U.S. court frames Somalis for ‘terrorism’

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On May 16, a group of about 200 Somali people—mostly women—and their sup­ porters from other communities assembled at the federal building in downtown Min­ neapolis. The people came to support Hawa Mohamed Hassan, 64, and Amina Farah Ali, 35, both residents of Rochester, Minn., at their sentencing hearing. The courtrooms were filled to overflowing.

An all-white jury convicted the women in October 2011 of the “crime” of volunteering to raise money for charitable organizations that support Somalis affected by ongoing wars back home. Their humanitarian actions have been framed as “providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).” Amina Ali received a 20-year sen­ tence and Hawa Hassan a 10-year sentence from Judge Michael J. Davis.

The women’s trial followed that of several Somali men who had their homes raided and phone lines tapped by the FBI in 2011. The men were accused of providing material aid to the “FTO” al-Shabab. Some of the men had left the U.S. to fight in Somalia; some had provided hu­ manitarian aid, as did Amina Ali and Hawa Hassan. The defendants in the 2011 case were given sentences rang­ ing from two to 20 years.

“Zakia,” a young Somali woman living in Minneapolis who was present at the women’s trials and sentencing hearings, spoke openly with me about the response from the Somali community to the profound miscar­ riage of justice.

Zakia said that the local and international Somali di­ aspora communities believe that neither Hassan nor Ali should have been convicted of the charges in the first place since the women did nothing to perpetrate ter­ rorism or violence. There is the belief that Somalis are being singled out and targeted as a community because of their Islamic faith and their culture: “Is our crime be­ ing terrorists, or is our crime being Moslems?”

Hawa Hassan and Amina Ali were involved in efforts to provide clothing and money for devastated people in their homeland. Al-Shabab was the organization that they and other Somalis trusted for the purposes of col­ lecting and distributing such aid.

Al-Shabab was formed in 2008 by people formerly al­ lied with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), the body that had ruled most of southern Somalia for about a six-month period in 2006. Al-Shabab gathered strength as a resistance force against the occupying Ethiopian military. With U.S. military training and monetary sup­ port, Ethiopian troops invaded southern Somalia at the end of 2006. That was when the international Somali Diaspora community came out to provide aid for their war-torn country’s people.

Much confusion ensued in the Diasporan Somali com­ munities after the designation of al-Shabab as an FTO in 2008. Many people, including Amina Ali and Hawa Has­ san, continued to organize and send aid. When the FBI raided their homes without providing search warrants, ... Bradley Manning (continued from page 4: “SF Pride leaders reject Bradley Manning”)

Cain was outraged: “This is the first time that I know of that Pride has put its foot down and said to members of its own organization and community: ‘You are not wel­ come. Your choice is not valid.’ Even when they arrested members of Gay Shame [for rushing Gavin Newsom’s car at Pride 2003], the Pride Board went to the police and said, ‘Hey, you need to let these people go.’ That’s what made Pride what it is today, the notion of radical inclu­ sivity.”

Even Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro because Brazil recognizes his relation­ ship for immigration purposes and the U.S. does not, de­ cided to weigh in. He wrote about the actions of the SF Pride Board in relation to the major corporate sponsors they have embraced for this year’s march. He picked out AT&T and Verizon, the telecom giants that enabled the illegal warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and later were shielded from all criminal and civil liability.

Corporate sponsors also include Bank of America and Wells Fargo, who are being sued for mortgage fraud.

Greenwald pointed out, “Also in good standing with the Pride Board is Clear Channel, the media outlet that broadcasts the radio programs of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck; a pension fund is suing this SF Pride sponsor for making cheap, below-market loans to its struggling parent company. The health care giant they found no “material” evidence for the case. The only “evidence” they collected was recorded telephone con­ versations.

An article written by Carl Bloice for Black Commenta­ tor and also posted in Global Research on May 14, 2007, provides important insight on the parallels between the U.S. involvements in Iraq and Somalia and a brief his­ tory of the precursors to the conjoint U.S.-Ethiopia inva­ sion, occupation, and further devastation of the latter. Here are some highlights:

Since the late 1970s, tens of millions of dollars sent into Somalia by the U.S. destabilized the country and set off civil and clan warfare; the U.S. push for IMF-imposed structural readjustments led to agricultural collapse and famines. The U.S. bombed Somalia in late January 2007, as the World Social Forum was underway in Nai­ robi, Kenya (and bombed the country again in March 2008).

Beginning in the summer of 2006, when the UIC took control of the Somali government, the U.S. and Ethio­ pian governments participated in collaborative plan­ ning to invade and occupy Somalia. The U.S. gave a thumbs-up for the Ethiopian government to go against the U.S. ban on weapons purchases from North Korea; U.S. troops participated in the invasion and occupation.

