Muslims and their supporters have to get organized and stop assuming the FBI is their friend

Attorney Rejects FBI/CIA Request To Inform On His Muslim Clients
Placed on the U.S. Government's Terrorist Watch List

By Nick Meyer

August 21, 2011 "AAN" - -The attorney-client privilege assuring confidentiality between the two parties is one of the most cherished rights of the American law system, but according to internationally recognized lawyer, author and professor Francis A. Boyle of the the University of Illinois-Champaign, government agents violated that privilege in a jarring summer 2004 visit.

Speaking to The Arab American News, Boyle confirmed recent reports that he was visited by two agents from a joint FBI-CIA anti-terrorist fusion center located about a 90-minute drive away in Springfield, Ill. in his office in Champaign, who attempted to persuade him to become an informant on his Arab American and American Muslim clients.

He said he repeatedly refused their requests to violate his clients' constitutional rights, only to find himself placed on the U.S. Government's terrorist watch list.

"There's five or six of them, and my lawyer informed me that I'm on all of them," Boyle said

"I filed an appeal but they told me, sorry, I would stay on the watch list forever until the agencies that put me on there took me off."

Boyle, who has represented several high profile Arab and Muslim clients in the past, also said the agents repeatedly questioned him about interviews he has given in various international media outlets that were critical of U.S. foreign policy towards Arab and Muslim countries. Similar reports have also come out including a recent one about agents allegedly spying on University of Michigan professor and writer Juan Cole.

Boyle's visit began innocently enough as the two agents introduced themselves to Boyle's secretary, he said.

They identified themselves as businessmen who wanted to speak with him about matters of international law and were wearing suits and ties, looking reputable. Boyle let them in.

"They misrepresented who they are and what they're about to my secretary," Boyle said.

They also gave him no indication that Boyle would be placed on the terrorist watch list after leaving what Boyle called a "nearly hour-long interrogation."

Speaking of interrogations, Boyle was subjected to one an hour and a half long upon returning from a lecture in Canada at the end of the summer of 2004.

The pattern has continued for Boyle, who has a Ph.D in Political Science from Harvard University specializing in International Relations and has authored books such as "Biowarfare and Terrorism," which links the U.S. biowarfare development to the October 2001 post-9/11 anthrax attack on Congress, and "The Palestinian Right to Return Under International Law," which was released in March 2011.

"I was flying in from Malaysia and two armed federal agents on the jet port saw me and my passport and took me into custody; they said 'You're coming with us,' and two guys with guns you're not going to argue with," he said.

"After searching me they said they were looking for someone on the watch list but not you, of course; how many Francis Anthony Boyles are there in America?"

Other extensive searches of Boyle occurred in Switzerland and Chicago.

He's still waiting for an explanation as to why he was placed on the terrorism watch list and concerned about the future.

"I'm not supposed to talk about clients' business to anyone let alone to become an informant on them, that violates their constitutional rights and also my ethical obligations as an attorney to maintain privacy," Boyle said.

"Whether you like lawyers or not, we're sort of the canaries in the mineshaft of democracy, the first line of defense."

An article in Criminal Justice Magazine in Summer 2002 said that immediately following the September 11 attacks against the U.S., then-Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a controversial order that permits the government to monitor all communications between client and attorney when there is 'reasonable suspicion' to 'believe that a particular inmate may use communications with attorneys or their agents to further or facilitate acts of violence or terrorism.' The order raises constitutional concerns under the First, Fourth Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments according to authors Paul Rice and Benjamin Saul.

Boyle believes that the rights of attorneys and anti-war critics as well are under attack, as is the Constitution in general as many analysts have been saying.

"They've gone after many other lawyers, and what they did to Juan Cole doesn't surprise me either," Boyle said.

"We're living in a police state now and what people really need to understand, especially Arabs and Muslims, is that the police are not their friends," Boyle said.

"No Arab or Muslim should talk to the FBI without a lawyer present, you have to be very careful dealing with these people."

Boyle noted that about 1,200 non-citizens were rounded up immediately after the 9/11 attacks and that the only charges brought against them were actually for routine immigration violations or in some cases ordinary crimes as asserted in the 165-page report "America's Challenge" about civil liberties, domestic security and national unity after the attacks, released by the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

More than one million people are currently on watch lists according to a USA Today report in 2009, but Boyle believes he's in more exclusive company on a list of about 5,000 people who were asked to be informants.

Guarding against unjust tactics in the name of security is something that should drive Arab Americans and Muslims, and others, he said.

"Arabs and Muslims and their supporters have to get organized and stop assuming the FBI is their friend, and to set up watch committees and inform themselves as to their rights under the law., and fight back in court," he said.

"It's only going to get worse...the FBI and the CIA are completely out of anyone's control. And Arabs and Muslims are going to have to sit down and figure out how to combat this," he said.

