Central New York Skeptics Monthly Meeting
Wednesday, September 17, 2008. Business meeting at 6:30. Program at 7:00.

Speaker: Katherine Hughes, civil liberties activist

Soule Branch Library, 101 Springfield Rd, Syracuse, NY 13214

Since the events of September 11, 2001, the government has raided and closed down six major Muslim charities and many smaller Muslim charities, accusing each of funding terrorism. In each case, alleged “guilt by association” meant that the charities’ assets were frozen and their principals arrested. Yet despite new investigative powers, government authorities have failed to produce evidence of terrorist financing by any of these Muslim charities. Dr. Rafil Dhafir, formerly an oncologist in Rome, NY, is the founder of one of these charities.

From the outset of this case the government was duplicitous. Using unfair tactics and innuendo with the aid of a complicit media, the government transformed Dhafir from a compassionate humanitarian into a crook and supporter of terrorists.

Katherine Hughes, a native of Scotland, attended the 14-week trial and has written extensively about it and our government’s current persecution of Muslims as part of its “war on terror.” Her articles have been published on numerous websites and in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, the National Lawyers Guild’s Guild Practitioner, and Fellowship Magazine.