Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2000, pages 88-90

Muslim-American Activism

Muslim- and Arab-American Community Energized by Secret Evidence Hearing.

The House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration and Claims Subcommittee held a Feb. 10 hearing on proposed legislation, H.R. 2121, the Secret Evidence Repeal Act, that would ban the use of secret evidence in immigration proceedings. Lawmakers heard testimony from two officials from the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service defending current secret evidence practices, which allow the government to arrest, detain and deport non-citizens using undisclosed evidence. While defenders of the law acknowledged that immigrants facing deportation are entitled to the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee to the right of due process, law enforcement authorities say the secret evidence law is needed because revealing some evidence in open court could compromise intelligence sources and national security.

The American Jewish Committee was also scheduled to testify against the Secret Evidence Repeal Act and B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was to submit written testimony, but leaders of both organizations backed out in the end. The two Jewish groups decided to avoid publicizing their involvement in arguing against due process. “Retaining secret evidence provisions is justified on national security grounds, but it’s an uncomfortable position for our community—with its traditional support for due process and civil liberties—to take,” an official with another Jewish group told New York’s Jewish Week newspaper.

Members of Congress spoke next in support of H.R. 2121’s provisions to abolish the use of secret evidence. Calling use of secret evidence an “obnoxious practice,” Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) said that almost all secret evidence cases involved Arabs and Muslims in the United States and seemed to result from negative stereotyping of an entire community. She recalled that the law was passed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing tragedy, when Arab Americans were targeted and harassed until it turned out that the bomber had no Middle Eastern connection. Rep. David Bonior (D-MI) called the 1996 anti-terrorism legislation that codified secret evidence practices the “most pernicious” law he’d ever seen.

Finally Georgetown Prof. David Cole asked what right could be more basic than the right to see the evidence against you. Nahla Al Arian, “a proud American citizen of Palestinian descent” and sister of Mazen Al-Najjar, a respected educator from the University of South Florida who has been imprisoned for more than 1,000 days, testified in favor of the repeal, describing the terrible injustice of secret evidence. “You can expect this in a totalitarian regime,” she said, but not in a democracy. “Dwight D. Eisenhower told us that nations remain great so long as they are good.” She urged every member of Congress to support the Secret Evidence Repeal Act. “Your vote is a vote for your conscience, for the Constitution, for the future generations, and above all for this great country.”

At the press conference immediately following the hearing, Representatives Tom Campbell (R-CA) and David Bonior (D-MI), who introduced the Secret Evidence Repeal Act, vowed to continue to fight the use of secret evidence. They agreed the hearing was a giant step forward, as widespread unease about secret evidence was visible from both Republican and Democratic members of the committee. Even members who voted for the passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in 1996 expressed doubt and regret about the law’s authorization of the use of secret evidence for the first time in U.S. history.

Hany Kiareldeen, a Palestinian from Newark, NJ, now 31, described being held for 19 months on “secret evidence,” supplied by the FBI to a federal court but undisclosed to him, which said he had links to terrorist organizations and had threatened to kill Attorney General Janet Reno. It turned out that the accusations came from a vindictive ex-wife. Last October, he was released, never having been charged with a crime.

Kiareldeen said, “Our judicial system is fair and has the capacity to punish criminals and deport anyone the government believes is not eligible for an immigration benefit. [There is] no need for the use of secret evidence to accomplish that goal. It’s a shame for any democracy to have secret trials.”

Kiareldeen is among some 20 Muslim Arabs who have lived a nightmare right out of Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial . Some were imprisoned for years, others deported, knowing neither their accuser nor the full content of the charges against them, all in the name of national security. Nahla Al Arian said that there would be a public outcry if it were happening to people of any other background, but because the people being targeted are Arabs the media is almost silent.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Victims Speak Out At Secret Evidence Summit

The National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom, American Muslim and Arab organizations, the Peace and Justice Foundation and members of Congress held a summit on secret evidence on Feb. 16 with a standing-room-only audience of more than 500 mostly Arab Americans and Muslim Americans at the historic Cannon Caucus Room at the House of Representatives. Speaker after speaker emphasized their perspectives on the issue, their support for the elimination of secret evidence, and the need to activate people in communities across the country to raise the visibility of this constitutional crisis.

Mauri’ Saalakhan of the Peace and Justice Foundation appealed to the “conscience of America,” asserting that the vast majority of Americans would be appalled if they knew about the existence of secret evidence. He thought Americans would echo the late Senator J. William Fulbright’s words, “I had no idea my government is doing this in my name.”

The audience watched with rapt attention the documentary video “Uncivil Liberties,” which describes how secret evidence is being used in the U.S., and its effects. Director and producer Hazim Bitar interviewed constitutional scholars, congressmen and civil rights leaders as well as victims of secret evidence. This highly recommended film (available from the distributor at at (703) 920-2968 or <www.alif.com> or the AET Book Club for $24.95), prepared for grassroots activists to show in their own communities, provides, Bitar said, “real evidence of the systematic persecution in the U.S. against Arabs and Muslims.” The film highlights “the Kafkaesque ordeal” of Prof. Mazen Al-Najjar, which still continues.