Boyle said they should band together to demand that the Department of Justice re-institute the Edward Hirsch Levy Guidelines, which terminated the FBI COINTEL spying program and were revoked after 9/11 by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. He also said the communities need more lawyers and journalists to fight on their behalf.

He remains concerned about the possibility of retribution against he and others should another attack occur but plans to remain firm in his commitment to his country and its ideals of freedom.

"It feels sort of like a loaded gun sitting there," he said. "But I was born here and I will stay here as a U.S. citizen, and stand and fight for the rights and future of this country."

USA Soldiers Rape Muslim Women & Children

An American Atrocity in Afghanistan By Dave Lindorff
March 09, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- The people of Afghanistan know who was flying the two helicopter gunships that brutally hunted down and slaughtered, one by one, nine boys apparently as young as seven years old, as they gathered firewood on a hillside March 1. In angry demonstrations after the incident, they were shouting “Death to America.”


Americans are still blissfully unaware that their “heroes” in uniform are guilty of this obscene massacre. The ursine US corporate media has been reporting on this story based upon a gutless press release from the Pentagon which attributes the “mistake” to “NATO” helicopters.


The thing is, this terrible incident occurred in the Pech Valley in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, where US forces have for several years been battling Taliban forces, and from which region they are now in the process of withdrawing. Clearly then, it is US, and not “NATO” helicopters which have been responding to calls to attack “suspected Taliban forces.”


So why can’t the Pentagon say that? And if they won’t say that, why won’t American reporters either demand that they clearly state the nationality of whatever troops commit an atrocity, or exercise due diligence themselves and figure it out?


There is a second issue too. Most publications appear to have followed the lead of the highly compromised New York Times, and are going with the Pentagon line that the boys who were killed were aged 9-15. That’s bad enough. It’s hard to see how helicopter pilots with their high-resolution imaging equipment, cannot tell a 9-year-old boy when they see one, from a bearded Taliban fighter. But at least one news organization, the McClachy chain, is reporting that the ages of the boys who were murdered from the air were 7-13. If that latter range of ages is correct, then it is all the more outrageous that they were picked off one by one by helicopter gunners. No way could they have mistaken a 7-year-old for an adult.


No wonder the even the famously corrupt Afghan President Hamid Karzai refused to accept an apology proffered for this killing by Afghan War commander Gen. David Petraeus.


Calls by this reporter to the Pentagon for an accurate report on whose troops were flying those two helicopters, and for an accurate accounting of the ages of the nine victims, have thus far gone unanswered. This, I have discovered, is fairly standard for the Defense Department. If it’s a story about some big victory, or a new eco-friendly plan for a military base’s heating system, you have to beat the Pentagon PR guys off with a stick, but if you call them about something embarrassing or negative, you get passed from Major Perrine to Lt. Col. Robbins to Commander Whozits, and nobody give you an answer. Finally you’re given someone to email a question to, and that message goes into the Pentagon internet ether and never gets returned.


So let’s give an honest report here. Two US helicopter gunships, allegedly responding to a report of “insurgent” activity on a hillside in Kunar Province, came upon the scene of 10 young Afghan boys who were collecting brush for fuel for their families. The gunships, according to the account of a lone 11-year-old surviver who was hidden by a tree, systematically hunted down the other nine boys, hitting them with machine gun and rocket fire and killing them all--their bodies so badly damaged that their families had to hunt for the pieces in order to bury them.


This atrocity is being described as a “mistake,” but it was no mistake, clearly. The crews of the helicopters were shooting at fleeing human beings who made no attempt to return fire (obviously, because all the boys had were sticks, which they surely dropped when the first shots were fired).


They almost certainly saw that they were dealing with kids, because it would be hard to mistake even a nine year old for an adult, particularly in a country where young kids go around with their heads uncovered, and don’t have beards, while adult males generally wear head coverings, and have full beards. But killing kids is part of the deal in America’s war in Afghanistan. Even in Iraq, 12 year olds were being classified by the US military (in contravention of the Geneva Conventions) as being “combat age,” for example in the assault on the city of Fallujah.


Let’s also be clear that this slaughter of nine Afghan children is the ugly reality behind Gen. Petraeus’s supposed policy of “protecting civilians.” Here’s a number that tells the true story about that policy: since Gen. Petraeus assumed command after the ousting of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, US airstrikes in Afghanistan have gone up by 172%. That’s not counting attacks by remote-controlled, missile-firing drone aircraft, which are also up by a huge amount. Those airstrikes and drone attacks are notoriously deadly for civilians--far more so than ground attacks, but of course they have the advantage for our “heroes” in uniform of reducing the number of US casualties in this hugely one-sided conflict.


