Fear Used Against a US Muslim Charity

CAIR, 10/31/2007

Against heavy odds, the American justice system has prevailed once again.

After 19 days of deliberation, a jury in Dallas did not return even one guilty verdict on almost 200 charges brought against officials of the Holy Land Foundation Muslim charity.

This marked the third time that government prosecutors failed to win a conviction in a high- profile case related to charges of support for terrorism by members of the American Muslim community.

The prosecution laid out a bizarre theory that HLF, by sending money to feed orphans in Palestine, was freeing up funds that were then used to pay for acts of terror.

Missing from this argument was the fact that the 12 charities HLF funded have not been designated as terrorist organizations by either the U.S. or Israeli governments. Moreover, some of the same charities also received money from the U.S. government-funded USAID.

Most Americans did not get to hear how their hard-earned tax dollars are being wasted to counter nonexistent "Muslim conspiracies" to overthrow the American Constitution and impose Shariah laws. (Yes, believe it or not, the prosecution in the HLF case laid out such preposterous theories to support the flimsy case.)

In addition, the prosecution resorted to the apparently unconstitutional tactic of not allowing the defendants to confront their accusers, an unprecedented step in the history of the American judicial system.

Throughout this ordeal, one thing stood out - the American Muslim community's principled stand in favor of justice. The community placed its trust in HLF by making it the No. 1 Muslim charity in America. (MORE)

Parvez Ahmed is board chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.

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