London mayor Livingstone launches anti-”Islamophobia” coalition

“The coalition is being set up in the light of ‘claims that different communities and faith groups openly expressing their culture or faith threaten community relations in Britain.’”

Yes, that could never be true.

“Livingstone plays the ‘Islamophobia’ card,” from the National Secular Society, with thanks to WriterMom:

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has launched a new “Coalition to defend freedom of religious and cultural expression.” The coalition is being set up in the light of “claims that different communities and faith groups openly expressing their culture or faith threaten community relations in Britain.”Speakers at the launch included the Mayor of London; peace campaigner and activist Bruce Kent; writer Ismail Patel from the British Muslim Initiative; Dr Daud Abdullah, Deputy General Secretary, Muslim Council of Britain; Edie Friedman, Director, Jewish Council for Racial Equality; Andrew Stunell MP; and Steve Sinnott, National Union of Teachers.

The launch document for the group says: “The coalition is being set up in the light of continuing media and other claims that different communities and faith groups openly expressing their culture or faith threaten community relations in Britain. Such claims have been most recently and strongly directed at the Muslim community, particularly focusing on the right of Muslim women to wear the veil. But such attacks have also recently included a high profile case where a staff member at British Airways was prohibited from wearing a crucifix. The established rights of Sikh community to wear turbans have also come under assault.”…

Strangely there are no secularist groups among those invited to participate in the coalition, and the MCB obviously thinks that the whole thing is there to protect Islam. In its statement it says: “The MCB welcomes this important initiative. It constitutes a major step toward the protection of religious rights that have become increasingly under threat in the name of security.”…

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “Obviously everybody wants to increase understanding between communities that are ignorant of each other, but Ken Livingstone is not the man to do it. His claims that assaults against Muslims are widespread and common is highly suspect. If you take out the politically motivated arguments about veils and crosses there is very little in the way of aggression towards Muslims beyond the racism that all minority communities suffer. I am highly suspicious of this ‘coalition’. We have to beware that it is not just another instrument for pressurising the Government into giving some kind of undesirable protection to religious beliefs.”