There are so many aspects to this story that are disturbing, it’s hard to know what’s worse. Clearly we are deliberately murdering kids in Afghanistan, and this particular incident is just an example we know about. The men who did this will hopefully pay for their crimes by living with their guilt, but hopefully there will be an honest investigation and proper punishment too by military authorities (I’m not holding my breath). Petraeus and his boss, Commander in Chief Obama, should also be called to account and punished for implementing a war plan that calls for this kind of brutal slaughter of civilians.


But the US media are also guilty here. How can Americans reach proper conclusions about this obscene war against one of the poorest peoples in the world if our supposedly “fair and balanced” media simply perform the role of Pentagon propagandist, running Defense Department press releases as if they were news reports?


The blood of these poor Afghan kids is smeared not just on the hands of Obama and the generals, and the soldiers who pull the triggers and push the buttons that unleash death, but on the desks and keyboards of American newsrooms that cover up their crimes.
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27641.htm

The Death of Rendition Victim Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi by Andy Worthington

Return to torture: cleared Guantánamo detainee Abdul Rauf al-Qassim fears return to Libya

16.6.07

On Friday, the Washington Post reported on the case of a 42-year old Libyan, Abdul Rauf al-Qassim, one of around 80 prisoners currently languishing in Guantánamo who were cleared for release at least a year ago. Many of these prisoners –- including 17 Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang province –- are still held because the Pentagon cannot guarantee that they will not be tortured or murdered if they are returned to their home countries and cannot find another country to accept them (although the Uyghurs may well join their five compatriots who were dumped in a refugee camp in Albania in May 2006). After the suffering that these prisoners have endured in American custody, this concern for their welfare remains one of the more surreal episodes in the reality-defying saga of the ‘War on Terror’, and is not helped by the fact that the majority of them are held in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day, in circumstances that would tax some of the most hardened convicted criminals in America’s ‘Supermax’ prisons.

In al-Qassim’s case, however, the problem is not that he cannot be returned to his home country, but that he doesn’t want to go, and is ‘publicly fighting’ the Pentagon’s plans to return him to Libya. Since March 2004, when British Prime Minister Tony Blair –- looking as comfortable as a schoolboy lost in the wrong part of town — was welcomed by Colonel Gaddafi in his Bedouin tent in Tripoli, the Libyan regime –- once an implacable terror-sponsoring enemy –- has become the West’s new best friend in North Africa. Never mind that the State Department reports annually that torture and abuse are still rife in Libya’s prisons, Gaddafi has renounced his Weapons of Mass Destruction, has joined the merry Western World of mega-bucks, oil deals and arms sales, and is a staunch ally in the ‘War on Terror’.

Ever since the first reports leaked out that the CIA had ‘rendered’ al-Qaeda suspects to Libya for ‘interrogation’, the former pariah’s status as friend to the West has been one of the more reprehensible manifestations of the murky realpolitik that actually underpins the whole US-led anti-terror coalition. It’s not the only corrupt alliance by any means, of course. In defense of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, the US and the UK have been happily dealing with numerous repressive, undemocratic regimes, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Uzbekistan. Other regimes –- in theory less dictatorial –- have also queued up to be paid and not punished, including Morocco, Jordan and, at the time of writing, Kenya and Ethiopia. At the other end of the scale –- at least in the early years of the ‘War on Terror’ –- al-Qaeda suspects were also ‘rendered’ to Syria for ‘interrogation’, in a deal that reveals the West’s purported commitment to human rights and justice for the hollow, dead-eyed rhetoric that it really is: while President Bush was publicly calling Syria a member of the ‘axis of evil’, he was also busy engaging Syrian intelligence –- the notorious Mukhabarat –- as proxy torturers.

Despite being cleared for release by the Pentagon, Abdul Rauf al-Qassim has good reason to fear being returned to Libya. A soldier in the Libyan army from 1983 to 1989, he then deserted, traveling to Afghanistan ‘to immigrate and to start a new life’. After fighting with the mujahideen until 1993, when the last remnants of the Soviet regime fell, he ‘traveled back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan’ –- at one point studying at university in Quetta –- and also met and married an Afghan woman, Rahima, with whom he had a daughter, Khiria, who has spent the whole of her young life without her father.

Abdul Rauf al-Qassim’s wife, Rahima, and his daughter, Khiria.

Al-Qassim was captured in Lahore in May 2002, at the house of a Pakistani, after escaping from war-torn Afghanistan with his pregnant wife, but although it was clear that he had not taken up arms against the Americans, it was far less clear that he would not be regarded as a threat by the government of his home country. In his Administrative Review Board in May 2005 (convened to review the prisoners’ status as ‘enemy combatants’), he explained –- via a statement made to his Assisting Military Officer –- that he had received military training at two Libyan camps in Afghanistan, but only because he was living there, and admitted that he had joined the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group –- exiled opponents of the Gaddafi regime –- but only ‘out of desperation — he was broke, had no place to go, was hungry, unemployed and had no way to support himself’. He added that his family ‘did not receive monetary support from the [LIFG], but he received food, shelter and an allowance for clothes’. He also agreed with previous statements he had made: that he ‘did not believe in violence’, and that he ‘angrily defined [al-Qaeda’s] leadership and members as “savages” who twist the meaning of Islam, thereby hurting all Muslims’.

