Title: US raids on Muslims outrage community
Author:  
Publication: Daily Pioneer
Date: Mar 22, 2002
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/archives1/secon3.asp?cat=\wld2&d=WORLD&fdnam=mar2302

Muslim groups in the US expressed outrage over September 11-related raids on members of their community by law enforcement agencies, saying these trampled civil liberties and sent a hostile message.

"We have to tell the American public that their civil rights and civil liberties have been trampled over by the administration," said Shaker El-Sayed, a community leader here. "We have to also alert the public and the media on the issue of how many men were arrested against how many terrorists the administration has arrested." He said 12,047 people had been arrested and only one has been charged with a terrorist attack. "We have to pinpoint to the administration that instead of throwing a dragnet that captures everybody but the terrorists, there is a need to focus on intelligence failure," El-Sayed said. Leaders of major national American Muslim organisations had held a news conference here to express outrage over law enforcement raids Thursday on Muslim offices and homes in Virginia and Georgia that the groups said were a "violation" of community rights.

They said the harassment of respected Islamic institutions and families sends a hostile and chilling message to the US Muslim community and contradicts President George W. Bush's repeated assertions that the war on terrorism is not a conflict with Islam.

Targets of the raids included some of the most respected leaders and organisations in the American Muslim community, including the International Institute of Islamic Thought, the Graduate School of Islamic Social Sciences and the Muslim World League.

The US agencies served 14 search warrants in northern Virginia and one in Georgia. No one was arrested. The raids involved 150 law enforcement officers from a group created by the Treasury Department after the September 11 attacks. Agencies involved in the raids included Customs, Secret Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS), and the US Postal Service.

Muslim groups claimed the raid targets deserved the presumption of innocence and had the right to learn what allegations, if any, the government had used as the basis for their search warrants. Secretary of Defence Donald H Rumsfeld has in the meantime outlined the structure of wartime military commissions, the judicial panels ordered by Bush to try suspected international terrorists in the US. This announcement followed in-depth consultation with military leadership, the defence department's general counsel and members of various civilian legal communities.

"We are dealing with a dangerous and determined adversary, for whom September 11 was just the opening Salvo in a long war against our nation, our people and our way of life," said Rumsfeld.

"These commissions will conduct trials that are honest, fair and impartial. While ensuring just outcomes, they will also give us the flexibility we need to ensure the safety and security of the American people in the midst of a difficult and dangerous war."

The order issued by the defence department includes guidelines for commission civilian and military makeup, trial procedures, admissibility of evidence, defendants' legal safeguards, a review process, and requirements for conviction and sentencing. In response to September 11, the president issued an order November 13 that permits non-US citizens to be tried by military commissions.