Helping Political Prisoners is Part of our Faith

The National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms (NCPCF) has announced their Fourth Annual Ramadan gift campaign for Muslim prisoners, who have been the victims of overzealous pre-emptive prosecution, entrapment, and false charges. NCPCF was created "to educate the public about the erosion of civil and political freedoms in our society, and the abuses of prisoners within the U.S. criminal justice system especially after 9/11." It is a collection of weak organizations, which need our help to grow stronger and advocate more effectively.

Dozens of American Muslims are living out long prison sentences under abusive conditions and solitary confinement. These are people who are so beloved to Allah that they are being tested. And we ourselves are being tested in relationship to them.

It has been narrated by Saeed through his chain from Hibban bin Jabalah, that the Messenger of Allah (SAWS) said: "Indeed it is obligatory upon the Muslims to free their captives or to pay their ransoms." It is not easy for us in America to pay for someone's freedom - or even pay for their lawyer fees - but we can still make a huge difference to the life of someone caged and helpless.

Those prisoners who have no family in the US, nor a network of friends, may have no money in their commissary. Prisoners need money to be able to make phone calls, or buy razors, toilet paper, toothpaste, stamps and paper as well as snacks.

"The Federal Bureau of Prisons allows for special purchase of Ramadan items (such as dates) during this holy month and NCPCF would like to send the money as soon as possible so the inmates can receive them before mid June."

This Ramadan, NCPCF is seeking 180 individuals to donate $105 to a Muslim in America's prisons. The $5 would pay for the money transfer fee. This is an opportunity to help someone you don't already know about, to go beyond the high profile cases that already have a lot of supporters taking care of their everyday needs. But even the high profile cases, after some time, the world forgets about them. I wrote to one prisoner at CMU after about 8 years of incarceration, who told me that although he used to be well known and respected in the community, nobody but his mother corresponded with him anymore. He had even stopped receiving photos of his children. He requested me to send money to another Muslim prisoner who did not even have shampoo.

If you already have a previously established relationship with a prisoner, please consider them also when you are calculating your zakat. If you don't have the money at least send them a card! There are also volunteer organizations which drive children to visit their parents in prison.

Other ways to help prisoners is to make dua: "ALLAHumma fukka qayda asrana wa asral-muslimeen (O ALLAH! Break free the shackles of our prisoners and the prisoners of the Muslims)." This dua is important because we also need to care about the prisoners in Muslim countries too. The goal of Islam regarding captives is to free them and integrate them into society.

Please send your check to: NCPCF, Ramadan Gifts Program, P.O. Box 66301, Washington, DC 20035. When you make a donation please email them at donate@civilfreedoms.org and tell them that you have sent a donation.

Abu Dawud mentions the hadith narrated by Abu Talha Al-Ansari and Jabir Bin Abdullah, that the Prophet Muhammad (SA) said, "No man forsakes a Muslim when his rights are being violated or his honour is being belittled except that Allah will forsake him at a place in which he would love to have His help. And no man helps a Muslim at a time when his honour is being belittled or his rights violated except that Allah will help him at a place in which he loves to have His help."

Dr. Dhafir Helped Iraqi Orphans. He got 22 years for "unauthorized" Charity.

I was very honored to have met with Dr. Rafil Dhafir on Saturday August 15, 2015 at the Federal Medical Center prison in Devens, Massachusetts. Dr. Dhafir is the founder of the former Islamic charity, Help the Needy, which supported orphans in Iraq during the brutal post-Gulf War time when Iraqis were literally starving to death. Even though Christian organizations were also accused of breaking the sanctions on Iraq, Dr. Dhafir, now 67, was criminally charged for running an unauthorized charity and sentenced to 22 years in prison, 13 of which he has already served. His current release date is April 26, 2022. He has been at Federal Medical Center at Devens, MA for the past four years, I just learned. I decided to pop by for a visit.

For those wanting some background information on the charity doctor's case, I recommend: http://www.dhafirtrial.net/about-the-case/dhafir-sentencing-tatement/ where he proclaimed:


"The day will come when people will realize what we did in managing HTN. They will realize that this is the way a relief NGO should be run, selflessly, by dedicated people who will not milk it, work tirelessly and frugally, literally saving every cent that they receive and spend it only for its intended use and on top of that give their own money to facilitate its functions...

"After learning that the government had illegally spied on our most intimate lives, I told my wife that I feel like a naked man walking along Main Street. She in return told me that she feels like she was in a fish bowl. I will never forget that day when she was, in this court, describing how she was attacked by over 80 agents with guns to her head threatening and terrorizing her, some heartless people from the government were laughing and giggling in the back of this court. My Quran tells me about these people "Those who were wicked used to laugh at those who were righteous. And whenever they passed by them, used to wink at each other in mockery. And when they returned to their people, they would return jesting. And whenever they saw them, they would say, "Behold! These are the people truly astray!" But they have not been sent as keepers over them. But on this Day the righteous will laugh at the wicked. On throne of dignity they will command. Will not the wicked have been paid back for what they did?"

In a Dec. 18, 2006 letter to author Katherine Hughes, Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir wrote about his previous incarceration in CMU Terre Haute:

"No one seems to know about this top-secret operation until now. It is still not fully understood.The order came from the Attorney General himself. The staff here is struggling to make sense of the whole situation. There are 16 of us, all Muslims but two, with one non-Arab Muslim. We are housed in what we are told was the holding area for those on death row!!!!! We are told this is an experiment, so the whole concept is evolving on a daily basis." http://www.wrmea.org/2007-may-june/dr.-rafil-a.-dhafir-at-tere-haute-prisons-new-communications-management-unit.html


My visit with Dr. Dhafir was brief, under one hour, but great. He looks waaaaay better than I imagined he would look after so much time. In fact he looks better than most of the other inmates half his age. Whatever his health problems are, he comes across as a strong person, and with sound and sharp mind.