Source: http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/016811.php

Open Letter to Oprah

By: Ali Baghdadi

Dear Oprah, I am so glad that you will be visiting my country, Palestine. I wish if I could be there to greet you. Certainly, despite the genocide and ethnic cleansing they face every hour of the day, my people will be there. They will be happy to see you and will receive you with open arms. Unfortunately, I cannot be there! My family tree and my roots in Palestine go back to time immemorial, long before Islam, Christianity and Judaism came into being. Last July, I was given entry to my homeland only as a tourist, with an American passport and a Japanese camera. Though I am 70 years old, I had to stand at the Israeli immigration window at Sheikh Hussein entry point on the Jordan River for over seven hours before I was allowed in to visit my home and family. Months earlier, Canadian Jews were processed and given Israeli citizenship to my land while they were 35,000 feet high over the Atlantic.  Arabs, throughout history, are known to be hospitable to their guests. You will be no exception. For many centuries, Jews escaped the discrimination and death they were subjected to in Europe, and found safety and refuge among us. Muslims believe in Christianity and Judaism. The Quran states there is no distinction between Muhammad, Jesus and Moses. Therefore, according to our Islamic teachings, all are prophets of God and all must be honored and respected.   You must know that Zionist Jews from all over the world, particularly Europe, came to my Palestine, not as guests, but as settlers and occupiers in the early part of the 20th century. The natives were referred to as “snakes” from which the land must be cleansed.   In 1948 they occupied 72% of my land and emptied out over 500 Arab (Christian and Muslim) towns and villages. In 1967 they occupied the remaining 28%. Six million of us have been living in refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon for the last fifty nine years, even though the United Nations ordered the Israeli government to allow us to return (1948 UN resolution 194).  Our Palestine is so beautiful. You will enjoy it. It is a museum. So many civilizations have mixed and melted there. Throughout history, invaders came and finally left. We remained. We survived. As we offered the Crusaders who occupied our holy lands for two hundred years, Jews can stay and share our land, if they wish to live in a free and democratic Palestine that respects the rights of all, regardless of their religion, race, or ethnicity. Those who refuse and insist to live in an apartheid state will inevitably pack up and return to their native lands.  Please, visit Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, and Nazareth within the so-called Green Line. Take pleasure in the aroma of our orange orchards on the Mediterranean coast. Drive to the top of the Mount of al-Carmel and enjoy its beauty and the splendid view.  Elie Wiesel, your host, will take you to the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem to show you the crimes committed by the Germans against the Jews. Undoubtedly, when the visit is completed, he will attempt to usher you away; but if you look down across the valley you can see the site of the massacre of the village of Deir Yassin. Hundreds of armless and helpless Arab men, women, and children were shot to death, by the Irgun, Wiesel’s associates and friends, in April 1948. The remaining women survivals were paraded in trucks through the streets of Jerusalem. I can never forget this scene, just can’t. My family, among the thousands of Palestinians, had to flee. “NEVER AGAIN” are two hollow words. They don’t apply to non-Jews.  Oprah, I beg you not to forget visiting Gaza and the West Bank where over three million of us still live. All attempts made to force them leave and run for their lives have failed. Take pictures of the 700 kilometer apartheid wall and reflect on the political messages of the graffiti it displays. I was struck by one of these messages at the entry to Bethlehem. “Thou not steal.” Confiscation of our lands, however, continues until this day.  Experience some of the military check points where our people have to stand in line for hours before they are allowed to cross. Witness the harassment and degradation my people are subjected to. A 20 minute journey from a village to another takes 7 hours. Many pregnant Arab women have lost their babies while waiting for clearance on their way to hospitals. There are over 550 of these checkpoints that divide our land into ghettos in the West Bank alone. Though the water we get does not meet our basic needs, notice the swimming pools Israelis enjoy in settlements built on our stolen lands.   Of course, the highlight of your trip will be the performance of pilgrimage in Jerusalem, the city of Jesus. It is also the city of my birth. The school I attended is the site of the palace where he received his death sentence.   My home is only a couple of blocks away from the Via Dolorosa, the path he took to his crucifixion. Walk through the narrow and curved alleys where he walked. I did that without interruption for 23 years. Those days are gone.  Oprah, stand on top of the Mount of Olives, as I often did, and experience the glory and majesty of Jerusalem, its al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, the Holy Sepulcher, and other houses of worship. Observe the magnificence of the ancient wall built by Muslims to defend and protect these priceless treasures. Hear al-azan, the Muslim call for prayer, as it joins in unison with bells coming from Christian churches. What an eternal symphony!   Please proceed to the village of Bethany, three miles to the east. Go down the steps of the cave that leads to the tomb of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. The small dark room on top of the cave was the shelter my mother, my three younger sisters, and I took after we escaped the carpet bombing of the old city of Jerusalem in 1948. My Muslim cousin is the custodian of the holy cave, a great honor that his family inherited from a generation to a generation. His father, an illiterate, was able to recite to Christian worshipers the story of Lazarus, in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Greek, and other foreign languages.   Don’t miss the opportunity to drive five miles south to Bethlehem. Feel the ecstasy of entering the most dramatic cave in which the Virgin Mary delivered her beautiful Palestinian baby. During the Second Intifadah, the uprising against Israeli occupation, Muslim and Christian activists, chased by the Israeli death squads, were given refuge in the church.  You may go and see the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized, only a thirty minute drive. Beware; don’t plunge into the dirty and polluted waters. The river is almost dry. Its waters were diverted by the Israelis. Five miles west, near Jericho, you will pass by the Mount of Temptation where Jesus fasted for forty days. I can no longer walk up the steep mountain and pay respect to the Greek monks who chose to dedicate their lives to their Lord at their ancient and lonely monastery at the summit.  I do know that Mr. Mandela, who is probably the most respected man on Earth today, is your friend and hero. He is also mine. I met him in Chicago; and I had the honor of visiting him at his home in South Africa, years back.   You are also a friend and a great admirer of Cape Town Archbishop Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize dignitary, a man who has stood against injustice and racism almost his entire life. Both men describe Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, the natives of the land, as worse than apartheid. Recently, Israel prevented Bishop Tutu from coming to Gaza to investigate and report Israel’s war crimes to the United Nations.  I must tell you that Israel was the closest ally to the White Supremacists of South Africa. In fact, South Africa allowed Israel to test its nuclear weapons in the ocean off South Africa. The Israelis were given a blank check: they could test whenever they desired and did not even have to ask permission. Both worked on an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs.   Arabs have always supported the dismantling of this racist government. In 1962, African-Arab Sudan granted Mandela a passport to travel with to gain international support in his struggle to free his people. Libya, among other Arab states, provided Mandela and other African liberation movements, political as well as material support. As a result, Libya was designated by the White House as a terrorist rogue state. What a great honor!  A few days ago, Amnesty International’s annual report was released. The report slams Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories. It documents some of the “serious human rights abuses” Israel commits daily. It also spoke of the “war crimes” that Israel had committed in Lebanon.  Arnold Toynbee, the world renowned historian, stated that what the Zionist Jews did to the Palestinians is worse than what the Nazis did to the Jews, because, as he stated, Jews should have learned from their tragic experience.  Dear Oprah, I do understand the enormous pressure you are subjected to. But I am encouraged by your speech to HowardUniversity graduates. “My integrity is not for sale.… Do not be a slave to any form of selling out”, you remarked.   When you return, may God of the Universe grant you the courage to tell the world of what you actually witnessed. Judging from the terrible attacks and insults former President Jimmy Carter has recently experienced for his book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, I do not claim that the task is easy.   However, it would be an unforgivable crime for those who have suffered from slavery and are still suffering from discrimination, to ignore the suffering of others.  With Peace and Love,  Ali Baghdadi (arabjournl@aol.com)  (An Arab-American activist, writer, columnist; worked with several African-American groups on civil and human rights issues since the mid sixties; acted as a Middle East advisor to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad the founder of the Nation of Islam, as well as Minister Louis Farrakhan; visited more than 80 countries throughout the world and met with many of their leaders, including Mandela, Castro, Saddam Hussein, Hafez Assad, Qathafi, Abdallah ibn Abdel-Aziz, Rafsanjani, Ayatollah Khamenei, among many others.)