Next the audience heard from other victims of secret evidence. Dr. Nassima Haddam talked about her husband, Dr. Anwar Haddam, an elected parliamentarian in Algeria who was denied his seat in 1992 and has been jailed in the U.S. since December 1996.

Retired Judge Zakia Hakki, an Iraqi Kurdish lawyer who was granted political asylum in the U.S. after years of struggle against dictatorial Iraqi regimes, testified about the bewildering case of the “Iraqi Six” still being held on secret evidence, and who include two of her sons. Her sons were airlifted to American territory by the U.S. government “to escape Saddam Hussain’s terror reign,” only to be arrested by the INS on the basis of secret evidence.

Egyptian Nasser Ahmed, recently released from more than three years in solitary confinement, was denied bond on the basis of secret evidence. When at last the evidence was made available to him and his lawyers in court, he was easily able to rebut the allegations.

Congressman David Bonior, who helped spearhead the repeal legislation and has pushed it tirelessly, addressed the summit, then joined the crowd through the entire three-hour event, receiving repeated recognition for his work. He described his latest visit with Prof. Mazen Al-Najjar. The chief jailer took Bonior aside, saying that Al- Najjar had changed the jailer’s life. Whenever he felt down he’d go and talk with his prisoner and leave feeling better. Al-Najjar, who has a wife and three daughters, all U.S. citizens, was a model resident for 19 years in the United States, Bonior said, and he can’t imagine what secret evidence can keep such a good man in jail, separated from his family, for more than 1,000 days.

Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee, who is the ranking minority member on the Judiciary Immigration and Claims Subcommittee, said, “Tears came to my eyes as I listened to Nasser Ahmed.” Addressing him, she said, “It is because you are different that you were held.” While her ancestors came in a slave ship, Jackson-Lee said, she had thought the United States had moved beyond treating people who are different unfairly. “We should be a nation that welcomes you and keeps its promise to you.”

A Jewish former student of Dr. Al-Najjar said that the case reminded him of the pre-World War I Dreyfus Affair, when a Jewish captain in the French army was accused of spying for Germany on the basis of false evidence. “That was a case of institutionalized anti-Semitism. This, too, is a case of institutionalized anti-Semitism.”

Representatives of Arab-American activist groups charge that the law is fundamentally un-American and recommend putting it on the agenda when Muslim- and Arab Americans talk with their representatives. Pointing out that every member of the audience was a taxpayer who should have a say in U.S. policy, speakers concluded that the issue can have a galvanizing instead of a chilling effect on their communities.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Two National Muslim Organizations Merge

The American Muslim Alliance (AMA), the largest grassroots U.S. Islamic political organization, and the National Council on Islamic Affairs (NCIA), perhaps America’s oldest Islamic political organization, announced their merger on Feb. 18, 2000.

The AMA, headquartered in Fremont, California, now has 87 chapters scattered throughout the United States, and concentrates primarily upon electoral affairs, encouraging U.S. Muslims to run for elective office at all political levels, and training its members for effective participation in the U.S. political system. The NCIA was founded in New York City by the late Dr. Mohammad T. Mehdi, the first American Muslim to run for a Senate seat, in 1992. The NCIA has concentrated both on introducing the American Muslim community into the U.S. political arena and reminding American political decision makers and the public at large of the presence of their Muslim neighbors.

As a result of the merger, AMA chapters will lend their support to a number of ongoing NCIA projects. One of these is the “Crescent-and-Star” project which, since the mid-1990s, has resulted in a flag bearing the symbol of Islam being displayed during the third week in December to recognize Friday of that week as “Muslims Day: USA.” The banner now is raised annually at 18 important establishments in the New York metropolitan area, including Grand Central Station, the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building.

In Washington, DC, thanks to Iraqi-born Dr. Mehdi and his long-time associate, Syrian-born NCIA president Al-Haaj Ghazi Khankan, the National Park Service agreed, starting in 1997, to the annual installation of a star and crescent on the Ellipse, the grassy stretch adjacent to the White House, along with the National Christmas Tree and a Menorah for Hanukkah.

Another NCIA project which will be supported by AMA chapters around the country is to call on the U.S. Postal Service to introduce a stamp recognizing Muslims, now that they have become the fastest-growing religious community in America. The stamp requested by NCIA, according to Mr. Khankan, would feature the Crescent and Star and the words “Ramadan Karim” or “Eid Mubarak.”

The merger, the NCIA president said, “is a direct consequence of the shared views of the two organizations, their close cooperation over the past several years, and their willingness to work as a team to achieve common goals.”

AMA’s national chairman, Pakistan-born Dr. Agha Saeed, called the merger “the beginning of a new phase of American Muslim politics, a phase of convergence and consolidation of organizations with similar agendas [which] reflects the growing maturity of our community.”

—Richard Curtiss