Report: U.S. Anti-Terrorism Policies Hurt Muslim Charities
by Kay Guinane, 3/2/2006
The top ten concerns about the negative overall impact of U.S. anti-terrorism policy on Muslim charities are:
- Drastic sanctions in anti-terrorist financing laws are being used to shut down entire organizations, resulting in loss of badly needed humanitarian assistance around the world and creating a climate of fear in the nonprofit sector.
- Despite sweeping post-9/11 investigative powers, authorities have failed to produce significant evidence of terror financing by U.S.-based charities.
- Questionable evidence has been used to shut down the largest U.S.-based Muslim charities.
- Anti-terrorist financing policies deny charities fundamental due process.
- There are no safe harbor procedures to protect charities acting in good faith or to eliminate the risk of giving to Muslim charities or charitable programs working with Muslim populations.
- Government action has created the perception of ethnic profiling and negatively impacted Muslim giving.
- Organizations and individuals suspected of supporting terrorism are guilty until proven innocent.
- Charitable funds have been withheld from people in need of assistance and diverted to help pay judgments in unrelated lawsuits, violating the intentions of innocent Muslim donors.
- There is unequal enforcement of anti-terrorist financing laws. Treatment of Muslim charities hurts, not helps, the war on terrorism.
