Ramadan Charity Dilemma for US Muslims

"People in the Muslim community are scared," said Alomari. (far right)

"People in the Muslim community are scared," Mohammad Alomari, administrative director of the Life for Relief and Development Charity, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Sunday, September 9.

"They have to give zakah. But how do you give it? Do you give it only to the mosque? Do you give it to a friend who takes it overseas? The avenues of giving are narrower."

Alomari's organization is one of a backlog of charities targeted by federal authorities in the wake of the 9/11 attacks six years ago on claims of channeling funds to groups the Bush administration designated as terrorist like Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hizbullah.

The intense government pressure on Life, which was raided by FBI in 2006, forced it to stop transferring much-needed aid to orphanages in Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories in order to keep operating at home, Alomari said.

It had to go to court to prevent its bank from flagging it as a money launderer or terrorist financer when the charity's account was closed shortly after the raid.

Life was back in court last month to stop the Justice Department from charging it 115,000 dollars in copying fees so it could get its documents back.

The founders and top officers of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development , once the largest Islamic charity in the US, are on trial on charges of channeling at least $12.4 million to Hamas through donations to charity committees and other organizations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The case has been a cause célèbre for American Muslims since the government froze the charity's assets, totaling millions of dollars, less than two months after the 9/11 attacks.

Stepped up

Muslim activists accuse federal authorities of stepping up raids on charities just before Ramadan, which starts Thursday, September 13, in the US, according to astrological calculations.

Shereef Akeel, a lawyer defending two raided Islamic charities, complained of a very suspicious pattern of raids taking place just ahead of Ramadan, a month of fasting and charity.

"What we have done is compromise our image and our standing abroad," he told AFP.

In 2004, Missouri-based Islamic American Relief Agency was shut down in the days leading up to Ramadan because of alleged ties to Hamas and Al-Qaeda.

It was indicted in March for providing aid without a license in Iraq while the country was under US sanctions.

In 2002, US federal agents swarmed into more than 15 sites of Muslim charities.

Federal officials say they are committed to protecting legitimate charitable work and only target organizations when they have strong evidence that the money is being misdirected.

"These actions are not going after people who are sending legitimate funds for legitimate purposes and are accidentally swept up," said Molly Millerwise, a Treasury Department official.

But Akeel said that the federal government's inability or refusal to provide hard evidence against the targeted charities has created a backlash.

The Washington Post reported on Monday, October 30, that many US Muslims were donating less and less to Islamic charities, fearing that they might be placed on FBI watch lists and accused of channeling money to terrorists.

Harry Ellen, a former FBI operative in the occupied Palestinian territories, had said that Palestinian groups send donated money to charity committee and not used them for "terrorist activities."

Extinct

"These are indirect ways of having Islamic charities close down without due process," said Walid.

Alomari fears that Islamic charities in the United States will soon become extinct due to the systematic clampdown.

"There used to be a lot of different organizations. We certainly weren't the largest. But by default now we're the largest because they closed down the other ones," he said.

Six major Muslim charities operating in the country have been shut down after being designated fund raisers for terrorist organizations and several others have been raided or closed.

In late July, the Treasury Department froze the assets of Michigan-based Goodwill Charitable Organization after it was declared a front for Hizbullah.

Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said charity closures were never problematic for federal authorities, accusing them of trampling over relevant laws.

"These are indirect ways of having Islamic charities close down without due process," he said.

"It scares away the donors and even some employees."