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Judge Questions U.S. Freezing Muslim Charity Assets
The Holy Land Foundation, raided and its assets frozen, is suing the U.S. governement
With additional reporting by Neveen A. Salem
WASHINGTON, April 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Last month, the largest Muslim charity in the United States filed a suit against the U.S. government, saying Washington's move to freeze its assets violated constitutional rights. But on Monday a federal judge said that shutting down the Foundation raised 'distressing allegations about government actions' in the war on terror.
The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a Texas-based charity, filed the suit in a Washington D.C. federal court last month challenging the government's move to label it a financier of terrorism.
The Foundation, founded in 1989, reportedly raised $13 million in 2000 to help Palestinians crippled by Israel's continuing military occupation and devastating economic sanctions, both criticized by the international community, including the U.S. - Israel's staunchest ally.
In its ongoing 'war on terror', U.S. President George W. Bush's administration has frozen at least $61 million in assets of organizations it deems 'terrorist.'
Last December, the Bush Administration put the Foundation on a list of groups and individuals that it said raised money for terrorist groups, a move that permitted the government to freeze millions of dollars of the Foundation's property and other assets.
The Administration accused the Foundation of raising money for the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, a claim the foundation strongly denies.
Allegations that the U.S. government's sole source of information regarding the activities of the group is the Israeli government. This raised concerns that the move to shut it down was nothing more than a political move kowtowing to Israeli pressure to control relief aid going to the beleaguered Palestinian population.
'I emphasize that the foundation has NO link to any groups. We are only concerned about the humanitarian needs of the people. That is very evident in our literature an messages. We are not moving on behalf of any political agenda,' Shukri Abu Baker, president of the foundation, asserted in a dialogue with IslamOnline.
He also slammed the move by the Bush Administration as an attempt to undermine Muslims and accused hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of being behind the move by the U.S.
'This is a political agenda and the easiest excuse by which to destroy a movement is by associating them with terrorism,' Abu Baker stated. 'We feel the Holy Land Foundation had been unfairly targeted in a smear campaign to undermine Muslims and the institutions that serve them.'
'The Foundation brought the agony of the Palestinians to the forefront. Therefore, Sharon cannot allow it to survive because it brings a human issue to the Palestinian issue,' he continued.
Israel has forbidden the Foundation from operating within its borders.
In a 20-page civil complaint against the Departments of Justice, State and Treasury, the Foundation charged that the Bush Administration had violated its constitutional rights to religious freedom, among other liberties.
In its suit, the Foundation asserts that the government's designation and seizure had 'violated Holy Land's rights under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.'
They named as defendants Attorney General John Ashcroft, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Secretary of State Colin Powell, along with the agencies they head.
Now, a federal judge seems to also be concerned about the actions of the Bush Administration regarding the steps taken against the Foundation.
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said Monday that the lawsuit raised 'significant and distressing allegations' about government actions in its war on terror, the Washington Post reported.
She said that the government's decision to shut down the relief organization on allegations that the charity was 'a fundraising front for the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas' - was 'a matter of 'great significance,' the daily continued.
She also warned government lawyers that she frowned upon their requests to keep classified information regarding the case away from public view.
'I'll make no secret that the government is going to have a very heavy burden to submit information exparte [in secret, in the judge's chambers],' Kessler said, the Post reported. 'In a case with as many serious ramifications as this one, unless the law is crystal clear… everything should be in public and on the record.'
The organization is requesting that Kessler 'issue a temporary restraining order against the government and to order authorities to release its assets.'
The suit is one of a growing number of legal challenges to the actions of government agencies after the September 11 attacks, including several suits that seek to end government secrecy surrounding people detained in the Justice Department's anti-terror dragnet, the Post continued.
Further 'distressing concerns' raised by the court mirrored the Foundation's concerns that freezing their assets was an Israeli backed political move, reacting to the fact that the main source of information on Holy Land's relief activities came solely from Israeli government sources.
'In an internal memorandum that drew heavily on information supplied by the Israeli government, Dale L. Watson, the FBI's executive assistant director for counter terrorism and counterintelligence, described the foundation as 'the primary fund-raising entity for Hamas,'' the Post went on to report.
The Foundation has used parts of this memo in its litigation filings.
But John D. Cline, the charity's attorney, said the allegations are false, misleading and may draw on testimony elicited by Israeli intelligence officers using torture, which would make it illegal in U.S. courts, the paper reported.
'Holy Land unequivocally, flatly denies' the charges, he told Kessler, said the paper.
Cline said the highly successful organization 'had been put out of business' without ever being allowed to exercise their right to due process. He also charged the government with violating the First, Fourth and Fifth amendments to the Constitution, as well as a series of other U.S. laws.
But Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Shapiro said 'the government had acted properly, carrying out orders from President Bush,' the paper stated. She went on to urge Kessler to 'consider only whether Justice and Treasury Department agents had acted arbitrarily in carrying out the raid.'
'Isn't this much more than an administrative procedures case?' Kessler asked, not pausing for an answer. 'Aren't there very serious legal issues involved here?…It seems the government's approach is too simplistic,' the Post reported. ]
A hearing to decide the case has been scheduled for July 16.
Department of Justice officials would not provide any further comments on the lawsuit, nor on reports that the freezing of the charity's assets were a political move designed to appease Israel.
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