An Op-Ed by OCRegister upon release of Abdel Jabbar Hamdan after his two years unjust detention by the US Government.
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Thursday, August 3, 2006
A semblance of justice
Editorial: Release of Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan was overdue
An Orange County Register editorial
Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan of Buena Park said his arrest and detention for two years in federal custody came from the "paranoia" of an overzealous government in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We're not qualified to make psychiatric diagnoses, but his detention at Terminal Island in San Pedro for two years certainly seems unjustified. It was right that U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter finally ordered him released.
Mr. Hamdan does not deny he was a fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation, a Texas-based Muslim charitable organization that the U.S. government says is a front for Hamas, the Palestinian organization the State Department has classified as terrorist but which recently won elections in the Palestinian territories. The U.S. government shut the Holy Land Foundation's U.S. operations down in 2001, but Mr. Hamdan says that all his work was strictly charitable in nature, not related to supporting terrorism.
That claim might be disingenuous. Money is fungible; money contributed to an organization for one purpose can be diverted to other purposes. But the U.S. government did not document any claim that Mr. Hamdan was knowingly supporting a terrorist group.
He was not arrested for or charged with supporting terrorism, but on charges he overstayed a student visa he got 27 years ago to attend USC. He had appealed deportation and would ordinarily have been released while the appeal was heard. But the government claimed he was a national security threat.
Shakeel Syed, executive director, Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, sees it this way: "It looks to us as if the government is making examples of people who speak out or are prominent in the community. Otherwise, this was a simple immigration violation case."
Assuming Mr. Hamdan did overstay his 27-year-old visa, he had not been in trouble with the law (before this), according to one of his attorneys, and there was an amnesty in 1986. The attorney believes it unlikely the government will be successful in deporting him to Jordan.
If the government was going to make a claim about national security, it should have at the very least have filed charges that backed up the accusation. Keeping people in prison because somebody in government says they're a national security threat is the way of tyrannies, not of constitutional republics governed by the rule of law. The fact that the judiciary finally recognized this injustice is encouraging, but the fact that Mr. Hamdan could be imprisoned for two years on such frivolous grounds suggests that American traditions of fair play and due process are shakier than we might have hoped.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/opinion/editorials/article_1231652.php
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Beware the Tax Collector, Cometh!
Beware, the Tax Collector Cometh!
By Shakeel Syed, Executive Director of the Islamic Shura Council
Romans craftily taxed small farmers, artisans and businesses but exempted the senatorial class, the descendants of anyone who had served in the Roman Senate. Farmers who could not pay their taxes were enslaved (along with their wives and children) and had to give their lands and themselves to the local members of the senatorial class, losing both their freedom and their farms.
History shows us that tax collection is often used by the state as a chief instrument of power. From the ancient Egyptians and Romans to the recent British Empire and now to the emerging Empire of the United States of America, both taxes or the lack there-of is meant to demonstrate power.
The state is now using that power against All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena over a 2004 sermon by Rev. Dr. George Regas in which he said Jesus would have told President Bush, “Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine [that] has led to disaster.”
Beware, the Tax Collector Cometh!
The Tax Collector claims Regas’s sermon implied endorsement of the then presidential Democratic nominee for president, John Kerry. Such discourse from the pulpit is evil, said the Tax Collector and threatened to take away the church’s 501C3 status, one of the key benefits awarded by the state.
Hypocrisy of the tax collector of our time, a.k.a. the I.R.S. (I Are Us as in With Us or Against Us), cannot be but at its worst.
The spiritually and socially responsible All Saints Church is being threatened, for merely calling for justice to the destitute and impoverished while the multi-million dollar 700 Club of the infamous Pat Robertson can continue to get richer in spite of calling for the assassination of a head of state, using the tele-pulpit!
Such are the hypocrisies of the I Are Us; very similar to the Roman inequities. When commoners could not bare the injustices, they rebelled, leading to the downfall of empires. The emerging American Empire should learn from history. Downfall is near.
The role of tax agencies all along in history was to serve as the bullies of the monarchs and dictators. The IRS is no different. Selective enforcement of good law is a demonstration of such corrupt power. A moral audit of IRS is imperative for the health of our society.