Although al-Qassim stated that a Libyan delegation, who visited Guantánamo in 2004 (and were actually flown there by the CIA), told him that they ‘knew he was with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group only by name’, that he was ‘obligated to be with them’, and that they would ‘take care of him’, he repeatedly told his Assisting Military Officer that he was ‘afraid of returning to Libya’. ‘He said he does not want to go to Libya because he feels he cannot trust them and because they put people in prison for no reason’, his AMO reported. ‘He said he feels that if he returns to Libya, even after being released by the United States, he would be sent back to prison’. Such was his concern that the Presiding Officer of his ARB noted, ‘For the record, make sure that we put in our report that the Detainee is afraid of returning to Libya’, a comment that has clearly been ignored by the administration, as it prepares to fulfil his worst fears.

Al-Qassim is not without friends in America. The Center for Constitutional Rights has taken up his case, fighting for him in the courts and, with the help of the Afghan Human Rights Organization, tracing his wife and daughter. In addition, Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has embraced his cause, urging the government to consider other options, and pointing out that, because he has an Afghan wife and child, he is eligible for Afghan citizenship. In a letter to the State Department, he wrote that it would be a ‘grave injustice’ to send al-Qassim to Libya, ‘because the State Department has reported that the country engages in torture, including electric shocks and suffocation’, and in a recent interview he said that, ‘by virtue of his alleged connection to a group that opposes the Libyan government’, al-Qassim was ‘at particular risk for abuse’, adding, ‘The State Department doesn’t have a leg to stand on if they’re going to contradict their own analysis’.

It remains to be seen whether the campaign mounted by Rep. Markey and CCR will be successful, although the omens are not good. In December 2006, unnoticed by almost everyone, another Libyan, 38-year old Mohammed al-Rimi (aka al-Futuri), was returned to Libya from Guantánamo. An economic migrant, who had traveled to Afghanistan via Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, al-Rimi explained in Guantánamo that he had spent two years in Afghanistan with the vast worldwide missionary organization Jamaat-al-Tablighi, and denied that he had any militant connections. Although he added that he had had problems with the Libyan authorities, and had left Libya because of religious persecution, he was apparently willing to return home when told that he had been cleared for release. On his return, Saleh Abdulsalam, a spokesman for a government-related charity, said that al-Rimi had been diagnosed with tuberculosis but was not wanted by Libyan authorities and would ‘go back to his family soon’, although according to human rights activists, this was a lie, and he has simply exchanged one prison for another.

What may help al-Qassim –- if his lawyers can extract enough leverage from it –- is a decision made by the UK’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) on 27 April, that two Libyan prisoners held without charge or trial in the UK’s own mini-version of Guantánamo could not be returned to Libya because they were at risk of being tortured. The Commission’s decision was particularly galling for the British government because, in October 2005, Libya signed a ‘memorandum of understanding’, promising that it would not torture or ill-treat Libyans returned from the UK. This was touted by the Foreign Office as the answer to a problem that had long preoccupied them –- how to bypass international conventions prohibiting governments from sending people back to a country where they might face torture or ill-treatment –- but it became increasingly more urgent as they cooperated with American intelligence in the wake of 9/11, and it seems clear, from the ways in which both the Americans and the British have been attempting to neutralize the prohibitions against returning people to countries where they face torture, that Abdul Rauf al-Qassim is part of a concerted effort by both countries to undermine international legal safeguards. Unfortunately for the Foreign Office, the SIAC judges concluded that the ‘memorandum of understanding’ was not worth the paper it was written on. One can only hope, for al-Qassim’s sake, that the State Department feels the same way.

Note: The Pentagon refers to al-Qassim as Abdul Rauf al-Qusin, and his name is also transliterated as Abdul Raouf al-Qassim or Abdul Ra’ouf al-Qassim. In documents presented to the Supreme Court in May 2007, which unsuccessfully sought an injunction to prevent his return to Libya, he is referred to as Abu Abdul Rauf Zalita.

For more on the Libyan detainees in Guantánamo, see my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed.

As published on CounterPunch.

