HOLY LAND FOUNDATION Trial in brief (Dallas)

A few interesting scholarly article quotes about the Holy Land Foundation case:

CQ WEEKLY – IN FOCUS May 28, 2007 – Page 1572
“Islamic Charities Await their Day in Court”
By Shawn Zeller, CQ (Congressional Quarterly) Staff

“What we’ll learn is how far they are willing to go with a guilt-by-association standard,” says Kay Guinane, an opponent of the government’s crackdown and director of nonprofit speech rights at the Washington advocacy group OMB Watch. She argues that, at most, the government’s case shows that Holy Land unwittingly provided humanitarian aid to Palestinian groups that in turn gave some of it to the families of suicide bombers as part of larger disbursements of assistance to the needy.

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Apr2007, Vol. 26 Issue 3, p82-82
“Conscience and Principles”

The article reports that defense lawyers for the Muslim charity Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development have disclosed discrepancies between an official summary and the verbatim transcripts of a wiretapped conversation involving Holy Land officials. The charity was shut down by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush weeks after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The article states that the summary included anti-Semitic comments and inculpatory remarks never uttered by the defendants.

Chronicle of Philanthropy 10/17/2002, Vol. 15 Issue 1
“A Shocking Silence on Muslim Charities.”
Richard L. Moyers, executive director of the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations.

“….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….”

See also:
OMB Watch:
http://www.ombwatch.org/article/blogs/entry/2586/36
The Challenge of Being a Muslim Charity: http://www.ombwatch.org/npa/TheChallengeofbeingaMuslimCharity.pdf
The USA Patriot Act and its Impact on Non-Profit Organizations:
http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/1803