501C3 or not. The call to redress inequities and injustices often begins from the pulpit. And that never has, nor will ever change. Else, the Mayflower would never have sailed.
Much before man created the I.R.S. and such three-letter acronyms, the three-letter word, God, always has and always will remain simply supreme. Pulpit or no pulpit, 501C3 or no 501C3, man will always be inspired, like George Regas, to speak for justice and equity for the destitute and impoverished. No I.R.S. can ever succeed in auditing the word of truth to the power.
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An Op-Ed in support of All Saints Church, Pasadena and the threats it received from IRS.
By Shakeel Syed, Executive Director of the Islamic Shura Council
Romans craftily taxed small farmers, artisans and businesses but exempted the senatorial class, the descendants of anyone who had served in the Roman Senate. Farmers who could not pay their taxes were enslaved (along with their wives and children) and had to give their lands and themselves to the local members of the senatorial class, losing both their freedom and their farms.
History shows us that tax collection is often used by the state as a chief instrument of power. From the ancient Egyptians and Romans to the recent British Empire and now to the emerging Empire of the United States of America, both taxes or the lack there-of is meant to demonstrate power.
The state is now using that power against All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena over a 2004 sermon by Rev. Dr. George Regas in which he said Jesus would have told President Bush, “Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine [that] has led to disaster.”
Beware, the Tax Collector Cometh!
The Tax Collector claims Regas’s sermon implied endorsement of the then presidential Democratic nominee for president, John Kerry. Such discourse from the pulpit is evil, said the Tax Collector and threatened to take away the church’s 501C3 status, one of the key benefits awarded by the state.
Hypocrisy of the tax collector of our time, a.k.a. the I.R.S. (I Are Us as in With Us or Against Us), cannot be but at its worst.
The spiritually and socially responsible All Saints Church is being threatened, for merely calling for justice to the destitute and impoverished while the multi-million dollar 700 Club of the infamous Pat Robertson can continue to get richer in spite of calling for the assassination of a head of state, using the tele-pulpit!
Such are the hypocrisies of the I Are Us; very similar to the Roman inequities. When commoners could not bare the injustices, they rebelled, leading to the downfall of empires. The emerging American Empire should learn from history. Downfall is near.
The role of tax agencies all along in history was to serve as the bullies of the monarchs and dictators. The IRS is no different. Selective enforcement of good law is a demonstration of such corrupt power. A moral audit of IRS is imperative for the health of our society.
501C3 or not. The call to redress inequities and injustices often begins from the pulpit. And that never has, nor will ever change. Else, the Mayflower would never have sailed.
Much before man created the I.R.S. and such three-letter acronyms, the three-letter word, God, always has and always will remain simply supreme. Pulpit or no pulpit, 501C3 or no 501C3, man will always be inspired, like George Regas, to speak for justice and equity for the destitute and impoverished. No I.R.S. can ever succeed in auditing the word of truth to the power.
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An Op-Ed in support of All Saints Church, Pasadena and the threats it received from IRS.
Governor of California's selective representation
The Governor's Cold Shoulder to Muslims
Rebuffing California's Islamic leaders sends a message of intolerance.
By Shakeel Syed. SHAKEEL SYED is the executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.
