threatening to terminate FBI ties.
"We believe that we have to keep our place at the table in this discourse. We believe it's too important for our community's interest and America's interest to leave the table," says Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. "But the damage was done [when the FBI planted the agent].... The way the FBI handled the case stigmatized the whole mosque community, and the disengagement from CAIR field offices was a mistake because people don't understand it – there's no explanation."
In the aftermath of 9/11, the FBI made an aggressive effort to reach out to Muslim and Arab-American organizations throughout the country. In general, the effort was viewed as a success by all parties.
Relations had been good
On its website, CAIR lists dozens of laudatory quotes from FBI officials they cooperated with since the attacks. FBI officials regularly attended their banquets, mosques and community outreach efforts.
CAIR officials said the FBI's decision to sever formal ties with its 30 field offices in 19 states came as a shock.
"Historically, we've had very good relations with the FBI at the local, state, and federal levels," says CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper.
The FBI declined to say what "distinct narrow issues" had prompted it to suddenly sever ties with CAIR. But in a statement, FBI spokesman John Miller said, "We have made CAIR's national leadership aware of these issues."
CAIR's Mr. Hooper says that is not the case.
"They have not communicated specific issues to us, and when we ask, they say, 'Well, let's have some future conversation about it'," says Hooper. "And we say, 'No, we'd like to know now.'"
CAIR believes the decision goes back to May 2007, when it was named along with 300 other Muslim American groups and individuals as an "unindicted coconspirator" in the controversial terrorist funding trial of the Holy Land Foundation, which was once the largest Muslim charity in the United States.
After a mistrial in 2007, the charity and some of its officials were found guilty in 2008 for ties to Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization.
In a letter to the FBI, CAIR argues that the "unindicted coconspirator" designation should never have been made or made public.
"Making this unjust designation public violates the Justice Department's own guidelines and wrongly implies that those listed are somehow involved in criminal activity," the CAIR letter states.
A source within the FBI confirmed that the alleged ties to the Holy Land Foundation were the basis for the FBI's actions. He also said, that as a result of the final conviction in the Holy Land case, "there was a public policy problem with us going forward" in formal relations with CAIR.
Muslim and Arab American groups are also upset with the FBI's decision to allegedly place an ex-convict as an informant in the Muslim American Community in Orange County, California.
The informant posed as a new convert to Islam and reportedly espoused terrorist ideology to several members of the Islamic Center of Irvine. That prompted two members of the mosque, including a man named Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, to report the informant's inflammatory statements to the FBI and ask for a restraining order against him.
FBI officials then began investigating Mr. Niazi and asked him to become an informant, according to the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, which has formally filed a complaint with the FBI. When Niazi refused, an agent told him he'd make his life "a living hell." Niazi has since been arrested and charged with making false statements to gain his citizenship and failing to disclose that his sister is married to an Al Qaeda operative, according to court documents.
At his bail hearing, an FBI Agent also said Niazi had allegedly been recorded discussing terrorist ideology, jihad and plans to blow up abandoned buildings. Niazi pleaded innocent."
An 'agent provocateur?'
Members of the Muslim American community say they're incensed by the FBI's use of what they call an "agent provocateur" within its community.
"It's pretty devastating, it came as a shock," says Kareem Shora – executive director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
"What this has done is undermine what was a 10-year relationship of trust, or what we thought was trust," says Mr. Shora.
The FBI insists it is not targeting mosques or the community, but individuals.
"We do not target places, we don't investigate mosques. We identify individuals who merit investigation under a set of laws and guidelines," says the FBI's Mr. Miller.
"In the course of those investigations sometimes those people will take us to the places they go," Miller said.
But the FBI informant, a man named Craig Monteilh, told reporters last week that he was sent to several mosques and that he had alerted the FBI about Niazi's alleged terrorist sympathies.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Did the FBI order the torture of a U.S. Citizen abroad?
