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Muslims Fundraise For Embattled Imam Al-Amin
By Mauri Saalakhan
WASHINGTON (IslamOnline) – The campaign by Muslims in the Washington area to counter the barrage of one-sided propaganda surrounding the case of Imam Jamil Al-Amin appears to be in high gear. Information and fundraising forums, which began over the past weekend in the Washington metropolitan area, are expected to increase in their intensity over the course of the next few days.
There have been information forums at Dar Al-Hijrah in Falls Church, Va. (the biggest mosque in the Washington metropolitan area), Masjid Bilal in Richmond, Va., Masjid Muhammad in Washington, D.C., and a well-attended fundraiser at Masjid Al-Islam in southeast Washington.
Additionally, Imam Al-Amin's case entered the topic of discussion for a previously scheduled lecture at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Md; and the first major fundraiser in the Washington area is scheduled for this Friday, April 7, at 7 pm, at Howard University's Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel. The featured speaker will be Imam Siraj Wahhaj of Masjid At-Taqwa (Brooklyn, NY).
Support Funds have been established to assist Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin with his legal defense, and resources to take care of his family (which includes two wives). The main fund is: "Imam Jamil Al-Amin Legal Defense Fund," 547 West End Place, Atlanta, Ga. 30310.
The second fund was established by the Coalition to Support Imam Jamil Al-Amin, and is labeled as follows: "Coalition to Support Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Metro Washington, DC-Area," MSC 590473, Washington, DC 20059, Tel: (202) 238-2688.
A Muslim community forum is also planned for Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB), also known as Masjid Ar-Rahma, in Baltimore, Md. And this coming Monday a rally is tentatively being planned for Montgomery, Alabama.
The Muslim community has begun to understand that the American justice system’s presumption of innocence cannot be taken for granted, especially in a case charged with race and religious tension like Imam Al-Amin’s. He is charged with killing a deputy sheriff in Atlanta, and is currently fighting his extradition from Alabama to Georgia.
The late William M. Kunstler wrote in his book, “My Life As A Radical Lawyer” (1994, Carol Publishing Group): "To counter prosecutors trying defendants in the court of public opinion before they actually go on trial, defense attorneys must use the same forum but in a different manner. We have to counter a presumption of guilt with a presumption of innocence."
And in a chapter of his book subtitled, “The Despised Muslim,” Kunstler writes about one of his cases involving Muslim defendants accused of terrorism in New York City: "By the end of the government's campaign to depict the Islamic defendants as worse than anything, even Nazis, the public was more than willing to accept an unjust trial. Like Chicago [in 1968] this was a political case, and the defense of the fifteen alleged conspirators had to be political; the case could not be won on legalities. I would conduct the defense by putting the government on trial, just as we did in Chicago. To that end I spoke out during 1993 and 1994, urging supporters of the fifteen defendants to build a defense committee.”
"I told them to make certain that the defendants did not feel alone; I suggested that organizers work in their communities to create backing for the defendants. During the trial, the courtroom would have to be filled with supporters at all times. People would have to raise money and press their case in the media. The U.S. government had put Islam on trial. My job was to defend the practitioners of this misunderstood religion, who, like any people who are different, are ostracized, feared, and persecuted."
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