Filed under: 2004 election, 9/11, Adnan El Shukrijumah, Dictatorship, Empire, FBI, George Bush, Jose Padilla, Miami, Oppression, Provocateurs, War On Terror, alqaeda, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, double agent, fake alqaeda, florida, george w. bush, informant, intimidation, islam, islamic community, mccarthy, middle east, muslim, neocons, stasi, stasi tactics | Tags: Imam Foad Farahi
FBI tries to deport Muslim man for refusing to be an informant
After Imam Foad Farahi declined to become a federal informant, the government tried to destroy him.
FederalJack.com
October 17, 2009
(MIAMI NEW TIMES) Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards signs littered the lawns of North Miami Beach as Imam Foad Farahi walked from a mosque to his apartment a few blocks away. It was November 1, 2004, the day before George W. Bush would win a second term in office. But the Muslim holy man had been too busy fasting and praying to pay much attention to the presidential election.
For Farahi, an Iranian citizen who had lived in the United States for more than a decade, it was simply another month of Ramadan in South Florida. Then, around 5 p.m., as he neared his apartment, he saw two men standing outside. They were waiting for him.
“We’re from the FBI,” one of the men said.
“OK,” he responded.
They wanted to know about José Padilla and Adnan El Shukrijumah, two South Florida men linked to the Al-Qaedaterrorist network. Padilla, the so-called Dirty Bomber, was arrested in May 2002 and initially given enemy combatant status. He eventually stood trial in Miami, was convicted on terrorism charges, and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Shukrijumah is a Saudi Arabian and an alleged Al-Qaeda member whose last known address was in Miramar. The FBI is offering up to $5 million for information leading directly to his capture.
“I know José Padilla, but I don’t know Adnan,” Farahi told the agents.
Of course, Farahi knew of Shukrijumah. As imam of theShamsuddin Islamic Center in North Miami Beach, Farahi was in a unique position to know about local Muslims, including Padilla and Shukrijumah. Padilla had prayed at Farahi’s mosque and was once among his Arabic students. Shukrijumah was the son of a local Islamic religious leader.
“I have had no contact with Padilla since 1998, when he left the country,” Farahi told the government agents. He had once met Shukrijumah but had no contact with him after that. “I don’t know anything about his activities.”
“We want you to work with us,” Farahi remembers the agents telling him.
And this is when the imam’s five-year battle with the federal government began.
“I have no problem working with you guys or helping you out,” Farahi said. He could keep them informed about the local Muslim community or translate Arabic. But the relationship, he insisted, would need to be public; others would have to know he was helping the government.
But that wasn’t what the FBI had in mind, Farahi says. The agents wanted him to become a secret informant who would investigate specific people. And they knew Farahi was in a vulnerable position. His student visa had expired, and he had asked the government for a renewal. He had also applied for political asylum, hoping one of those legal tracks would offer a way for him to stay in the United States indefinitely.
“We’ll give you residency,” the agents promised. “We’ll give you money to go to school.”
Farahi considered the offer for a moment and then shook his head.
“I can’t,” he told them.
The slender, bearded 34-year-old Farahi frowns as he recalls all of this while sitting on a white folding chair in the Shamsuddin Islamic Center on a recent afternoon. “People trust you as a religious figure, and you’re trying to kind of deceive them,” he says, remembering the choice he faced. “That’s where the problem is.”
Farahi soon discovered the FBI’s offer wasn’t optional. The federal government used strong-arm tactics — including trying to have him deported and falsely claiming it had information linking him to terrorism — in an effort to force him to become an informant, he says.
The imam has resisted the government at every step, having most recently taken his political asylum case to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
“As long as you’re not a citizen, there are lots of things [the government] can do,” says Ira Kurzban, Farahi’s attorney. “They can allege you’re a terrorist and try to bring terrorist charges against you, or they can get you deported.” Terrorism, he explains, can even be defined as giving “money to a hospital in the West Bank that turns out to be run by Hamas.”
Farahi asserts unequivocally he is innocent of any terrorism charges the government could bring against him. In fact, he says, he would report anyone in the Muslim community supporting terrorism. “From the Islamic perspective, it’s your duty to respect the law, and if there’s anything going on, any crime about to be committed, or any kind of harm to be caused to people or property, it should be reported to the police,” he says.
The FBI’s intense efforts to pressure Farahi into becoming an informant reveal the bureau’s desperation to infiltrate local Muslim communities. The hard-line tactics have become so widespread in the United States that the San Francisco-based civil rights group Muslim Advocates distributes a video advising how to respond if FBI agents approach.
In fact, relations between the FBI and U.S. Islamic communities are so strained that a coalition of Muslim-American groups in March accused the government of using “McCarthy-era tactics” and threatened to sever communication with the FBI unless it “reassessed its use of agent provocateurs in Muslim communities.”
Despite this public conflict, few specific cases of Muslims being recruited as informants have become public. Farahi’s battle with the government is not only daring but also unusual.
“People have two choices,” Farahi says. “Either they end up working with the FBI, or they leave the country on their own. It’s just sometimes when you’re in that situation, not many people are strong enough to stand up and resist and fight — to reject their offers.”
Filed under: Britain, Europe, Military, Police State, Troops, United Kingdom, apache, european union, london, nanny state, soldiers | Tags: Stradbroke, Suffolk, Torben Merriott
UK: Man Arrested for Shining Flashlight at Apache Helicopter Hovering Over His House
BBC
October 21, 2009
A man who was arrested after he shone a torch at an Apache attack helicopter flying “10ft” above his garden will not be charged, police have said.