Return to torture: cleared Guantánamo detainee Abdul Rauf al-Qassim fears return to Libya | Andy Worthington

Return to torture: cleared Guantánamo detainee Abdul Rauf al-Qassim fears return to Libya

16.6.07

On Friday, the Washington Post reported on the case of a 42-year old Libyan, Abdul Rauf al-Qassim, one of around 80 prisoners currently languishing in Guantánamo who were cleared for release at least a year ago. Many of these prisoners –- including 17 Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang province –- are still held because the Pentagon cannot guarantee that they will not be tortured or murdered if they are returned to their home countries and cannot find another country to accept them (although the Uyghurs may well join their five compatriots who were dumped in a refugee camp in Albania in May 2006). After the suffering that these prisoners have endured in American custody, this concern for their welfare remains one of the more surreal episodes in the reality-defying saga of the ‘War on Terror’, and is not helped by the fact that the majority of them are held in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day, in circumstances that would tax some of the most hardened convicted criminals in America’s ‘Supermax’ prisons.

In al-Qassim’s case, however, the problem is not that he cannot be returned to his home country, but that he doesn’t want to go, and is ‘publicly fighting’ the Pentagon’s plans to return him to Libya. Since March 2004, when British Prime Minister Tony Blair –- looking as comfortable as a schoolboy lost in the wrong part of town — was welcomed by Colonel Gaddafi in his Bedouin tent in Tripoli, the Libyan regime –- once an implacable terror-sponsoring enemy –- has become the West’s new best friend in North Africa. Never mind that the State Department reports annually that torture and abuse are still rife in Libya’s prisons, Gaddafi has renounced his Weapons of Mass Destruction, has joined the merry Western World of mega-bucks, oil deals and arms sales, and is a staunch ally in the ‘War on Terror’.

Ever since the first reports leaked out that the CIA had ‘rendered’ al-Qaeda suspects to Libya for ‘interrogation’, the former pariah’s status as friend to the West has been one of the more reprehensible manifestations of the murky realpolitik that actually underpins the whole US-led anti-terror coalition. It’s not the only corrupt alliance by any means, of course. In defense of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, the US and the UK have been happily dealing with numerous repressive, undemocratic regimes, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Uzbekistan. Other regimes –- in theory less dictatorial –- have also queued up to be paid and not punished, including Morocco, Jordan and, at the time of writing, Kenya and Ethiopia. At the other end of the scale –- at least in the early years of the ‘War on Terror’ –- al-Qaeda suspects were also ‘rendered’ to Syria for ‘interrogation’, in a deal that reveals the West’s purported commitment to human rights and justice for the hollow, dead-eyed rhetoric that it really is: while President Bush was publicly calling Syria a member of the ‘axis of evil’, he was also busy engaging Syrian intelligence –- the notorious Mukhabarat –- as proxy torturers.

Despite being cleared for release by the Pentagon, Abdul Rauf al-Qassim has good reason to fear being returned to Libya. A soldier in the Libyan army from 1983 to 1989, he then deserted, traveling to Afghanistan ‘to immigrate and to start a new life’. After fighting with the mujahideen until 1993, when the last remnants of the Soviet regime fell, he ‘traveled back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan’ –- at one point studying at university in Quetta –- and also met and married an Afghan woman, Rahima, with whom he had a daughter, Khiria, who has spent the whole of her young life without her father.

Abdul Rauf al-Qassim’s wife, Rahima, and his daughter, Khiria.

Al-Qassim was captured in Lahore in May 2002, at the house of a Pakistani, after escaping from war-torn Afghanistan with his pregnant wife, but although it was clear that he had not taken up arms against the Americans, it was far less clear that he would not be regarded as a threat by the government of his home country. In his Administrative Review Board in May 2005 (convened to review the prisoners’ status as ‘enemy combatants’), he explained –- via a statement made to his Assisting Military Officer –- that he had received military training at two Libyan camps in Afghanistan, but only because he was living there, and admitted that he had joined the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group –- exiled opponents of the Gaddafi regime –- but only ‘out of desperation — he was broke, had no place to go, was hungry, unemployed and had no way to support himself’. He added that his family ‘did not receive monetary support from the [LIFG], but he received food, shelter and an allowance for clothes’. He also agreed with previous statements he had made: that he ‘did not believe in violence’, and that he ‘angrily defined [al-Qaeda’s] leadership and members as “savages” who twist the meaning of Islam, thereby hurting all Muslims’.

Although al-Qassim stated that a Libyan delegation, who visited Guantánamo in 2004 (and were actually flown there by the CIA), told him that they ‘knew he was with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group only by name’, that he was ‘obligated to be with them’, and that they would ‘take care of him’, he repeatedly told his Assisting Military Officer that he was ‘afraid of returning to Libya’. ‘He said he does not want to go to Libya because he feels he cannot trust them and because they put people in prison for no reason’, his AMO reported. ‘He said he feels that if he returns to Libya, even after being released by the United States, he would be sent back to prison’. Such was his concern that the Presiding Officer of his ARB noted, ‘For the record, make sure that we put in our report that the Detainee is afraid of returning to Libya’, a comment that has clearly been ignored by the administration, as it prepares to fulfil his worst fears.

