A Shocking Silence on Muslim Charities

Editor’s note: This article went to press before details about the charges against Enaam Arnaout, director of the Benevolence International Foundation, were released by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. Links to articles on the case are available at: http://philanthropy.com/free/update/update.htm

The relationship between government and the nonprofit world has taken a disturbing new turn as the war on terrorism continues. No one seems to be paying attention to the implications of the unprecedented effort by federal agencies, working in concert, to shut down significant charities, seize their records and assets, and force the organizations to suspend operations until their innocence can be proven.

In December, President Bush announced to an anxious American public that the government had taken an “important step” in the fight against terrorism by confiscating the assets and records of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, one of the nation’s largest Muslim charities, and shutting its offices.

In remarks to the news media, the president said that the federal government had closed the organization because of its financial ties to Hamas, the Palestinian extremist group that has taken responsibility for the suicide bombings that have killed and wounded hundreds of Israeli civilians. President Bush went on to say that although the Holy Land Foundation claimed that the $13-million it had raised from Americans in the previous year had provided assistance for needy Palestinians, in reality the funds were used by Hamas to “indoctrinate children to grow up into suicide bombers” and to “recruit suicide bombers and to support their families.”

Little information has been released to substantiate those charges: All that is available is a fact sheet on the White House Web site that notes several linkages between Hamas and the Holy Land Foundation, including transfers of funds to organizations affiliated with Hamas and financial ties to a Hamas leader.

Several weeks after the Holy Land Foundation was closed, the government continued its antiterrorism efforts by taking the assets and records of two smaller charities in Illinois: the Global Relief Foundation and the Benevolence International Foundation. The Global Relief Foundation’s board chair, a Muslim community leader from Ann Arbor, Mich., was arrested for a visa violation and has been held in prison for more than nine months pending a deportation hearing. The executive director of Benevolence International Foundation was arrested in April, and last week he was indicted on charges that he fraudulently obtained donations to support Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.

All three groups say that the government’s charges are false and have taken legal actions to clear their names and regain control of their assets. Their efforts are hampered because they have no money and the government’s case against them relies heavily on evidence that has not been released to anyone, including their lawyers.

The treatment of these organizations raises troubling questions for all charities. Will any organization be subject to the same treatment if the government claims links to terrorism? How broadly will terrorism be defined, and what level of proof or connection will result in an organization being shut down? What about eco-terrorism, or domestic disruptions such as the protests organized against global trade and financial institutions? If a major U.S. philanthropic institution is discovered to have made a grant to an organization that the government claims is linked to terrorism, will it be subject to the same “seize and shut-down” treatment?

The implications for Muslim charities are already being felt and are disturbing. No list of “clean” organizations — those organizations not under government investigation — exists, creating a chilling effect on donations to all Muslim organizations, especially those that work overseas. Millions of dollars in contributions intended for legitimate charitable purposes have been frozen by the Treasury Department, and the work for which the funds were intended remains undone.

It is unclear how many other nonprofit organizations are the focus as part of the war on terrorism. Last month the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that the FBI was investigating donations by Muslim students and groups at universities in Washington and Idaho. What’s more, a number of organizations based outside the United States have been shut down or had their U.S. assets frozen.

The names of the organizations under investigation were leaked to the news media before the government’s intervention — in some cases, several months in advance — tarnishing the reputations of the charities before any government action had been taken. Even if they are later vindicated in court, the nonprofit organizations have suffered irrevocable harm.

The national organizations that exist to ensure fair government oversight of nonprofit groups, and the news media that report on charities and foundations, have been remarkably silent about these cases.

They are, admittedly, in a tough spot. The facts of the cases are unclear and shrouded in secrecy. The organizations in question may indeed have supported terrorist groups, either unwittingly or intentionally. Trust in government remains relatively high, the United States is awash in patriotism, and no individual or organization wants to be perceived as supporting terrorism.

Is it possible that nonprofit leaders assume that since Muslims are a relatively small religious minority in the United States — just 1 percent of the general population, according to researchers at City University of New York — and Muslim organizations represent a correspondingly small percentage of nonprofit organizations, these cases and the issues raised are not applicable to the entire nonprofit world or will never affect “mainstream” organizations?

But the way these charities have been treated should cause America’s nonprofit organizations — particularly those national groups that seek to ensure a favorable operating environment for charities — to revisit the value of acting together on issues that have broad implications for the well-being of all charitable groups.

It may not be appropriate to express outright support for the Muslim organizations that have been shut down as part of the government’s war on terrorism, but America’s nonprofit leaders should be paying attention, and should express some concern about the issues of due process, accountability, and fair treatment raised by these cases. Some specific steps might include:

• Creating a mechanism — perhaps some sort of “safe list” — that would allow donors who wish to support Muslim causes and overseas relief efforts to make contributions with the knowledge that the organization they were supporting was not under investigation or in imminent danger of being shut down. The creation of such a list raises many difficult questions, but still may be worth exploring given the current unprecedented situation.
• Transferring whatever portion of the charity’s assets that represent contributions to some other group that can distribute the funds for their intended purposes under government supervision.
• Encouraging government agencies to communicate more frequently and openly with the news media and the public about shutdowns of nonprofit organizations. Understandably, some information cannot be shared with the public. But given the significance of the actions being taken against charitable organizations, far more information should be made available in a form that is easily accessible to journalists and concerned donors.

Admittedly, each of these suggestions raises complex legal, financial, and regulatory issues, and none would be simple to carry out. But we need to find a way to establish a system that will set a precedent for the way such situations should be handled in the future.

Now is the time for charities to press for new approaches. Otherwise, the nonprofit world should get accustomed to a future in which the federal government can shut down a charity and confiscate its assets, citing links to terrorism and “secret evidence,” and work out the details later.

Richard L. Moyers is executive director of the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations, in Columbus.