Top Ten Concerns and Status Update. February 2006

Part 1: OMB Watch’s Top Ten Concerns About the Treatment of Muslim Charities in the War on Terror

1. Drastic sanctions in anti-terrorist financing laws are being used to shut down entire organizations, resulting in the loss of badly needed humanitarian assistance around the world and creating a climate of fear in the nonprofit sector.
2. Despite sweeping post-9/11 investigative powers, authorities have failed to produce significant evidence of terror financing by U.S.-based charities.
3. Questionable evidence has been used to shut down the largest U.S.-based Muslim charities.
4. Anti-terrorist financing policies deny charities fundamental due process.
5. There are no safe harbor procedures to protect charities acting in good faith or to eliminate the risk of giving to Muslim charities or charitable programs working with Muslim populations.
6. Government action has created the perception of ethnic profiling and negatively impacted Muslim giving.
7. Organizations and individuals suspected of supporting terrorism are guilty until proven innocent.
8. Charitable funds have been withheld from people in need of assistance and diverted to help pay judgments in unrelated lawsuits, violating the intentions of innocent Muslim donors.
9. There is unequal enforcement of anti-terrorist financing laws.
10. Treatment of Muslim charities hurts, not helps, the war on terrorism.

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