Al-Qassim is not without friends in America. The Center for Constitutional Rights has taken up his case, fighting for him in the courts and, with the help of the Afghan Human Rights Organization, tracing his wife and daughter. In addition, Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has embraced his cause, urging the government to consider other options, and pointing out that, because he has an Afghan wife and child, he is eligible for Afghan citizenship. In a letter to the State Department, he wrote that it would be a ‘grave injustice’ to send al-Qassim to Libya, ‘because the State Department has reported that the country engages in torture, including electric shocks and suffocation’, and in a recent interview he said that, ‘by virtue of his alleged connection to a group that opposes the Libyan government’, al-Qassim was ‘at particular risk for abuse’, adding, ‘The State Department doesn’t have a leg to stand on if they’re going to contradict their own analysis’.

It remains to be seen whether the campaign mounted by Rep. Markey and CCR will be successful, although the omens are not good. In December 2006, unnoticed by almost everyone, another Libyan, 38-year old Mohammed al-Rimi (aka al-Futuri), was returned to Libya from Guantánamo. An economic migrant, who had traveled to Afghanistan via Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, al-Rimi explained in Guantánamo that he had spent two years in Afghanistan with the vast worldwide missionary organization Jamaat-al-Tablighi, and denied that he had any militant connections. Although he added that he had had problems with the Libyan authorities, and had left Libya because of religious persecution, he was apparently willing to return home when told that he had been cleared for release. On his return, Saleh Abdulsalam, a spokesman for a government-related charity, said that al-Rimi had been diagnosed with tuberculosis but was not wanted by Libyan authorities and would ‘go back to his family soon’, although according to human rights activists, this was a lie, and he has simply exchanged one prison for another.

What may help al-Qassim –- if his lawyers can extract enough leverage from it –- is a decision made by the UK’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) on 27 April, that two Libyan prisoners held without charge or trial in the UK’s own mini-version of Guantánamo could not be returned to Libya because they were at risk of being tortured. The Commission’s decision was particularly galling for the British government because, in October 2005, Libya signed a ‘memorandum of understanding’, promising that it would not torture or ill-treat Libyans returned from the UK. This was touted by the Foreign Office as the answer to a problem that had long preoccupied them –- how to bypass international conventions prohibiting governments from sending people back to a country where they might face torture or ill-treatment –- but it became increasingly more urgent as they cooperated with American intelligence in the wake of 9/11, and it seems clear, from the ways in which both the Americans and the British have been attempting to neutralize the prohibitions against returning people to countries where they face torture, that Abdul Rauf al-Qassim is part of a concerted effort by both countries to undermine international legal safeguards. Unfortunately for the Foreign Office, the SIAC judges concluded that the ‘memorandum of understanding’ was not worth the paper it was written on. One can only hope, for al-Qassim’s sake, that the State Department feels the same way.

Note: The Pentagon refers to al-Qassim as Abdul Rauf al-Qusin, and his name is also transliterated as Abdul Raouf al-Qassim or Abdul Ra’ouf al-Qassim. In documents presented to the Supreme Court in May 2007, which unsuccessfully sought an injunction to prevent his return to Libya, he is referred to as Abu Abdul Rauf Zalita.

For more on the Libyan detainees in Guantánamo, see my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed.

As published on CounterPunch.

Rise Oh Muslims!

Rise Oh Muslims!

Abu Said al Khudri heard the Prophet (saws) say;

“Let none of you despise himself!” The Sahabah asked “O Messenger of Allah, how can one despise himself?” The Messenger (saws) replied “He sees the command of Allah on him about which he should say something and then he says nothing about it. So Allah will say to him on the Day of Rising ‘What prevented you from saying such and such for My sake?’ and the person will say ‘the fear of the people’. Allah will say to him ‘It is I alone that you should more have feared more!’ [Ahmad and Ibn Majah]

Indeed the kufr regimes and their branches ranging from the immoral and hate filled media outlets to the secularist so called religious establishments have all presented before the Muslim Ummah many evils. Evils that no person of iman can overlook! We have seen the repeated attempts to vilify the honoured last Messenger, Muhmmad (saws), by drawing obnoxious caricatures of a foul nature. The kaafira, who authored the Jewel of Medina, described the mother of the believers with the most nasty and reprehensible descriptions. The American soldiers in Iraq riddled the Quran with bullets. They drew the cross of the Christians upon the Quran. In Guantanamo Bay the American soldiers have flushed the Quran down the toilet to intimidate the captives. The leaders have smothered their words of malice and spite for the Islam in sugar coats by openly disregarding the Message of the Messenger Muhammad, namely the Shariah and its application viz the Khilafah. The blood of the Muslims, which Allah considers more dearer than the Kabah, has been spilt mercilessly. And recently we have the seen the issue of the kaafir, Terry Jones in America showing the rank hatred within his heart manifest, namely branding Islam as a religion of Shaytaan and the desire to burn the Quran. What can be a greater insult and affront to Islam? It is even conceivable that a Muslim would do such a thing to the Gospels? No, it is not from the etiquettes of a Muslim to partake in such an abhorrent crime. 

