CAIR announced the filing of a lawsuit against the US federal government. (Photo: via CAIR website)
Muslim civil rights organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has filed a lawsuit against the FBI and leaders of other government agencies for targeting two Palestinian Americans over their pro-Palestine activism.
The organization announced the legal action on Monday against the federal government “for placing one Palestinian-American on the No Fly List and seizing the electronic device of another, while interrogating him about his lawful organizing against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”
“Dr. Osama Abu Irshaid and Mr. Mustafa Zeidan are both United States citizens of Palestinian descent. Neither Dr. Abu Irshaid nor Mr. Zeidan have ever been charged or convicted of a violent crime,” CAIR said in a statement.
“Yet, recently, the federal government has placed Dr. Abu Irshaid and Mr. Zeidan on a secret list, subjecting one to a humiliating process of detention, questioning, and phone seizure at the border and barring the other from flying altogether.”
As a result of Dr Abu Irshaid’s status on the government’s “secret list”, he is detained at the border by federal agents “each time he crosses it.”
He is asked “humiliating questions about his lawful associations and work leading a non-profit organization that advocates for the rights of Palestinians.”
Phone Seized
Abu Irshaid’s phone has been seized and agents “continue to hold Dr. Abu Irshaid’s cellphone, despite several attempts … through his attorneys, to retrieve it,” CAIR said.
Zeidan travels to Jordan several times a year to visit and take care of his ailing mother, the organization said.
After purchasing a ticket to see her in May of this year, he was forbidden from boarding his flight “because of his status on the Government’s secret list.”
The government has given Zeidan “no explanation” for why he’s been placed on the No Fly List after years of flying overseas without any issues, CAIR stressed.
“Only one thing has changed in the last several months for Mr. Zeidan: he organizes a weekly protest to call for an end to Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza and the United States’ complicity in that genocide,” the organization added.
“The Government is using its secret, illegal list against Dr. Abu Irshaid, Mr. Zeidan, and other innocent Americans, not for a security purpose, but because federal agents object to the lawful exercise of their constitutional rights,” it stated.
Constitutional Grounds
Since October 7, CAIR said, it has received reports from Americans across the country “who have been questioned and harassed by federal law enforcement officials” for their activism in support of Palestine and against the United States’ complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“This lawsuit is among the first to challenge the FBI’s apparent decision to aim its vast apparatus at innocent people who speak up for Palestine and criticize Israel’s violence in Gaza,” the organization said.
It explained that it was “challenging the mistreatment of these Palestinian American activists on constitutional grounds.”
Ongoing Genocide
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Tel Aviv is currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians since it began waging a devastating war on Gaza last October.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 40,005 Palestinians have been killed, and 92,401 wounded. Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety. | via The Palestine Chronicle
This article ‘Secret, Illegal List’ – CAIR Files Lawsuit against FBI for Targeting Pro-Palestine Activists was originally published in The Palestine Chronicle.
