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Ibrahim Hooper, spokesperson for the Muslim civil liberties and advocacy group, Council on American Islamic Relation (CAIR), told Democracy Now's Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales that seizing four mosques and other US properties has First Amendment and religious freedom implications. With special concern got the mosques he said:
"And whenever you're having the government seize houses of worship, whether it's mosques or churches or synagogues, I think that has a chilling effect on the First Amendment freedom of religion, and I think it'll send a very negative message to the Muslim world....I'm already seeing (online) headlines in Muslim media around the world, in the Arab world (saying): "US Government Seizes Mosques in America."
He expressed concern about US headlines like a Sacramento, CA one saying: "Local Mosque Tied to Terror." It has about 50 families that "have nothing to do with terrorism....they just go to the mosque (to) pray."
We've also "seen charity after charity shut down, the assets seized. You know, there's really not a lot left in terms of institutions for charitable giving in the United States, given the eight years of the Bush administration. And, you know, quite frankly, we haven't seen a great improvement under the Obama administration."
After Fort Hood, Muslims have felt a backlash nationwide. "We had the police at our headquarters last night taking a report about death threats we've received." They've been many other reports about intimidation, Muslims called terrorists, and a "lot of hate emails, a lot of threats around the country," and anti-Muslim rhetoric on right-wing talk radio, what's been ongoing since 9/11.
9/11 Suspects to Get New York Civil Court Trial with No Prospect for Due Process or Judicial Fairness
On November 13, Reuters reported that:
"The accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks and four co-conspirators will be sent to New York for trial in a court near the site of the World Trade Centre. (Civil liberties) advocates hailed the decision....but Republicans lashed out, arguing that bringing them to US soil could make New York a magnet for new attacks and that the men deserved military trials." Senator John McCain condemned the decision saying they're "war criminals, who committed acts of war against our citizens and those of dozens of other nations."
Some New Yorkers were also "angry at the prospect of the men coming to a city traumatized by the hijacked-plane attacks eight years ago, but others voiced relief that justice may soon be done." They'll arrive in January, be held at a federal detention facility, and be tried on confessions obtained under torture that the Supreme Court ruled constitutionally inadmissible in Brown v. Mississippi (February 1936), saying:
"The rack and torture chamber may not be substituted for the witness stand."
It cited an earlier Fisher v. State (November 1926) High Court decision, stating:
"Coercing the supposed state's criminals into confessions and using such confessions so coerced from them against them in trials has been the curse of all countries. It was the chief iniquity, the crowning infamy of the Star Chamber (the nororious 15th - 17th century English court), and the Inquisition, and other similar institutions. The Constitution recognized the evils that lay behind these practices and prohibited them in this country....wherever the court is clearly satisfied that such violations exist, it will refuse to sanction such violation and will apply the corrective."
The alleged guilt of these men is very suspect given that they confessed under torture. More evidence also raises doubts. According to Mark Denebeaux and other Seton Hall University Law professors, unclassified government data obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests revealed evidentiary summaries from 2004 military hearings on whether 517 Guantanamo detainees were enemy combatants. They showed that:
-- at most, few Afghan Guantanamo prisoners committed violent acts;
-- 95% were seized by bounty hunters paid $5,000 per claimed Taliban and $25,000 for alleged Al Queda members; and
-- 20 were children, some as young as 13, but all were brutally tortured as later revealed.
