The Holy Land Five - Al Jazeera World
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Soon after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, the largest Muslim charity in the United States - the Holy Land Foundation - was shut down, its assets frozen and five of its senior staff arrested by the FBI.
The charity was founded in California in 1989 and provided aid to a number of Palestinian causes. It also offered help to refugee communities in Jordan, Lebanon and other needy people across the Middle East and the rest of the world.
As the charity grew and revenue increased, claims emerged against the foundation.
The 1990s saw groups like the Anti-Defamation League and politicians such as the former Governor of New York City, Eliot Spitzer, and former Congressman Anthony Wiener lobby against the charity.
These groups appealed to the Clinton administration to shut the charity down, but failed. The US government eventually responded to similar accusations, allegedly made by the state of Israel.
The claims made were that the charity was a front for an illegal money-laundering operation, diverting funds to Hamas via zakat committees in the Occupied West Bank. Hamas, in turn, had been designated "a terrorist organisation" by the US government.
"It was a huge record that the government created, an administrative record - and it was basically garbage. It was newspaper articles, interviews that were translated from Arabic to Hebrew to English," says Nancy Hollander, one of the lawyers defending Shukri Abu Baker, a founder of the foundation.
"And we discovered when we did our own translations that their translations were completely wrong, that the government was relying on information that was completely false. But it didn't matter."
The five foundation founders were charged with providing "material support" to Hamas. During the first trial in 2007, their defence team struggled to deal effectively with two secret expert witnesses called by the prosecution whose "evidence" was not shared in advance. Nonetheless, the jury failed to agree on the charges brought against them and the judge declared a mistrial.
"More than 8,000 documents and the United States government didn't have a single American document that condemns the Holy Land Foundation. They might have had circumstantial evidence or doubts, but the only evidence was Israeli. And these documents were forged," says journalist Osama Abu Irshaid.
The former US Consul General in Jerusalem also points out that the US Agency for International Development funded the same zakat committees named in the indictment of the foundation and continued to do so for three years after the charity was shut down.
The Holy Land Five is a two-part documentary looking at the controversial trial of the Holy Land Foundation leaders. The films use interviews with defence and prosecution lawyers, family members, phone calls with the men themselves in jail - and reconstruction of court proceedings, to examine the case against the five men.
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Пікірлер: 45
I’m only just recently found out about this from a negative comment under a Schumer post on Instagram. More people need to know about this.
65 years in prison for giving humanitarian aid to poor Palestinians.
@kayty6673
2 жыл бұрын
Not just Palestinians. They also helped hurricane victims or anyone in need. Truly men of God.
@Kwame-yw9kz
23 күн бұрын
Watching in 2024, I’m so sad and mad. How can a Democratically elected government is labeled a terrorist organization?
Came here because of trt worlds interview 06.03. With Dr Sami. Learning so much about this beautiful land and beautiful people since October 7th
HOW CAN WE HELP HOW CAN WE HELP HOW CAN WE HELP I’m a German living in New Jersey
@theninthofjanuary
2 жыл бұрын
Support Palestinian organizing such as Palestinian Youth Movement- they continue to work on freeing the Holy Land 5
@ghostexodus
Жыл бұрын
The story is far from over. we are re-opening this story and sharing it around the world, in order to create an atmosphere of awareness that we hope will be driven in the main stream. @FreeShukriBaker
@Kite_the_KWITERIPOFF
6 ай бұрын
Across the river in im nyc wondering the same
who's here from the Emancave yaqeen podcast!
The injustice that i saw in this video is just mind-blowing, it goes to show how far the American government would go for the occupiers, I'm only here bcuz an instagramer mentioned it in her bio, i never saw these kind of vids as a growing adult, i think there was a certain censorship or the fact that i was too little to understand, i only truly understood the struggle in my twenties when i looked it all up and i think that was too late, i really wish i had looked for everything sooner, as half-arab i feel ashamed we let this happen.
There are too few people in the world know about this 😞
Heartbreaking
نفس قضية حميدان التركي الله يفك اسرهم جميعا ويردهم الى اهلهم سالمين يارب 💔حسبنا الله ونعم الوكيل
This is so f***ed up! 🤬😭🤮
Is there a part 3 to this?
how can we help
@numberone22459
4 жыл бұрын
By sharing this video and talking more about it
Okay but Hamas was the elected leadership of that area at the time so to give aide to the area you would have to give aide to the authority there to distribute to the people. America gives aide to North Korea and it goes through the very Government that they reject. 911 was a horrific and shocking event. I am so sorry for the victims and their families. What an unbelievable thing to have to relive every year on every channel your loved ones brutal death. I could not even imagine that. The truth though is it came from Saudis not Palestinians, not Hamas.
I'd advocate for similar trials on any suspect. And if anybody is not satisfied, retrial is allowed by the law. It's not right for somebody to say we support Hamas. No. We support fairness to all of us. I am a Christian by the way.
@Kalumbatsch
5 жыл бұрын
You're completely clueless.
@arrjee9474
Жыл бұрын
But there was no trial in the first place.
I heard of this on the Empire Files. Absolutely outrageous... is there any way we can get them out?!! Apeal the decision? ANYTHING?!!!!! There has to be some organization that's helping them... if anyone knows please share.
Free the indigenous people of Palestine from the Israèl apartheid.
BDS !
22:10
Text translations corrupted.
Drama and Drama and Drama. Game of Hide and Seek. The best use of words of Democracy, Republicationd and Terrorism. It has been become complex to define who are the supporters of Terrorism and other party.
Same will happen to Al Jazeera
@abdimohamed1554
7 жыл бұрын
Ryan wheeler haha you cant. Freedom of press.
Free Palestine 🇵🇸
Al Jazeera...... Well this is a new low....all that camera angles to make the families appear stricken....sure even murderers have families which cries for their incarcerated loved ones to be pardoned .....if there is evidence that proven they were wronged then its been too long for it to surface ....do the crime pay the time.
@Kalumbatsch
5 жыл бұрын
Moron.
They were buying rockets for Hamas
@StephenBrackensBrinkley
4 жыл бұрын
either you are woefully uninformed or a deliberate liar.