American Muslim's Case Poses a Test
U.S. Role Alleged in Detention in UAE
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 23, 2009;
One day last July, Naji Hamdan was summoned to the U.S. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates. He drove two hours through the desert heat from Dubai to answer questions from FBI agents who had arrived from Los Angeles, where Hamdan had gone to school, started a family, built a successful auto-parts business and become a U.S. citizen.
At his apartment six weeks later, he was awakened from a nap by men who bundled him into a black Chevrolet Suburban with tinted windows. Hamdan was told he was a prisoner of the UAE and was held in a cell painted glossy white to reflect the lights that burned round the clock, according to a note he wrote from prison. Between interrogations, he wrote, he was confined in a frigid room overnight, strapped into "an electric chair" and punched in the head until he lost consciousness.
In one session, the blindfolded prisoner recalled hearing a voice that sounded American. The voice said, "Do what they want or these people will [expletive] you up," Hamdan wrote.
The prisoner obliged, signing a confession that he later said meant only that he would do anything to make the pain stop. The case might have ended there but for Hamdan's U.S. citizenship and his American attorney's assertion that he was tortured "at the behest" of his own government.
"This is torture by proxy," said Ahilan Arulanantham, an American Civil Liberties Union staff lawyer representing Hamdan through his brother and wife. Noting that the UAE had shown no interest in Hamdan before arresting him, Arulanantham filed a habeas corpus petition in November in U.S. District Court in Washington. The petition alleges that the federal government used its influence to have Hamdan arrested and insists that it should use that influence to free him.
The evidence of U.S. involvement is circumstantial and sometimes ambiguous. Arulanantham said the UAE prosecutor in the case traveled to the United States in February. He said that a week after the habeas petition made public Hamdan's detention, custody was transferred to the UAE criminal justice system, where he faces nonspecific charges of "promoting terrorism." Justice Department lawyers say the transfer lines up with the expiration of a 90-day UAE limit on secret detention.
The FBI issued a statement saying it does not ask other governments to arrest people on its behalf, but in court papers it stops short of denying the involvement of any U.S. agency in Hamdan's detention.
"In terrorism matters, we routinely work with foreign counterparts," Richard Kolko, a bureau spokesman, said in a statement.
The United Arab Emirates' embassy in Washington declined to comment "since this is a police-security matter, which involves a U.S. citizen," a spokeswoman said in an e-mail.
In the long list of individuals accused, renditioned, arrested or otherwise detained since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Hamdan case stands out. Three Americans are known to have been arrested by foreign governments at the apparent direction of U.S. authorities, each amid circumstances more suspicious than those surrounding Hamdan.
In 2007, Kenyan authorities detained Amir Meshal of Tinton, N.J., and Daniel Joseph Maldonado of Houston after they were captured among Islamist fighters fleeing a U.S.-backed offensive in Somalia. And Saudi Arabian security officers provided the bulk of the evidence against Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a Falls Church man convicted in 2005 of plotting with al-Qaeda.
Though the events detailed by Hamdan's attorney occurred before President Obama was sworn in, human rights groups and others said they will monitor his response. Obama has declared that "the United States will not torture," and CIA Director Leon Panetta said in his confirmation hearings that the United States will not turn over suspects to governments that will abuse them.
Deborah Manning, an attorney for Alkarama, a human rights organization focused on the Middle East, said the case "bridges the practices of the past, and we hope we're in a new era, but this is a litmus test."
The torture accusations are from Hamdan's accounts to relatives and a handwritten eight-page note carried out of Abu Dhabi's Al Wathba prison by a U.S. diplomat required to check on the suspect's welfare.
After being beaten on the soles of his feet and kicked in the liver, Hamdan said, "I admitted to whatever they asked."
"Sometimes when he talks to me, he's crying," said Mona Mallouk, his wife, by phone from Beirut, where she went after the arrest with their two children, born in Los Angeles.