It would seem that the kuffar have forgotten as to whom they have been impudently showing such insolence towards. They have forgotten that this Islam, which they have been o so brazenly insulting, has jurisprudence on how to deal with such people who show such an affront to Islam, Quran, the Messenger Muhammad and his wives.  It is best advised that the non- Muslim learns a little more about Islam, before embarking on this perilous journey of insulting Islam in the name of Freedom. 

As Tim Marshall in his foreign matters podcast (4:03pm, 09/09/2010) on sky news radio said concerning Terry Jones;

“This is his big chance to make it big. If he goes ahead, he may die trying”

Of course this kaafir does not do justice to the rules of Islam however the gist is evident. 

But what is far worse than all of this is the, shallow response that the Muslims retorted with when these crimes took place. All these violations took place and the Muslims have remained silent or they have tried to reconcile with the perpetrators. In fact the opening hadeeth suffices for the vast “ghutha” ¹ of the people who did not address these issues. Fear of the non-Muslim and how they might react, love of the status quo and hatred of changing to adopt Islam, has caused them to become so weak. 

In the blessed month of Ramadan which has passed before us we were meant to acquire to the noble characteristic of Taqwa. As Allah says

O you who believe! Observing As-Saum (the fasting) is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become people of Taqwa [2:183]

Taqwa being the fear of Allah alone and following his commands. When Allah tested the Muslims on the day after Eid, where did this Taqwa go? What were the Muslims doing all Ramadan? How sad is our affair today, and to Allah we raise our hands for support!

 As Muslims, silence should not be our state. Witnessing evil, no matter what magnitude it reaches, should not cause the Muslims to fear the kaafir, and stepping back from giving the Islamic agenda. Rather Allah has described the Ummah of Muhammad (saws) as;

You are the best of peoples ever raised up for mankind (because) you command the good and you forbid the evil and you believe in Allah [3:110]

As Muslims we must condemn such evils and the perpetrators, whenever they rear their ugly face. In doing so is the success as Allah says

Let there arise out of you a group of people inviting to all that is good (Islâm), commanding the good and forbidding the evil And it is they who are the successful [3:104]

Many Muslims refrain from commanding the good and forbidding the evil with speech and action because they fear the verbal, media backlash that it would cause. They seek to protect the call of Islam, but in reality their extra cautious and supposedly vigilant stance is reckless and detrimental in this dunya and the hereafter to themselves. It does not make progressive spaces for Islam in society au contraire these un-islamic ruses cause Islam to become assimilated into the western hegemony plans, thereby mixing the pure truth of Islam with the filthy immoral values of the West.

For example – take the case of the Messenger Muhammad (saws). The kuffar media outlets have consistently over the last four years shown their animosity by printing and re-printing spiteful images of the noble Messenger. The general masses came out to physically remove the sullied and foul excuse of nation, Denmark. The world had to appease the Muslims and tell them to calm down. The leaders of the Muslims whether they were from the scholars and or rulers did not take this as an opportunity to rally the Ummah to establish the deen of Islam. Rather their method was something alien to Islam. The Muslims initially said to boycott Danish products. What was so significant about this? The Danish just had lower profit levels. But they were still making profits! The Muslims further sidestepped the Ahkaam Tawqifiyah (Static Rules of Islam) and asked for an apology from the Danish. This defeatist mentality was responded to with a staunch anger from the camp of the non Muslims, with slogans such as “This is a free world” “Who are you to tell what is allowed and what is not allowed” “We will continue to express our freedom” etc. 

Because the true Islamic rule of commanding the good and forbidding the evil was and is not applied this corruption spread to the masses of people like cancer e.g. Facebook and “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”.

One blogger on this website (i.e. facebook) said “20,000 artists will draw on the day, can the Muslims gather 20,000 men to establish their so called Islamic law”.

This is the consequences of not commanding the good and forbidding the evil upon the methodology of the Messenger Muhammad (saws). It is as the Messenger Muhammad (saw)

“Disgrace and humiliation is for the one who opposes my command” [Ahmad]

If looking at results is the standard some people would judge by, look to the results of these un-Islamic ploys adopted by the defeatist. Humiliation upon humiliation.