Nunu Kidane, network coordinator for Priority Africa Network, summed up U.S. intentions in Africa: ‘The U.S. political and military alliance with Ethiopia—which openly violated international law in its aggression to­ wards Somalia, is destabilizing the Horn region and be­ gins a new shift in the way the U.S. plans to have perma­ nent and active military presence in Africa.”

In 2007, the geopolitical reality for Somalia included a plan—placed on hold due to ongoing conflicts—for approximately two-thirds of its oil fields to be divided up by U.S. oil companies Amoco, Chevron, Conoco and Phillips. A proposal was put forward by its U.S.–backed prime minister that a new oil law be enacted to entice Kaiser Permanente, another proud SF Pride sponsor, is currently under investigation by California officials for alleged massive privacy violations in the form of reck­ lessly disclosing 300,000 patient records, and was pre­ viously targeted with criminal and civil charges, which it settled, for dumping a homeless patient, still in a hospi­ tal gown, on skid row.”

Is this what Pride has become? Of course, most cities are not receiving grants from city government. Nor do they have a “Pride Board” with a CFO. But as we head for home we always feel like we have just become “their” market and wonder where we can find the spirit of Stonewall.

Sean Sala, who calls himself an “LGBT National Mili­ tary Activist,” is calling for a boycott of the parade. In his statement he says, “San Francisco has spit in the face of the LGBT military by using a traitor to our country as a poster child. Manning makes Gay military, the Armed Forces and the cause of equality look like a sham. He de­ serves no recognition. I am calling on all LGBT military and National LGBT news to announce a boycott for San Francisco Pride.”

The organizers of the Bradley Manning contingent are organizing to make sure it is large and loud. They are amending their estimate for the contingent from 150 to 500 but believe it will be even larger. They expect a number of veterans who support Bradley Manning to join their contingent, and Joey Cain says there are many people who had stopped coming to the parade who have said they will come and march this year. n Hawa Mohamed Hassan (left) and Amina Farah Ali leave St. Paul, Minn., federal courthouse in 2010.

foreign oil companies back to Somalia.

As is clear in Zakia’s account, Somalis living here in the “land of the free” experience the Islamophobia and xenophobia experienced by their sisters and brothers in their African homeland at the hands of the U.S. mili­ tary and its cronies.

Judge Davis appeared to have applied his own misper­ ceptions and cultural biases in both his questioning and the sentences he handed down. The prosecuting attorneys were present at the sentencing hearings, but it was Judge Davis who did all the questioning. Many of his questions focused on religious themes.

An example was when the judge asked Hawa Has­ san, “Would you agree that only conservative Moslem women dress the way you do?” Hassan replied, “This is what God has expected me to do. And I dress this way because Allah has ordered me to do so.”

A local attorney who observed some of the sentenc­ ing proceedings told this reporter: “I was struck with the African American judge’s air of ‘American’ cultural superiority and exceptionalism. I was surprised to hear him say things like ‘my people came here in chains’ in the same breath with which he then stated that it nor­ mally takes new immigrants three generations to fully assimilate into this great American cultural melting pot. He kept pressing for essentially an apology from anyone who may hold protective nationalistic views of their original homeland because it interferes with as­ similation.

“His over the top ‘Americanism’ was too sappy and seemed designed to please the prosecutors and the press. It also seemed that he was trying to scare the mostly Somali spectators out of their ‘failure to assimi­ late.’

The attorney pointed out that the crime these women were charged with “comes with disproportion­ ately onerous statutory punishments that do not equate with the gravity of the crime.” On one day, al-Shabab is not a designated foreign terrorist organization, and therefore support­ ive charitable activity that has any connection to the organization is not criminal. The very next day, upon an administrative determination by the Secretary of State that labels the organi­ zation an FTO, the same activity has become a criminal offense. “The judge,” said the attorney, “has a signed photo of Nelson Mandela in his chambers. If Mandela’s African National Congress were still struggling to end apartheid in South Africa to­ day, it would be labeled an FTO.”

As a result of the injustice served on the So­ mali community, many people are fearful when there’s a knock on the door or they hear the doorbell ring. They are aware that they have rights with no teeth.

Still, the community will support Amina Ali and Hawa Hassan’s appeals to the higher courts. A statement from Somali Community Members in Minnesota reads, “Amina Ali and Hawa Has­ san have great hearts. These women will go be­ yond their ability to help others. Both are highly respected by many in the Somali community. They have touched the lives of so many of us here in the Twin Cities. … Amina Ali and Hawa Hassan are great humanitarian workers.” There is deep respect for these two women as well as astute recognition of the lack of justice received from the court system operating in the belly of the beast. n SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 2013 5