{"id":126,"date":"2007-08-23T14:52:22","date_gmt":"2007-08-23T14:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira.php"},"modified":"2007-08-23T14:52:22","modified_gmt":"2007-08-23T14:52:22","slug":"muslim-group-fights-coconspira","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira","title":{"rendered":"Muslim Group Fights Co-Conspirator Label In Terror-Funding Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press <\/strong><br \/>\nDallas, Aug. 23&#8211;The leader of a nationwide Muslim civil-rights group says the U.S. government tried to shut down his group by publicly alleging it was involved in a terrorism-financing trial.<br \/>\nThe Council on American-Islamic Relations was one of about 250 Muslim individuals and groups named unindicted co-conspirators in the trial of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. Five former Holy Land officials are accused of helping finance Hamas, which the U.S. government designated as a terrorist group.<br \/>\nThe council is fighting its label in court.<br \/>\nParvez Ahmed, chairman of the council, said prosecutors were trying to damage his group&#8217;s reputation and chill Muslim opposition to the prosecution of Holy Land Foundation leaders.<br \/>\n&#8220;I don&#8217;t know how else to interpret it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Our lawyers couldn&#8217;t find another case where the list of unindicted coconspirators is this long and includes people who are dead, and that this was made public, violating the Department of Justice&#8217;s own guidelines.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe judge has barred prosecutors from talking to the press, and a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s office declined to comment.<br \/>\nPeter Margulies, a law professor at Roger Williams University, said naming unindicted coconspirators is rare. The designation carries a stigma, and the government often prefers to keep such information secret.<br \/>\n&#8220;The Department of Justice could argue there was a governmental interest in telling the public that there was a massive terrorist fundraising operation going on in the United States,&#8221; said Aaron Mannes, author of &#8220;Profiles In Terror: The Guide To Middle East Terrorist Organizations.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe council has come up several times in testimony. An FBI agent said two founders of the group were present at a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia at which Hamas supporters plotted how to derail a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians.<br \/>\nAhmed denied any link to Hamas by the council or the two founders who were in Philadelphia.<br \/>\nAhmed said fundraising has fallen since the council was named a coconspirator.<br \/>\nA recent event in Florida that was expected to raise $250,000 brought in $160,000, he said. A dinner last weekend in Dallas that organizers hoped would raise $160,000 raised less than $100,000, he said.<br \/>\nThe council does not disclose membership numbers.<br \/>\n<em><br \/>\nCopyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press Dallas, Aug. 23&#8211;The leader of a nationwide Muslim civil-rights group says the U.S. government tried to shut down his group by publicly alleging it was involved in a terrorism-financing trial. The Council on American-Islamic Relations was one of about 250 Muslim individuals and groups named unindicted co-conspirators in the trial of the Texas-based&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Muslim Group Fights Co-Conspirator Label In Terror-Funding Trial<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Muslim Group Fights Co-Conspirator Label In Terror-Funding Trial\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press Dallas, Aug. 23&#8211;The leader of a nationwide Muslim civil-rights group says the U.S. government tried to shut down his group by publicly alleging it was involved in a terrorism-financing trial. The Council on American-Islamic Relations was one of about 250 Muslim individuals and groups named unindicted co-conspirators in the trial of the Texas-based&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-08-23T14:52:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mkress\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Muslim Group Fights Co-Conspirator Label In Terror-Funding Trial","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Muslim Group Fights Co-Conspirator Label In Terror-Funding Trial","og_description":"Associated Press Dallas, Aug. 23&#8211;The leader of a nationwide Muslim civil-rights group says the U.S. government tried to shut down his group by publicly alleging it was involved in a terrorism-financing trial. The Council on American-Islamic Relations was one of about 250 Muslim individuals and groups named unindicted co-conspirators in the trial of the Texas-based&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2007-08-23T14:52:22+00:00","author":"mkress","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira","name":"Muslim Group Fights Co-Conspirator Label In Terror-Funding Trial","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-08-23T14:52:22+00:00","dateModified":"2007-08-23T14:52:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/e057b0cd671703a20d0b2469410a0027"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/muslim-group-fights-coconspira#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Muslim Group Fights Co-Conspirator Label In Terror-Funding Trial"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/e057b0cd671703a20d0b2469410a0027","name":"mkress","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ad8\/ad8bcb0b4cbf7760cc1c8a13e277348dx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ad8\/ad8bcb0b4cbf7760cc1c8a13e277348dx96.jpg","caption":"mkress"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/mkress"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}