Muslim “innocent-until-proven-guilty” prisoners and their visitors face abuse in Canadian prison system

By Tahir Mahmoud

Exactly a year after 17 Muslims were arrested on terrorism-related charges in Toronto, the case is largely being ignored by the media for two main reasons.  One is an official ban on reporting of court proceedings, the other is the fact that several individuals—all of them minors at the time—have had charges against them either reduced or dropped altogether because of lack of evidence. This is not something the Islamophobic Canadian media want their readers to know.  To say that these Muslims are innocent until proven guilty and that some of the charges against them have been dropped would go against the negative image they have so carefully crafted of Muslims as “terrorists”.

While the courts move at a snail’s pace and nobody has been pronounced guilty of any crime so far, this has not prevented guards at the Maplehurst Correctional Facility near Brampton, Ontario, where the youths are held in solitary confinement, from displaying their brutal nature.  The youths are charged under federal law but held in a provincial facility.  This enables the authorities to deny responsibility for the detainees’ mistreatment.  For instance, the prison authorities claim that the detainees’ solitary confinement is the result of a court order.  Each is held in a small cell measuring 4×6 metres for 23.5 hours a day.  The cell has a concrete bed with a filthy mattress and an equally filthy pillow without a cover.  There is a side-table, a sink and a toilet.  They are allowed just half an hour daily for fresh air, but even this privilege is denied if there is a particularly sadistic guard on duty.

On May 12 one of the accused, Steven Chand, was dragged out of the shower naked because the guard insisted his time was up while he still had soap on his hair and face.  Slammed to the floor, the guard struck him repeatedly while uttering profanities, according to the wife of another detainee who phoned her.  Chand was then dragged to his cell, thrown in and locked up, still naked.  He sustained numerous injuries, and two days later when he appeared in court could not sit properly because of the pain.  When his lawyer tried to raise the assault case with the judge, he was told the court was only hearing arguments about their confinement; if the defence lawyer wanted to raise another issue he must make a separate application.  The hostile attitude of some judges has emboldened the guards, not famed for good behaviour anyway, to act even more brutally.  Three days later another detainee, Asad Durrani, was beaten up.  Alarmed by such behaviour, leaders of the Muslim community have asked for a meeting with Monte Kwinter, provincial minister for correctional services, but have not yet been given an appointment.

Some guards abuse detainees verbally using profane language against Allah and the Prophet of Islam, upon whom be peace.  Others deprive them of sleep or threaten them with execution.  One under-age youth released on bail last August has been so traumatised by his experiences in jail that he is suffering serious mental problems.  He often wakes up in the middle of the night screaming; at other times he is either completely withdrawn or goes into a rage and fights his parents.

