U.S. terrorism finance laws and policies unfairly prevent Muslims in Southern California and around the nation from practicing their religion through charitable giving, and undermine America’s diplomatic efforts in Muslim countries, according to an American Civil Liberties Union report released late Monday. The 164-page report, “Blocking Faith, Freezing Charity,” is the first comprehensive report that documents the serious effects of Bush administration terrorism finance laws on Muslim communities.
“Without notice and through the use of secret evidence and opaque procedures, the Treasury Department has effectively closed down seven U.S.-based Muslim charities, including several of the nations’ largest Muslim charities,” said Jennifer Turner, a researcher with the ACLU Human Rights Program and author of the report. “While terrorism financing laws are meant to make us safer, policies that give the appearance of a war on Islam only serve to undermine America’s diplomatic efforts just as President Obama reaches out to the Muslim world. These counter-productive practices alienate American Muslims who are key allies and chill legitimate humanitarian aid in parts of the world where charities’ good works could be most effective in winning hearts and minds.”
According to the report, for which the ACLU conducted 120 interviews with Muslim community leaders and donors in several states, including California, federal law enforcement agents are engaging in practices that intimidate Muslim American donors, such as widespread interviews about their donations and surveillance of donations at mosques. Those interviewed say the government’s actions have a chilling effect on Muslim charitable giving, or Zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam and a religious obligation for all observant Muslims.
In one case, a Buena Park man was held for two years in immigration custody and threatened with deportation for his role as an independent contractor to a charitable organization that provided humanitarian relief in the Middle East and around the world. The government shut down the organization, the Holy Land Foundation, in 2001 even though it admits the money went to legitimate charitable causes.
“It’s ironic and extremely sad that laws designed to prevent another 9/11 have instead served to curtail the provision of humanitarian relief to people around the world who need it most, while undermining religious freedom here in the United States – one of the freedoms that makes our nation worth protecting,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrants’ rights and national security at ACLU/SC. “We hope that the comprehensive information set forth in this report will spark reform of these misguided laws.”
There has been extensive FBI surveillance of charitable organizations and fundraising activities for humanitarian relief in Southern California, according to the agency’s own records obtained by the ACLU of Southern California under the Freedom of Information Act. Under a constant microscope, many Muslims Americans in Southern California are no longer freely giving. They are finding themselves having to choose between their fear of vague and overbroad laws about charitable giving and discriminatory enforcement of those laws, and their religious obligations to give to charities.
“There is a pervasive fear in our community that has to be undone. People are afraid to give to worthy causes because of flawed laws that have criminalized legitimate humanitarian aid,” said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella organization representing over 70 mosques and Muslim organizations. “If a Muslim American is going to have second thought before he or she fulfills their religious obligation, then we are no longer living in a country governed by the U.S. Constitution.”
In his speech from Cairo on June 4, President Obama raised the issue of terrorism finance laws that have an adverse effect on Muslim giving. The ACLU report makes comprehensive recommendations to the Obama administration and Congress that are necessary to ensure terrorism financing policies are consistent with American values of due process and religious freedom.

Special Rapporteur Presents Findings Before U.N. Human Rights Council

NEW YORK – The United Nations special rapporteur on racism offered recommendations for the United States to address ongoing issues of discrimination in a presentation before the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) today. At the invitation of the United States government, former special rapporteur Doudou Diene toured the United States in May and June 2008 to conduct an analysis of ongoing racism and ethnic discrimination. Today, current special rapporteur Githu Muigai presented Diene’s findings. This is the first session of the UNHRC in which the U.S. is participating as a member.

"For the U.S. to lead by example, it should heed the recommendations of this international expert and do more to address ongoing issues of racism and ethnic discrimination in this country,” said Chandra Bhatnagar, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Human Rights Program. “This report offers the Obama administration a path forward toward justice, equality and human rights for all."

While in the United States, the special rapporteur met with representatives of the ACLU and other non-governmental organizations, government officials, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and members of local communities. The resulting report highlights racism in the criminal justice system, the disparity between sentencing for crack and powder cocaine, abuses facing immigrant and African-American workers in the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the overall vulnerability of immigrant workers and the need to meaningfully address the “school-to-prison pipeline.” The report also calls on Congress to pass the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA) and create a bipartisan commission to evaluate the on-going fight against racism.

“The special rapporteur’s visits in Los Angeles with Arab, Sikh, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Native American communities, and his review of the ACLU’s recent report on racial profiling at the Los Angeles Police Department, helped to inform his conclusions about the ongoing and urgent need for racial justice reform in this country,” said Catherine Lhamon, racial justice director for the ACLU of Southern California. “We hope this report will push us locally and as a nation to take concrete steps toward creating meaningful justice for all Americans.”

“Mr. Diene’s report highlights the persistence of racism in the U.S. It focuses on many issues that permeate the lives of so many people who live and work in Florida, including racial profiling, the lack of legal protections for immigrant workers, the housing crisis and homelessness, and the school-to-prison pipeline phenomenon,” said Muslima Lewis, director of the ACLU of Florida’s Racial Justice Project. “We are hopeful that the recommendations in this report will be the impetus for meaningful and systemic racial justice reform in Miami, Florida and the entire country."

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – A federal judge today expressed concern that the Los Angeles Police Department continues to be out of compliance with key provisions of a federal consent decree imposed in the wake of the Rampart corruption scandal. Judge Gary Feess stopped short of extending the federal oversight that the decree mandates, but Feess agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California that until the conditions of the decree are fully met, it is unlikely it could be legally lifted. He is expected to render a final ruling in the coming weeks.

The following statement can be attributed to ACLU/SC Staff Attorney Peter Bibring.

"We are pleased the court recognized the progress the LAPD has made but focused on the larger question at hand: Whether it’s appropriate to lift the decree when the department has not complied with all of its terms most importantly the non discrimination provisions."

"Over the past years, the consent decree has been the engine for LAPD reform, so as not to repeat the nightmares of Watts, Rodney King and Rampart. With the monitor’s finding that the department has not yet fully complied with the decree—including specifically its policies and practices toward communities of color—now is not the time to prematurely terminate what is working to bring order to our city. When it can be confidently said that citizens of color are not overstopped, overfrisked and overarrested by the LAPD for no other reason than their race, it will be time to end the decree."

The ACLU/SC is counsel for community groups who intervened in the case.