I was not able to press for a lot of details and he seemed like he didn't want to be a complainer, so he only briefly explained that he had been sent to SHU for no reason, in the past, and that he had filed complaints. And now the prison is claiming that they have no paperwork or documents about his complaint that he submitted. He is determined to keep complaining. I am not clear on the details of who he is going to complain to about his original complaint being "lost." It sounded like he had legal representation handling that. I did not ask, and he did not offer any information as to whether he had fears for his physical safety or if his main fear was being sent again to SHU.

There was some general discussion of the thin line between killing people and medical neglect. He said the prison doctor was coming to work drunk and nobody was reporting him. The place is run by incompetents. There is one prisoner there who is 100 years old. People in wheelchairs. As a doctor he feels very frustrated about how much better this medical institution should be run and organized.

Dhafir last got a visit two weeks ago. He is allowed 8 visits per month. Visits are not timed. So whether you arrive in the morning and stay all day or you stay for one hour, it's counted as one visit. The visit took place in a noisy and crowded room full of other prisoners visiting their loved ones, and some snack machines.

He comes across as very sincere and polite as well as religiously observant. A mutual friend who spent time with him at CMU recommended to me to seek him out for spiritual knowledge. I will definitely keep that in mind for future conversation topics. I told him everyone who knows him is very fond of him.

http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1616.htm
2015-08-23

Tariq Mehenna: No justice for Muslims

http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1568.htm

"Devoted to Peaceful Change Sentenced Beyond Decency. The Suffering of a man of God Bearable owing to his Deep Faith in Allah."


Tariq Mehanna, who was sentenced to 17 1/2 years on bogus terrorism support charges in Boston federal court in 2011, has shown himself to be a model of patience and gratitude to God as he sits in the CMU Marion. In a recent letter to this author, Tariq wrote: "Things are OK, though. I've got peace and quiet, and time to read and think, which is worth more than the world in gold."

Tariq, now 32, was imprisoned for thought crimes, namely the online translation of ancient Arabic texts on jihad, but he believes the charges came in retaliation to his resistance to the FBI's bid to make him an informant.

"No evidence linked him to actual acts of terrorism or suggested that he had conspired with a real-world terrorist organization or provided any terrorist group with property, advice assistance or the like," reported Amna Akbar in the Nation.

Despite this tremendous setback, the young man has chosen to use his time wisely, producing scriptural commentary to be disseminated throughout the internet. His new article, sent out on September 6, 2014, begins:

"You would likely find the prison environment to be boring. The color scheme of the place - an exotic array of grays and off-whites - itself does wonders in dulling the mind. Most people cannot live without entertainment, and entertainment options are limited in here. Prisoners typically opt for TV. Since I don't watch much TV, I thus spend quite a bit of time in my cell reading. My reading is all over the place (history, sociology, astronomy, medicine, and plenty of newspapers), but the field most enjoyable to me is that of Hadith."

He mentions a hadith that has particular significance to the prisoner in isolation: "It is related that the great scholar and Mujahid, 'Abdullah bin al-Mubarak, used to spend a lot of time alone. He was once asked: "Aren't you lonely, sitting by yourself?" He replied: 'How can I be lonely while sitting with the Prophet (peace be upon him), the Sahabah, and the Tabi'in?' He was referring to the books he was surrounded with that contained their life stories and narrated statements. Each time such a book is opened, the reader is indeed reaching back through time, to another part of the Earth, to meet the Prophet and the thousands of people who comprised the best generations of human history, and to learn from their wisdom."

He takes comfort in knowing the the Prophet (pbuh) gave his glad tiding to the Believers that would come later, especially toward the End Time, because they believed in him even having never seen him. Yet Tariq also notes how the Believers are indeed persecuted outcasts in the present day just as they were in the beginning of Islam.

"Were the Sahabah to visit our world, they would be walking into a repeat of this. Just as they saw the Makkans having invented for themselves a religion containing mere remnants of the teachings of Ibrahim, the Sahabah would see the 'Western Islam' the people have invented for themselves today and recognize nothing but remnants of what they were taught by the Prophet in Madinah. Of all things, they would be most saddened to see many claimants to Islam still clueless about what he taught is the very tightest bond of Iman itself: Wala' & Bara' - this despite the untold amount of material that has been authored and translated into every imaginable language on the topic, and despite us living in an era where the enemy has done away with all pretense. The Sahabah would wince at the fact that while the hypocrites they faced in Madinah at least were opportunists who sided with the believers when they had the upper hand, today's hypocrites unconditionally side with the enemy through thick and thin."

Tariq reminds us that Ibn Taymiyyah also wrote that "it has been authentically reported through numerous chains of narration that the Prophet said: "There will always be a group of my ummah that is victoriously upon the truth until the Hour comes, and they will not be harmed by those who abandon or oppose them."

Tariq continues: "Commenting on that same hadith, an-Nawawi wrote: 'It could be said that this group is dispersed between the various categories of believers. Some of them are courageous warriors, some are experts in Fiqh, some are experts in Hadith, some are ascetics, some are those who enjoin what is good and forbid what is wrong, and some are known for other forms of good. And they are not necessarily concentrated in one location. Rather, they could be scattered throughout the Earth.'"

Under the most difficult circumstances our brother reminds us that there is nothing more important than striving in the way of Allah for truth and justice. At the end of this month, the US Supreme Court will decide whether or not to take on his case.

Write to him at: Tarek Mehanna #05315-748, Marion CMU, PO Box 1000, Marion, IL 62959 or look up his support pages on Facebook.