Torben Merriott, 63, of Stradbroke, Suffolk, was arrested on “suspicion of “acting in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft” on 18 September.
Police said Mr Merriott had been released from his bail conditions and no further action would be taken.
Mr Merriott said the experience had been “demeaning and humiliating”.
Mr Merriott, who runs a stage lighting firm, criticised police for being “heavy-handed” and “wasting resources”. He said he might complain.
‘Felt vibrations’
He said he was awoken by an “almighty noise and vibration” at 0100 BST on 18 September.
“My first reaction was that it was an earthquake,” he said.
“It was a clear night but pitch black and I could feel the vibrations beating against my chest – very frightening.
“That was when I realised it must be a helicopter really low and very close. I couldn’t see any navigation lights from the direction of the noise so I shone my torch.”
Mr Merriott said he found it hard to be believe the pilot would have lost control in the face of his torch.
“Don’t tell the Taliban that all they need is a 10-quid torch to bring down some of our finest young fliers in their multi-million pound, high-tech gunships,” he said.
The Ministry of Defence said the shining of any kind of light at a helicopter was dangerous because pilots could be dazzled.
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, Economic Collapse, Economy, Euro, Great Depression, Greenback, Inflation, Oil, Petrol, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street, comex, deflation, dollar collapse, economic depression, gas prices, global economy, gold, hyperinflation, silver
ECONOMY: Oil hits $82, Gold $1061, Dollar $1.50 against Euro
Reuters Canada
October 21, 2009
Gold prices clawed back above $1,060 an ounce Wednesday as oil rallied and the euro rose above $1.50 for the first time in 14 months.
The metal continued to take heart from a steadily falling dollar. Investors were turning to gold as the depreciation of global currencies threatened the value of paper assets.
Weak physical demand among jewelers and exchange-traded funds has put gold at the mercy of the currency markets, traders said.
Spot gold was at $1,062.70 an ounce at 3:07 p.m. EDT compared with $1,054.00 late Tuesday in New York.
U.S. December gold futures settled up $4.80 at $1,063.40 an ounce on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Prices have been tracking the euro-dollar exchange rate, with gold reaching record highs of $1,070.40 last week as the dollar hit its lowest level in over a year versus the single currency.
“Gold does not seem to have a mind of its own,” said Afshin Nabavi, head of trading at MKS Finance in Geneva. “It all depends on the euro.”
The dollar touched a one-month low against sterling and the euro broke above $1.50 as expectations for low U.S. interest rates weighed on the greenback.
Oil jumped more than 3 percent toward $82 a barrel on Wednesday, its highest level in a year, due to a drawdown in U.S. refined oil inventories and as a rise in U.S. equities which showed optimism about the economy and a potential rebound in energy demand.
However, physical demand for gold remained slow as high prices put off buyers. In India, the world’s biggest gold consumer last year, buyers stuck to the sidelines as demand linked to last week’s festival period petered out.
Among other precious metals, spot silver was at $17.75 an ounce against $17.45.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Indiana, Iraq, Iraqnam, Military, PTSD, Troops, Vietnam, War Crimes, War On Terror, afghan casualties, civilian casualties, iraq casualties, iraqistan, kabul, military casualties, military deaths, military industrial comples, military suicide, nation building, national guard, occupation, soldiers, u.s. military, u.s. soldiers, war crime | Tags: Jacob W. Sexton
US soldier commits suicide in Indiana movie theater
WSWS
October 20, 2009
A National Guard soldier home on a 15-day leave from the war in Afghanistan committed suicide in a Muncie, Indiana, movie theater October 12. Jacob W. Sexton, a 21-year-old from rural Farmland, Indiana, shot himself in the head, approximately 20 minutes into the violent comedy Zombieland, with friends and siblings sitting around him. The suicide underscores once again the psychological damage done to soldiers charged with carrying out the brutal colonial occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sexton’s death came as a shock to his family and military cohorts, who told the Muncie Star Press they had not seen any symptoms of suicidal behavior or post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet the young man’s behavior before the film showing revealed that the war’s violence was on his mind. When asked by the theater manager for identification proving the group was of age to see the movie, Sexton reportedly snapped at him, “I shot 18 people and you want to see my identification?”
Sexton’s father, Jeffrey Sexton, told the Associated Press, “We just need to watch these boys and the girls coming back home. Something’s just not right. Too much is happening.”
Like many active-duty military members, Sexton had served multiple tours in both Middle East occupations. After serving one tour of duty in Iraq, where he drove Humvees, he volunteered for another tour in Afghanistan. There he was a member of Alpha Company, Second Battalion, in the 151st Infantry Regiment, a unit that responds to attacks on military installations and convoys in the Kabul area.
According to the Star Press, Sexton was in a firefight his first week in Afghanistan and witnessed others during his time there. The area around Kabul is the scene of intense fighting that has resulted in high coalition casualties and untold numbers of deaths and injuries of Afghans. Sexton doubtless experienced the constant threat of violence in Iraq, as well, where Humvee drivers are at constant risk of injury and death from IEDs planted in the road.
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Yesterday 30 people had been reporting to the authorities in Sweden that they experienced such severe side effects that they felt the need to contact a hospital. Today the number is 140. The swedish newspaper Expressen is the only one in Sweden reporting on these cases and as usual this is most likely only the tip of a rather large iceberg. UPDATE: According to Dagens Nyheter, the number of reported side effects are now a few hours later 190. 1 person dies after the injection but “no direct relation with the injection has been established”. The biggest medical scandal in the history of Sweden has just started.
There are indications that the swine flu vaccines that will soon start being administered in Finland tend to cause more side-effects than the ordinary seasonal flu shots.