|
Chicago Tribune - July 11, 2005
For American Muslims, charity can carry risks
Chicago State legislators urge Washington to list safe organizations
By John Biemer
Here's the dilemma: Your religion, like most others, demands that you give to charity. In fact, it's one of the central tenets of your faith. But giving to the wrong charity, even unbeknownst to you, might put you on the wrong side of the War on Terror.
"We want to live under the command of our faith, but how can we if we fear arrest and deportation, profiling, persecution or intimidation?" said Zaher Sahloul, vice president of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago.
Now, almost four years after the Sept. 11 attacks and a federal crackdown on charities allegedly linked to terrorists soon thereafter, steps are being taken to alleviate the fear and anxiety many Muslims feel when they attempt to fulfill one of the five pillars of Islam--Zakat, which compels them to donate 2.5 percent of their annual income to the needy.
In May, the Illinois General Assembly passed bipartisan resolutions calling on the federal government to create a list of Muslim charitable organizations to which one can safely donate, legislation that Muslim and immigrant groups said was the first of its kind. It was natural that such an effort would begin in Illinois because it is home to a sizable and well-organized Muslim population, as well as some of the most prominent charities shut down after the attacks.
"Americans giving charity to Muslim charities need assurance that the charitable contributions they make in good faith to charities in good standing will indeed go to humanitarian purposes and will not give rise to potential retroactive criminal or immigration prosecution," read the advisory resolutions, which passed by voice vote.
"It's an issue of fairness and what's right," said John Millner, a Republican from Carol Stream who sponsored the Illinois House measure before he was appointed a state senator.
The resolutions also cited legislation known as the REAL ID bill--passed this spring by Congress and signed by the president--that threatens to deport immigrants who make a donation to a charity that was in good standing at the time but is later linked to terrorism.
Mehrdad Azemun, a senior organizer for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights who helped push the state legislation, points out that the House resolution's chief sponsor was a white suburban Republican: Millner. The Senate resolution's chief sponsor was a black Chicago Democrat, Sen. Jacqueline Collins. "It demonstrates the very interesting dynamic happening within the overall Muslim community," Azemun observed. "Politically, Muslims are up for grabs."
"The Muslim population is growing throughout the state," said state Sen. Christine Radogno, a Lemont Republican who co-sponsored the Senate resolution. "There are constituents in everyone's district that would benefit from this."
However, the federal government has no plans to develop a list of acceptable charities as suggested by the Illinois lawmakers. The proposal poses problems, said Molly Millerwise, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury Department. Since Sept. 11, she said, terrorists have used and corrupted charitable organizations to raise, move and store money. In some cases, Treasury officials say, groups like Al Qaeda and Hamas have misappropriated religion to justify their actions.
"The largest concern is that the government should not be in the business of picking or choosing favorites with charities and if a charity was noted by the government as clean or safe, there's no way we could guarantee it would remain so," she said.
Instead of a list of acceptable charities, the Treasury Department this year endorsed and guided the creation of a National Council of American Muslim Non-Profits, which would be a self-policing organization working for transparency, accountability and the safe delivery of charitable funds to the proper recipients.
According to the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the U.S. government has closed down 25 Muslim charities and frozen $8 million in donations in Illinois alone.
Although none of the Muslim leaders could put a figure on it, they all agree such actions have left Muslims gun-shy about contributing. Instead of leaving a paper trail of checks, some have resorted to sending envelopes of cash to fulfill their religious obligation, said Ahmed Younis, national director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
"From a counterterrorism standpoint, we're creating a black market that doesn't need to exist," he said……
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/north/chi-0507110112jul11,1,2715621.story
|