"When they beat him hard . . . his voice changed. I said 'Naji? Are you okay?' He said, 'No, I'm not okay. They hit me, badly. I don't know why, Mona.' "
Hamdan's family and associates said they are perplexed by the FBI's interest. The businessman was known to be religious, but in the mainstream vein of fellow Muslim students who set aside a dorm room as a mosque at Northrop-Rice University, where Hamdan studied aviation engineering in the 1980s.
After the worship space moved to downtown Hawthorne, Hamdan often presided during the holy month of Ramadan.
The FBI knocked on Hamdan's door in December 1999, when several other local Muslims were approached after the discovery of the "millennium plot" targeting Los Angeles International Airport. After Sept. 11, 2001, official attention became more routine, often in airport security lines.
"We get used to it," said Hossam Hemdan, Hamdan's brother, who runs a smog-inspection shop. "They always, always, always ask the same questions: How long you been living here? What's your business? What's the phone number?"
Hemdan said that as many as three Crown Victorias began following his brother in 2006. Jehad Suleman, a friend and business associate of Hamdan's in Los Angeles, said it was around that time when his own airport interrogators began asking him about Hamdan.
No one claims to know why. The ACLU encouraged Muslim residents to request their FBI files, and Hamdan was surprised to find that the agency had started his file in the mid-1990s, his relatives said.
The attention on Hamdan came from several directions. FBI agents visited his business, jotting down serial numbers on an acre of car parts. The IRS audited him twice.
Hamdan, 42, chafed at the surveillance, so conspicuous that the imam at the Hawthorne mosque asked him to keep his distance. But confidants said his decision to return to the Middle East was equally grounded in unease with Hawthorne's schools, where gangs and drugs remain problems.
In August 2006, Hamdan moved the family to Dubai. At the Los Angeles airport, he was questioned for so long that he missed his flight. When he returned in 2007 for a visit, the FBI surveillance was continuous, associates said.
Things were not going smoothly abroad, either. In early 2008, while waiting for a flight in Beirut, Hamdan was arrested and interrogated for four days by Lebanese authorities. Hamden said a lawyer the family later hired to examine the court file said his detention was at the request of "outside influences."
Last July, FBI agents passed a request to Hamdan to report to the embassy in Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, then flew there to question him. "What did they want?" his brother recalled asking Hamdan, who he said replied: " 'Whatever they ask at the airport, same thing. You can't imagine how much they know about us. If you ever forget something in your life, a certain spot, call them. They'll tell you.' "
Six weeks later, the security police took him away, then returned to carry away all things electronic.
In Los Angeles, Hamdan's banker, Dan Suie, of the Asian Pacific Revolving Loan Fund, said an FBI agent delivered a subpoena in early January. The bureau wanted paperwork on loans for Hamdan's business, records the banker said contained nothing suspicious.
"I deal with people who, you know, shake their hands and count your fingers," Suie said. "But [Hamdan] was a very decent person, a very nice guy."
The mosque has mounted a campaign demanding Hamdan's return to the United States to face whatever charges he is suspected of.
For more information, visit:
http://www.masfreedom.org/cases/naji_hamdan.html
Monday, March 23, 2009
Ex-Bush official: Only two dozen of 800 at Gitmo are guilty
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A former Bush administration official says many Guantanamo detainees are innocent, and have been held only because U.S. officials hoped they would know something important.
Lawrence B. Wilkerson was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. He says only two dozen or so of the roughly 800 men held at Guantanamo are terrorists. About 240 prisoners remain at the US military prison.
"There are still innocent people there," Wilkerson told The Associated Press on Thursday. "Some have been there six or seven years."
Wilkerson says he learned of their innocence through State Department briefings and military commanders. He first made the allegations in an Internet posting this week.
The Pentagon has said the detainees are dangerous enemy combatants.
FBI creates climate of fear (O.C. Register Editorial)
Supporters of the Patriot Act and other expansive efforts to fight the “war on terror” often mock claims by civil libertarians that aggressive federal spying powers within the United States undermines civil liberties. We've often heard conservatives ask critics to name anyone who has lost any freedoms because of the government's post-9/11 powers.