Guards even abuse family members—mothers, fathers or wives—of the detainees during the half hour per week visiting time they are allowed.  It should be noted that visitors are separated by flexi-glass screen and they can only talk through a phone, thereby depriving them of privacy.  In one instance, the elderly mother of one detainee was left locked in the room for 20 minutes even after her son had been taken back to his cell.  She banged on the door, but the guards ignored her.  The father of another detainee was locked inside the visiting room for more than half hour.  Complaints by family members and defence lawyers to prison officials and the courts have not resulted in any improvement in the guards’ behaviour.

There appears to be a pattern to such abuse.  While the courts have not convicted anyone so far, prison guards and crown attorneys seem to treat them as criminals.  Even convicted criminals have certain basic rights; in case of the Muslim detainees, they appear to have no rights simply because they are Muslims.  A crown attorney privately confided to a defence lawyer that if it were up to him, he would drop the charges, but that he was under “pressure” not to do so.  What kind of pressure is not difficult to imagine.

Since September 2001, there has been extreme hatred toward Muslims; Islamophobia has become widespread and has gained respectability.  Western governments, especially those that wish to ingratiate themselves with US president George Bush, go to extraordinary lengths to project an image of being tough on their Muslim citizens.  Making wild allegations or even borrowing Bush’s racist language is considered especially useful.  Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper of the rightwing Conservative Party has been particularly keen to be in Bush’s good books.  The day after the 17 youths were arrested, Harper said while addressing military cadets in Ottawa: “Their alleged target was Canada.  Canadian institutions.  The Canadian economy.  The Canadian people.  As at other times in our history, we are a target because of who we are.  And how we live.  Our society, our diversity, and our values.  Values such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law.  Values that make Canada great.  Values that Canadians cherish” (emphasis added).  One can hear echoes of Bush’s nonsensical rhetoric—”they hate our freedoms”—that has been used to such deadly effect in the US.  Because Muslims are a soft target, they are being demonized to score cheap political points.  In his eagerness to appease Bush, Harper apparently forgot that the matter was before the courts and that he should not make allegations that would make a fair trial difficult.

Politicians are not the only ones indulging in such blatant racism that, if directed against any other community—Blacks or Jews, for instance—would be immediately denounced.  Intelligence agencies and the media take their cue from politicians.  When the prime minister of a country indulges in such racist cant, it is hardly surprising that others go even further.

After their arrest, the suspects were brought to court surrounded by tight security, with sharp-shooters dressed in black uniforms brandishing submachine guns on rooftops and helicopters circled overhead to whip up mass hysteria.  Gun-toting police officers were also present inside the courtroom when they were brought in chains—leg irons and handcuffs—before the judge.  For an entire week, crown attorneys made wild allegations so that the media could splash them on their front pages and on television to create the impression that these are hardened criminals.  Thereafter, the court imposed a ban on all reporting.  Rocco Galati, a leading defence lawyer, condemned this decision, saying: “For a week, a public trial of the accused was held in the parking lot outside the courthouse and now a gag order has been imposed.” He not only demanded an open trial but also insisted there should be complete access for the media to report on what is going on inside the courtroom.  The crown attorneys would have none of this because it would expose the allegations as untenable and the game would be up. 

Similar allegations were made by officials of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS).  Luc Portelance, CSIS assistant director for operations, speaking at a press conference on June 3, 2006 said: “It’s important to note that this operation in no way reflects negatively on any specific community or ethno-cultural group in Canada.  Terrorism is a dangerous ideology and a global phenomenon.  As yesterday’s arrests demonstrate, Canada is not immune from this ideology.”  While this may have sounded like exonerating the larger Muslim community of any wrongdoing, there was no mistaking the fact that he said the arrested youths were involved in terrorist acts.  The use of such loaded expressions as “terrorist ideology” is a complete giveaway.

An ideology is a set of beliefs or doctrines that “form the basis of a political, economic, or other system”, while terrorism is “the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons”, according to the American Heritage Dictionary.  It is immediately obvious to any reasonably informed person that the US and Israel, together with their Western allies, are the chief practitioners of terrorism in the world today.  Terrorism as a tool is embedded in their ideology of violence and murder.  Human life has little value for them; one only has to look at the situations in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan to confirm this.  They have murdered or displaced millions of people without any concern for their plight.

