{"id":92,"date":"2007-08-07T17:47:07","date_gmt":"2007-08-07T17:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2007\/08\/defunct-charity-sues-over-terr.php"},"modified":"2007-08-07T17:47:07","modified_gmt":"2007-08-07T17:47:07","slug":"defunct-charity-sues-over-terr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/08\/defunct-charity-sues-over-terr","title":{"rendered":"Defunct Charity Sues Over Terrorist Labeling"},"content":{"rendered":"

RNS
\nBy Les Zaitz
\nPortland, Ore. (RNS) The traces of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation
\nInc., the Islamic charity shut nearly three years for ties to terrorism,
\nare disappearing.
\nThe camel, once a feature in local parades, died. The prayer house
\non the outskirts of town was auctioned. The stockpile of religious books
\nnow sitting in a storage locker dwindles as a lawyer gives them away.
\nTwo of the group’s founders are overseas, fugitives from federal tax and
\ncurrency charges.
\nBut the fight hasn’t gone out of the defunct charity’s supporters
\nand lawyers, who Monday (Aug. 6) sued to erase the government’s
\ndesignation of Al-Haramain as terrorist group. The case, filed in U.S.
\nDistrict Court in Portland, also seeks an order to turn over the
\ncharity’s cash and real estate, frozen in place since early 2004.
\nReversing the government’s action would “remove the stain,” said Tom
\nNelson, one of four lawyers in Portland and Washington, D.C., launching
\nthe fight. He said the lawsuit is being financed by donations from Saudi
\nArabia, where he said there is keen interest in the fate of the Oregon
\ncharity.
\nThe foundation, the U.S. branch of a similarly named Saudi Arabian
\ncharity, formed in 1999 to distribute religious literature and operate
\nan Islamic prayer house. Treasury Department officials in September 2004
\ndeclared the charity was a terrorist organization with direct ties to
\nal-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
\nThe lawsuit maintains the government never produced evidence to back
\nup the terrorist designation. The government has given the charity only
\nits public record in the matter, including newspaper clippings, and has
\nwithheld classified information that led to the terrorist designation.
\nAfter the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration used the
\ndesignation to stop what it suspected was the flow of cash, supplies and
\npeople from American-based Islamic charities to terrorist groups around
\nthe world. Some of the country’s largest charities were put out of
\nbusiness with little revealed about their alleged terrorist ties.
\nThe Ashland charity claims what others have before — that it’s
\nunconstitutional for the government to shut down an organization based
\non secret evidence and no hearing. So far, no Islamic charity has
\nsucceeded in winning a court order clearing them of the terrorist
\ndesignation; four have tried using the same arguments.
\nCopyright 2007 Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RNS By Les Zaitz Portland, Ore. (RNS) The traces of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation Inc., the Islamic charity shut nearly three years for ties to terrorism, are disappearing. The camel, once a feature in local parades, died. The prayer house on the outskirts of town was auctioned. The stockpile of religious books now sitting in a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDefunct Charity Sues Over Terrorist Labeling<\/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\/defunct-charity-sues-over-terr\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Defunct Charity Sues Over Terrorist Labeling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"RNS By Les Zaitz Portland, Ore. (RNS) The traces of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation Inc., the Islamic charity shut nearly three years for ties to terrorism, are disappearing. The camel, once a feature in local parades, died. The prayer house on the outskirts of town was auctioned. 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(RNS) The traces of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation Inc., the Islamic charity shut nearly three years for ties to terrorism, are disappearing. The camel, once a feature in local parades, died. The prayer house on the outskirts of town was auctioned. 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