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CAIRO — American Muslims want their government to review the recently-revealed FBI surveillance guidelines which they say violate their civil rights through spying and planting mosque informants.
“The Obama administration should review these guidelines and bring them into conformity with the Constitution and with the cherished American values of religious freedom and respect for civil liberties,” Nadhira Al-Khalili, National Legal Counsel of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a press release.
The leading US Muslim advocacy group urged Attorney General Eric Holder to address their concerns about an edited version of the FBI's Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide.
The guide, introduced in the final days of the Bush administration, blacked out a section on how the FBI pursues "assessments" of Americans without evidence of wrongdoing, and on the use of informants in mosques.
Khalili said the guidelines stoke concerns that the Bush administration “put in place policies that will inevitably lead to violations of the Constitution and of the right of all Americans to practice their faith.”
CAIR insisted that many civil liberties groups have repeatedly warned against planting moles inside places of worship.
“It is the FBI’s use of informants in mosques without probable cause indicating criminal activity that has been of particular concern to the American Muslim community.”
Several major American Muslim groups threatened earlier in the year to rupturing all outreach relations with the FBI and the Justice Department, protesting its approach in dealing with their mostly law-abiding community.
Muslims in the US, estimated between six to seven millions, have become sensitized to the erosion of their civil rights after 9/11 in the name of national security.
Wary
CAIR’s call comes while the community is still troubled by the case of Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant arrested over an alleged bombing plot.
He was reportedly approached several times by undercover agents before enough evidence had been gathered against him, in what some described as another example of the FBI’s questionable tactic.
"Our view is: Let's give him a fair trial first,” Ziyad Sarsour, president of the Colorado Muslim Society, told the Denver Post on Thursday, October 1.
“We don't want to hang him first and then give him a trial."
The FBI says it has damning evidences against Zazi, who has already pleaded not guilty in court.
But the New York Times reported Thursday that people briefed on the case and an examination of court papers show that a great deal of the evidence was not the result of a lengthy investigation.
“Instead, much of it was collected on the fly in the last two weeks, with hundreds of FBI agents, federal prosecutors and detectives rushing to fashion a mosaic of details into a case that could be brought to court.”
The daily asserted that several crucial discoveries were made after Zazi had returned on September 12 to Colorado, with his mission, if he had any, aborted.
Denver store and hotel employees said FBI agents did not ask about Zazi’s purchases of beauty salon products that contained the raw materials to make explosives or his stay in a hotel suite to mix them until five days after his return.
Some Muslims in Colorado are particularly wary because the FBI has a history of wrongfully targeting members of their community, citing the case of Haroon Rashid.
Then Attorney General John Ashcroft had cited the case of the Pakistan-born Denver immigrant as an example of home-front terrorism.
But the four-year case against Rashid fizzled and the government resorted to deporting him, separating him from his wife and children who remain in Colorado.
Djilali Kacem, imam at the Denver-North Islamic Center, says this and the government’s questionable track record in terrorism prosecutions leave him skeptical about Zazi’s case.
"That case makes me very cautious."
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