A fundamental principle of law is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.  It is the prosecution’s responsibility to prove beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of the accused; the latter does not have to prove his innocence.  In the case of the Toronto-17, this principle has been turned on its head.  The government has provided only sketchy evidence against the individuals, dramatizing each aspect as if they were out to destroy the whole world if they had not been apprehended.  Their star witness—the police informant and instigator, Mubin Shaikh—has admitted to the media that he misled these youth over a period of two years.  He was promised a sum of $369,000—only part of which has been paid to him—to entrap young men who happened to be loose talkers. 

While media statements by the prosecution’s chief witness have clearly embarrassed crown attorneys, the question is why these under-age youths were arrested in such a brutal manner when they had been under police surveillance for two years.  More than 400 heavily armed police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) troopers stormed their homes and not only arrested the suspects but also brutalized their families, breaking down doors and holding everyone, including infants, at gunpoint.  Several machine-gun-mounted trucks were also used in the raids.  In one case, the elderly mother of one of the accused who was in sajda during maghrib salat was nearly choked when one police officer put his boot on her neck.

Media frenzy was then whipped up; racist writers were given complete freedom to spew anti-Muslim venom on the front pages of leading newspapers.  Margret Wente and Christie Blatchford, two columnists for the Globe and Mail, usually regarded as a responsible newspaper, gave them front-page space to print their toxic brew of racist invective.  In a column entitled “The biggest elephant in the room,” Blatchford called the arrested youth “brown-skinned” and wrote: “They have first names like Mohamed, middle names like Mohamed and last names like Mohamed.” She even mocked the police chief’s concern that the windows of a mosque were smashed immediately after the arrests: “Windows everywhere in Canada’s largest city are safe, especially windows in mosques.  The war on windows will be won, whatever the cost.” This on the front page of Canada’s leading newspaper!

With Blatchford, and others like her, as the new face of the Canadian media, the prospects for Muslims in Canada  for equality before the law and in society appear bleak indeed.

The above article must be read by Human Rights Agencies. I am going to send emails to as many of these agencies as possible. The whole world has to do something about this. I am never gonna sit and watch innocents being tortured just because of their religion. 

Bush mantra: Be afraid, be very afraid

  

By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY

McClatchy Newspapers

The Democrats in Congress wring their hands, gnash their teeth and wail that there was nothing they could do but cave in and vote to continue funding the war in Iraq. After all, that crafty George W. Bush had maneuvered them into a corner and they didn’t have the votes to override his veto.

Horse manure.

All they had to do was keep passing a war funding bill with a hard-and-fast timetable for beginning – and ending – the complete withdrawal of the more than 150,000 American troops fighting in that far-away place. Over and over and over, throwing it back into the face of a president who mistakes stubborn and hardheaded for principled resolve.

If that president continued to veto all the bills Congress sent to him, the money eventually would run out, although with a Defense Department budget of half a trillion dollars a year the administration could and probably would keep robbing Peter to pay Paul until both Peter and Paul were broke.

By which time it should be apparent to all who the real problem was and where the blame properly rested for failing to provide the money for an orderly end to the war that George W. Bush started and is determined will not end in his lifetime or ours.

Texas friends of the president told columnist Georgie Ann Geyer that it’s the president’s intention to arrange things so that his successors for half a century will never be able to pull out of Iraq. That George W. Bush intends that his blighted and bloody legacy of an unnecessary war that’s hurt us more than it’s hurt our enemies will continue, just as America’s more rational and less costly commitment in Korea has continued.

Throwing a wrench into such misguided machinery isn’t all that hard when you have check-writing authority. All it takes is courage and integrity and an absence of fear. Alas, that was lacking on Capitol Hill when the Democratic leadership, or what passes for such, cratered and caved.

Their eye is on the 2008 presidential elections, and their fear is that the White House spinmeister Karl Rove will portray the Democratic nominee and all Democrats as soft on terror; will accuse them of stabbing the American troops in the back.

The operative word here is “FEAR” and fear is the true legacy that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their neo-conservative chickenhawk corps will leave behind them.

They’ve instilled fear in the American people, beginning the day after 9/11, and they’ve played it like a Wurlitzer organ every day since then. Every time bad news looms on their horizon, up goes the red flag. Or the orange flag. Or the yellow flag. The national terror threat alert system became a 24/7 traffic light, except that it never turns green.