August 25, 2006. EARLIER THIS MONTH, with war raging in the Middle East, I saw that my governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was meeting with rabbis and others who support Israel. As executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, a federation of more than 75 mosques and Muslim organizations serving half a million Muslims, I thought that such a high public official should also meet with members of my community. I wrote to him on Aug. 7.I wanted to talk to the governor about three important points. I wanted him to know that my community felt that the deaths of innocent Israeli civilians from the rockets of Hezbollah were painfully tragic, and just as tragic as the deaths of innocent Lebanese people and the destruction of their country's infrastructure by the Israeli bombing. I wanted to ask him to listen to another, equally important side of the story. And I wanted to urge him to remember that the governor should represent and listen to all the people of California.After waiting for more than a week, and following up with at least 10 phone calls to the governor's office, I had gotten no response. I felt it was my duty and my right as a citizen to avail myself of a public forum to reach the governor. When a reporter from the L.A. Times called, I spoke with him and, on Aug. 16, The Times correctly reported my perspective: The fact that the governor had ignored my request to meet was disrespectful and insulting. I believe what I did comes under the heading of Democracy 101. Politicians govern and win elections by responding to the populace. And when they do not, the populace has two remedies: the power of the vote and the power of public opinion. Finally, when the governor agreed to meet with two Muslims, it was as individuals, not on behalf of any organization. He refused to meet with me. His communications director, Adam Mendelsohn, was forthright in a public statement: "We did not meet with Mr. Syed [because] it was inappropriate for the governor to meet with someone who uses the media to demand meetings and threaten political retaliation." I think the governor's communications director needs work on his communication skills. What he calls demanding a meeting, I call paying attention to constituents; what he calls political retaliation, I call voting.I think that deliberately avoiding a meeting with me solely because I made use of my 1st Amendment rights is simply un-American. This isn't a personal matter between me and the governor. It's about making sure that the half a million people I represent are heard in Sacramento. Marginalizing Californians who are Muslims subtly reinforces anti-Muslim stereotypes, which all too often cast us as outsiders. This is not principled, it's not good politics and it's not good for the state. In these volatile times, with attacks on Muslims and our mosques, we cannot afford to be ignored by our governor; we can't stand by when his actions deepen religious and cultural divisions. Californians are, by and large, decent and well-intentioned. They want to solve problems; they want to break down barriers.Shouldn't their governor be helping them bring down the walls that separate us rather than building them higher?
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Published as an Op-Ed in Los Angeles Times on Aug 25, 2006.(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-syed25aug25,0,2973237.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail)
Rebuffing California's Islamic leaders sends a message of intolerance.
By Shakeel Syed. SHAKEEL SYED is the executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.
August 25, 2006. EARLIER THIS MONTH, with war raging in the Middle East, I saw that my governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was meeting with rabbis and others who support Israel. As executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, a federation of more than 75 mosques and Muslim organizations serving half a million Muslims, I thought that such a high public official should also meet with members of my community. I wrote to him on Aug. 7.I wanted to talk to the governor about three important points. I wanted him to know that my community felt that the deaths of innocent Israeli civilians from the rockets of Hezbollah were painfully tragic, and just as tragic as the deaths of innocent Lebanese people and the destruction of their country's infrastructure by the Israeli bombing. I wanted to ask him to listen to another, equally important side of the story. And I wanted to urge him to remember that the governor should represent and listen to all the people of California.After waiting for more than a week, and following up with at least 10 phone calls to the governor's office, I had gotten no response. I felt it was my duty and my right as a citizen to avail myself of a public forum to reach the governor. When a reporter from the L.A. Times called, I spoke with him and, on Aug. 16, The Times correctly reported my perspective: The fact that the governor had ignored my request to meet was disrespectful and insulting. I believe what I did comes under the heading of Democracy 101. Politicians govern and win elections by responding to the populace. And when they do not, the populace has two remedies: the power of the vote and the power of public opinion. Finally, when the governor agreed to meet with two Muslims, it was as individuals, not on behalf of any organization. He refused to meet with me. His communications director, Adam Mendelsohn, was forthright in a public statement: "We did not meet with Mr. Syed [because] it was inappropriate for the governor to meet with someone who uses the media to demand meetings and threaten political retaliation." I think the governor's communications director needs work on his communication skills. What he calls demanding a meeting, I call paying attention to constituents; what he calls political retaliation, I call voting.I think that deliberately avoiding a meeting with me solely because I made use of my 1st Amendment rights is simply un-American. This isn't a personal matter between me and the governor. It's about making sure that the half a million people I represent are heard in Sacramento. Marginalizing Californians who are Muslims subtly reinforces anti-Muslim stereotypes, which all too often cast us as outsiders. This is not principled, it's not good politics and it's not good for the state. In these volatile times, with attacks on Muslims and our mosques, we cannot afford to be ignored by our governor; we can't stand by when his actions deepen religious and cultural divisions. Californians are, by and large, decent and well-intentioned. They want to solve problems; they want to break down barriers.Shouldn't their governor be helping them bring down the walls that separate us rather than building them higher?
----------
Published as an Op-Ed in Los Angeles Times on Aug 25, 2006.(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-syed25aug25,0,2973237.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail)
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