Skewed Justice for Muslims

Recently, an internal report of the Justice Department confirmed long-alleged abuses of Arab Americans in detention and questioned the basis for their arrests. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft dismissed the findings and stated that government efforts to detain terrorism suspects were applied in the same way to all citizens regardless of their ethnicity. However, recent cases seem to confirm a glaring double standard applied to Arab Americans and Muslims that can be neither denied nor defended.

Consider the cases of Earl Krugel and Robert Goldstein. Krugel is the former West Coast coordinator of the Jewish Defense League. He was recorded in meetings in October 2001 with alleged co-conspirators planning a reign of terror on Arab Americans to give them “a wake-up call” by destroying one of their “filthy mosques.” This conspiracy allegedly included a plan to assassinate Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), who is of Lebanese descent. Recently, Krugel confessed to a plot to blow up a mosque in Culver City.

Krugel was given immunity and is reportedly sharing information on other attacks, including the 1985 bombing death of Arab American civil rights leader Alex Odeh. Though Ashcroft has promised to prosecute accused terrorists to the fullest extent of the law and to reject any deals, Krugel was given a generous plea bargain and immunity and is likely to receive a mere 13-year sentence.

In the Krugel case, the government had evidence of a conspiracy to attack Arab Americans and their institutions; it included bombings with the stated intent to terrorize. Yet, the government chose not to charge Krugel as a terrorist but instead charged him only with civil rights violations.

Krugel’s case is not unique. In Florida, Robert Goldstein and his wife, Kristi Lea Persinger, plotted their own terror war. When the police were called to their house in a domestic dispute in 2002, they discovered an arsenal that included 30 bombs, mines, 30 to 40 guns, light-armor rockets, machine guns, sniper rifles and grenades. They also found plans to blow up 50 mosques and to “liquidate” Muslims. Goldstein vowed to “kill all ‘rags’ “at an Islamic education center.

Like Krugel, Goldstein was charged not with terrorism but with civil rights violations. Goldstein was sentenced to a paltry 12 1/2 years for conspiracy to violate civil rights. Persinger (who had five bombs in her closet) was given a mere three years in prison -- about what you might get for tax evasion.

Is there any question what the charge would be if an Arab American or Muslim were found with such an arsenal and plans to bomb churches or synagogues or to kill a member of Congress? The answer is made obvious from the hundreds of cursory detentions and circumstantial criminal cases brought by this administration.

The latest such allegations arose in the arrest of 11 Muslims, who face 42 criminal counts, including conspiracy “to participate in a violent jihad” and being part of a Kashmir terrorist group. The government put great weight on the fact that the men participated in paintball games in Virginia. Though the government does have evidence that some of the men had contacts with a Kashmir terrorist group, it has no evidence of any terrorist plot. In the cases of at least four of the men, there is scant evidence of anything beyond anti-Indian sentiments and weekend Rambo fantasies.

A federal magistrate, in an unusual slap to prosecutors, recently granted bail to four of the men, holding that the government’s claim that they presented a danger “simply does not hold water.”

The government may yet supply the evidence demanded by these judges, but the sweeping charges against these men stand in sharp contrast with the charges against non-Muslim defendants.

Life for Arab Americans and Muslims increasingly resembles George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” in which a society dispensed with all rights and replaced them with a single maxim: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” When it comes to terrorism cases, all citizens are equal but some are more equal than others.