Yet such dismissive attitudes toward government snooping are easily rebutted by recent events in Orange County. A convicted con artist named Craig Monteilh admitted last month that he infiltrated local mosques on behalf of the FBI and recorded conversations about the possibility of blowing up buildings. Although the FBI won't confirm Mr. Monteilh's identity, the agency acknowledges that one suspect had been secretly recorded by an informant, according to a Register report.
Local Muslims say that Mr. Monteilh, who went by Farouk al-Aziz, tried to bait them into discussing radical politics. Hussam Ayloush, head of the greater Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Anaheim, told us that Mr. Monteilh went from one young Muslim to another and engaged in radical discourse that promoted terrorism. Some people, he said, stopped going to mosque to avoid these discussions. Some mosque-goers contacted the FBI to report the incident but were referred to the Irvine Police Department, he said. Mr. Ayloush said those men who called the authorities then became the subject of FBI interrogations.
We've heard reports that Muslims are afraid to talk about politics or civil liberties issues within their mosques or even among their friends because of fear that it will draw attention from undercover agents. We agree with Mr. Ayloush, that “there should not be a presumption of guilt among an entire community.” This could backfire, he explained, as the FBI should supposedly work with American Muslims in the event of a terrorist threat, not treat them as adversaries by creating fear of surveillance within mosques.
Everyone understands the need for legitimate undercover activities in response to credible evidence. But we cannot fathom the justification for fishing expeditions and entrapment. Nationwide, some of the supposed terrorist “plots” the FBI has claimed to have foiled have simply been cases of entrapment involving Muslims without the intent or wherewithal or to pull off any attacks.
Infiltrating mosques without evidence of crime is an affront to the First Amendment. We know the retort from the law-and-order crowd: If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear. That is the motto of a police state. Law-abiding, honest, terrorism-hating Americans have every legitimate reason to watch their words in front of a federal agent. No one wants to face trouble with powerful government agencies. So the natural tendency is to stay quiet or avoid places the government might be monitoring. That's what people always have done in totalitarian and authoritarian nations.
The FBI's activities have led a consortium of Muslim groups to “consider suspending ongoing outreach efforts with the FBI.” We can hardly blame them. Perhaps the Obama administration will rethink this counterproductive and un-American strategy.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The Gitmo Guard Who Found Islam
(Photo source: Matt Slaby-Luceo for Newsweek)The Guard Who Found Islam
Terry Holdbrooks stood watch over prisoners at Gitmo. What he saw made him adopt their faith.
From the magazine issue dated Mar 30, 2009
Army specialist Terry Holdbrooks had been a guard at Guantánamo for about six months the night he had his life-altering conversation with detainee 590, a Moroccan also known as "the General." This was early 2004, about halfway through Holdbrooks's stint at Guantánamo with the 463rd Military Police Company. Until then, he'd spent most of his day shifts just doing his duty. He'd escort prisoners to interrogations or walk up and down the cellblock making sure they weren't passing notes. But the midnight shifts were slow. "The only thing you really had to do was mop the center floor," he says. So Holdbrooks began spending part of the night sitting cross-legged on the ground, talking to detainees through the metal mesh of their cell doors.
He developed a strong relationship with the General, whose real name is Ahmed Errachidi. Their late-night conversations led Holdbrooks to be more skeptical about the prison, he says, and made him think harder about his own life. Soon, Holdbrooks was ordering books on Arabic and Islam. During an evening talk with Errachidi in early 2004, the conversation turned to the shahada, the one-line statement of faith that marks the single requirement for converting to Islam ("There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet"). Holdbrooks pushed a pen and an index card through the mesh, and asked Errachidi to write out the shahada in English and transliterated Arabic. He then uttered the words aloud and, there on the floor of Guantánamo's Camp Delta, became a Muslim...
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