Islamaphobia and US Department of Injustice

The Feds put Islam on trial
3 January, 2012 – by Jenin Juffri – Socialist Worker

IN THE same week that Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), sending it to Barack Obama to enshrine into law a provision allowing indefinite military detention of U.S. citizens, a federal jury in Boston delivered a guilty verdict against Dr. Tarek Mehanna, a Muslim American pharmacist charged with material support for terrorism.

Coming in the wake of other Muslims around the country who have been arrested, accused of supporting terrorism, and locked up for long sentences, the December 20 guilty verdict against Mehanna on seven counts was a shocking and chilling reminder to his growing number of supporters and advocates that the “war on terror” has been putting Islam on trial for years.

Tarek’s trial lasted nine weeks, but was the culmination of four years of FBI harassment, surveillance and intimidation against Mehanna from his days in pharmacy school.

In 2005, recognizing him as a respected leader within his community and a potential asset for the federal government in its spying and surveillance of Muslims, the FBI approached Tarek to act as an informant within his community. After Tarek refused to betray members of his community, he was subjected to harassment and surveillance of his online activities, including participation in online forums vocalizing his opposition to U.S. wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Mehanna was initially arrested in 2008 on the charge of making a false statement to the FBI, and when no case could be made to keep him in prison or prove he was a danger to the public, he was released with a restrictive bail arrangement.

In October 2009, after Tarek had graduated from pharmacy school and was ready to board a plane for a prestigious job in Saudi Arabia, federal agents arrested him a second time and charged him with providing material support to al-Qaeda.

The government presented nothing but an FBI affidavit to the court as evidence and fed the media with vicious accusations that Tarek had plotted to shoot up a mall–a charge that wasn’t even included in its case. Tarek spent another two years in solitary confinement before the trial even began. He was under 23-hour lockdown with little human contact, which is recognized internationally as a form of torture. …more