Whenever the truth threatens to intrude on the White House pipe dreams, suddenly the Federal Bureau of Investigation seems to uncover another huge and scary terrorist plot. A dirty bomb to be planted in the heart of an American city. A plot to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch. Another plot to blow up Chicago’s premier skyscraper. A plan for steely eyed killers disguised as pizza delivery boys to attack Fort Dix, N.J., and kill American soldiers.

The latest: A plot to blow up the jet fuel pipeline to John F. Kennedy Airport.

Dangerous enemies are out there, but at the heart of all these journeys into darkness were bumbling fools without money, weapons or even a mastermind. Without everything but an FBI informant keeping them talking for a year or so.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in the darkest days of the Depression, declared that the American people had nothing to fear but fear itself. The only thing George W. Bush apparently fears is the absence of fear.

Just as they believe that a lie repeated often enough will somehow become the truth (ask Vice President Cheney about Iraq’s non-existent alliance with al-Qaeda for example), so also do they apparently believe that if they cry “wolf” often enough most Americans will willingly trade their freedoms for the illusion of security. That such a deal usually results in the victims ending up with neither freedom nor security seems lost in this transaction.

This administration has injected fear into the American people; into much of the media, whose duty it is to speak truth to power, not cower before the powerful; into a mighty nation’s foreign policy; and now even into the Democratic majority in Congress.

Fear saps the will and decision-making power of humans. Fear blurs all that is good and decent, and blinds us to evil being done in our name.

Enough is enough. We have lived for more than six years in fear of our neighbors, fear of a world turned hostile by the words and actions of our own leaders, fear of a future that once was a bright and shining dream.

What we must do is give up fear for the 600-odd days that remain in this president’s lease on the White House. As those old bumper stickers declared: NO FEAR! We can be, we must be, alert, on guard and observant because there are evildoers in this world. We need not be foolhardy – but we must be clear-eyed and clear-headed and determined that never again will we be manipulated by a crew of cynical politicians who know only how to hate, not how to love.

No fear!

—

ABOUT THE WRITER

Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young.” Readers may write to him at: P.O. Box 399, Bayside, Texas 78340; e-mail: jlgalloway2@cs.com.

JFK airport plot ‘a US setup’

The four suspects in an alleged terror plot to bomb a New York airport were set up in an elaborate plan by the US Republican party to retain hold of the White House, the daughter of an arrested suspect claimed on Tuesday.Huda Ibrahiim, daughter of Amir Kareem Ibrahiim, one of four men accused of plotting acts of terrorism against the United States, said US justice officials had engaged in entrapment in breaking up the alleged plot.

Huda, 20, speaking on behalf of the Trinidad and Tobago and the Guyanese Shi’ite Muslim community, read from a prepared statement in a press conference at a hotel in Port Of Spain.

She said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant key to breaking up the alleged plot had presented himself as an Islamic missionary from the United States while visiting the homes of Abdul Kadir and Amir Ibrahiim.

The FBI’s informant, whom she called “the source”, “is the only person culpable of any of the activities mentioned in the complaint.

Intent to entrap

“The source visited our brothers with the specific intent to entrap them in activities they know nothing about, never agreed to and did not participate in,” said Huda.

Her 62-year-old father, 56-year-old former Guyanese parliamentarian Abdul Kadir, along with Russell De Freitas and Abdel Nur, both of Guyanese heritage, allegedly plotted to blow up fuel-tank pipelines at New York City’s John F Kennedy International Airport.

Ibrahiim, a Trinidadian, and Kadir appeared in Trinidad court on Monday while Nur gave himself up to local authorities on Tuesday. All three men are facing extradition to the US where De Frietas has already been arraigned.

“We believe that the persons responsible for the arrest of our brothers are doing it for a purpose other than the protection of the people and interests of the USA,” Huda said.

“They have apparently done so in the interest of shoring up a lame duck presidency and increasing the lame chances of the Republican party being returned to power in November 2008″, said Huda, whose father is a retired government accounts clerk.

‘Sure of their innocence’

She also said her father was afraid to fly, was not computer literate and does not use the internet.

“We are absolutely sure of their innocence. Neither of these men and we believe no one in our community participates in activities as those alleged in the public statements or in the filed complaint of the Department of Justice”, she said.

As believers in Islamic Sharia, they followed the cardinal principles of the Koran, she said, including the principle that the blood of civilians is sacred.

“To our Muslim brothers and sisters we swear by Allah, the Lord of Muhammad, that we have not participated in any terrorist plot against the United States,” she added.