Further to this if the Muslims do not command the good and forbid the evil Allah will hasten His punishment upon the people. And who is brave enough to say they are prepared to face the punishment of Allah? Is there not a lesson for the people of understanding in the narrative of the people of Thamud. Allah gave them one Ayat, known as the she-camel. Nine men form the entire nation conspired to kill it, of whom only one had the nerve to follow up with his evil plan in to action. So why was the whole nation of Thamud destroyed? It was because the nation of people were aware of the plans to destroy the Ayat of Allah and yet they remained indifferent, apathetic and had not hatred for the evil. 

O Muslims, what is to say that the punishment of Allah will not befall us if we let these evils permeate throughout society without to challenge them. Take heed O Muslims

The Messenger Muhammad (saws) said 

“By the one in whose hand is my soul, you must command the good and forbid the evil, otherwise Allah will send upon you a punishment, and you will supplicate to Him and He will not respond to you.” [Tirmidhi] 

then he (saws) quoted the ayah

Those among the Children of Israel who disbelieved were cursed by the tongue of Dawûd (David) and 'Iesa (Jesus), son of Maryam (Mary). That was because they disobeyed (Allâh and the Messengers) and were ever transgressing beyond bounds. They used not to forbid one another from the Munkar (wrong, evil­doing, sins, polytheism, disbelief, etc.) which they committed. Vile indeed was what they used to do. [5:78-79]

Not fulfilling our responsibilities of commanding the good and forbidding the evil is an imitation of the Children of Israel. What a repulsive resemblance indeed!

These Ayat that have been mentioned above are not merely being presented so that the Muslims, can cry over their past misdeeds and then continue to remain silent. Rather these ayat constitute part of the covenant we have taken up with Allah and His Messenger, we must govern all of our life’s affairs according to them. If we fail to do so the ramifications are severe.

The Messenger Muhammad (saws)said 

“If people should break their covenant with Allah and His Messenger, you should realise this has never happened without Allah sending an army against them to take their possessions by force. If the leaders do not govern according to the Book of Allah, you should realise that this has never happened without Allah making them into groups and making them fight one another.” [ibn Majah]

The Muslims, leaders and general peoples have significantly discarded the obligation of commanding good and forbidding evil. Look to our state today, we are unable to come to a platform of unity because we do not judge our life’s affairs according to the Book of Allah. We broke our covenant with Allah and His Messenger, namely that we should apply the edicts of this Deen, thus we have been overcome by the nations like America. The revival and victory of Islam will never arrive unless we return back to our Deen by fulfilling the necessary requirements of commanding the good and forbidding the evil.

Allah said 

And hold fast, all of you together, to the Rope of Allâh (i.e. this Qur'ân), and be not divided among yourselves...[3:103]

Dear Muslim, brothers and sisters, let us return back to this Deen of Islam wholeheartedly and completely. Unify our resources and work with a collective effort to protect and establish this deen, upon the method of the Messenger Muhammad. Rise up to command the good and forbid the evil. 

When these non Muslims even so much even think of trying to defame Islam in any shape or form, they will find this huge, colossal obstacle standing in their way ready to crash down upon them like a vast and immense tsunami, also known the Ummah of Muhammad (saws).

Ibn Taymiyah said

“Many Muslims, trustworthy, people of expertise and fiqh spoke many times about their experiences, when they would surround castles and cities of the Christians in Shaam for a month or more, and the siege of the Muslims was not yielding any fruits. The Muslims were almost going to give up and leave. Then the besieged would start to curse the Messenger of Allah (saws) suddenly the city would fall into our hands and the delay would not even be a day or two.”

These Kuffar have waged war against Allah and His Messenger, by desecrating the Quran in different lands, dishonouring the Messenger Muhammad (saws) and we can see that the junkie armies of world confederates are coming back from the lands of Iraq with their tails between their legs, because there are some Muslims who command the good and forbid the evil of the greatest type. 

And lastly if anyone tries to stop you O Muslims from commanding the good and forbidding the evil, whether that be the corrupt scholars/leaders, or misleading family members, then know you are not the first to be tried and tested in such a manner. Allah tells us in the Quran;

And when a community among them (the Children of Israel)  said: "Why do you preach to a people whom Allâh is about to destroy or to punish with a severe torment?" (The preachers) said: "In order to be free from guilt before your Lord (Allâh), and perhaps they may fear Allâh."

So when they (the people) forgot the remindings that had been given to them, We rescued those who forbade evil, but We seized those who did wrong with a severe torment because they used to rebel (disobey Allâh). [7:164-165]

May Allah guide all of us to the path commanding the good and forbidding the evil and make it easy for us. Ameen!

¹ - Thawbaan heard the messenger Muhammad saws say “the nations are about to invite one another and come upon you, just as those eating invite others to share in their dish.” Someone asked, “Will that be because we are few in number that day?” He replied “No! At that time you will be numerous! But you will be like the ghutha (translated as scum) carried by the torrent, and Allah will remove the fear of you from the hearts of your enemies, and Allah will indeed throw wahn