"The Muslim community would view this as another fishing expedition solely targeting Muslims in America," said Hooper

Additional Reporting By Mustafa Abdel-Halim, IOL Staff

WASHINGTON/CAIRO, January 15 (IslamOnline.net & New Agencies) – U.S. Muslim charities and foundations reacted with mixed anger and concern to the Senate’s demand for "confidential" financial records, including donors’ lists.

The Senate Finance Committee has asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to turn over such documents concerning dozens of Muslim charities.

"The Muslim community would view this as another fishing expedition solely targeting Muslims in America," Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) told the Washington Post Wednesday, January 14.

"Are they now going to start a witch hunt of all the donors of these now closed relief organizations, so that Muslims feel they're going to be targeted once more based on their charitable giving?" he asked.

Documents and officials quoted by the American daily said the tactic is part of a widening congressional investigation into alleged ties between tax-exempt organizations and "terrorist groups".

Other leaders of Muslim charities are more concerned this might scare away contributors and dry up financial support used to provide medicine, food and other goods to the needy.

"Most of the organizations are now concerned over the impact of this and whether it would affect flow of donations from ordinary Muslims here," said Tarek Elgawhary, president of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in the United States and Canada, one of the groups on the Senate scrutiny list.

He told IslamOnline.net that MSA board of directors will mull a possible action against the request.

"This kind of blanket request would further chill the tendency for American Muslims to give money," said Roger C. Simmons, a lawyer who represents the Illinois-based Global Relief Foundation.

"As far as the organizations themselves, I'm not sure what else they can do to them that they haven't already done, " he told the Post.

The rare and unusually move raises the possibility that contributions to charities could be subjected to Senate scrutiny, which means more investigations putting Muslim charities into spotlight.

The committee staffers said the investigation is based not on ethnicity or religious affiliation but rather on concerns that the charities may have ties to terrorists or their supporters.

"This is not a fishing expedition targeting Muslims," one Senate aide was quoted by the paper as saying.

However, Stanley Cohen, a Jewish lawyer and activist, said the move is part of "politically motivated" campaign against Muslims in the country after the September 11 attacks.

"To think the request is to broaden investigations into the records of Islamic groups is wrong, as it is rather meant to balloon the whole issue and show Americans still need further protection," Cohen told IOL.

He noted that the request coincide with the countdown for the presidential elections.

U.S. President George W. Bush is placing the so-called terror combat at the top of his election agenda.

The foundations and charities named by the committee in its request include many that remain targets of ongoing investigations by U.S. authorities.

Among them are the Northern Virginia-based SAAR Foundation, Global Relief and the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the largest Muslim charity in the United States.

Other groups on the list include the Muslim World League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

Muslim charities in other western countries share the feeling that they are targeted by intrusive investigations and unjustifiable accusations.

In August last year, the British charity regulator froze the assets of Interpal, a non-governmental organization collecting money to help Palestinian children and homeless, after Bush claimed it is linked to "terrorism."

However, weeks of investigations by the main British regulator Charity Commission gave the group a clean bill of health, as Washington failed to provide evidence of the accusations.

But Europe’s Muslim charities say they face less stringent measures than their American counterparts.