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Chamchamal, Kurdish region in northern Iraq – For Yassin M Aref, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is a sad reminder of the 15 years lost in American prisons.
Aref, 51, is a Kurdish man who was the leader of the Masjid As-Salam mosque in Albany, New York. He was arrested in 2004 on charges of conspiracy filed by the FBI in the “Assassination”. He was accused of assisting “terrorism” based on “secret” evidence.
His case has aroused criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union and others about the US post-9/11 anti-terrorism policy.
After the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001, Alef was a living victim of Islamophobia and hate speech. These attacks were later used by the George W. Bush administration to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Excuse.
As the world commemorates the 20th anniversary, this year is unique because the United States and coalition forces have withdrawn from Afghanistan and plan to leave Iraq before the end of this year-the end”Global war on terrorism“.
After his release, Alef was deported to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in 2019. Al Jazeera spoke with Aref in his small house in the Chamchamal district in the Gamyan district west of the Sulaymaniyah Province in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Aref lives with his wife Zuhur, and their four children, two boys and two girls, are studying in the United States.
On July 2, he published his memories in Kurdish. The book has more than 1,000 pages and includes details of his arrest and life in prison. Son of the Mountain is the English version of his memoir published in the United States in 2008.
“I was 34 when I was arrested and was released at 49. During my 15 years in prison, I lost all my life goals, including completing my Ph.D. and establishing myself culturally and economically,” Aref said.
Yassin Aref and his son of the mountain [Dana Taib Menmy/Al Jazeera]FBI “sting”
Aref was hired as the leader of Masjid As-Salam one year after arriving in the United States. As an imam, he participated in several anti-war campaigns to protest the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
“The FBI fabricated a thorn to accuse me… In the court proceedings, there is no real evidence against me,” Aref said. “The U.S. intelligence service cannot arrest me because of my political views or civic activities, but the FBI arrested me on charges of conspiracy.”
In June 2003, when the US military raided an enemy camp in Rawa, Iraq, they found Alef’s name, Albany address and phone number in a notebook written in Kurdish. This led the FBI to investigate him.
“The FBI initially claimed that the notebook contained’commander’ next to my name, but I denied this. When the judge told the government to provide the notebook page, the FBI admitted that there was a mistranslation,” Aref said.
“The word is kak-meaning brother, and is used as a common term for respect in Kurdish-it does not mean commander.”
Aref said that when Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey announced his arrest at a press conference in Washington, D.C., the Bush administration magnified his political interests and said, “We have caught the big fish.”
Aref said that the FBI persuaded an informant who was facing long imprisonment and deportation for fraud to approach him through his friend Mohamed Mosharif Hussein, who was a An American citizen from Bangladesh owns a pizzeria in Albany.
An informant known as Malik secretly recorded his conversation with the two. He offered to loan Hussein $50,000 and told him to launder money by selling shoulder-fired missiles.
A jury in the U.S. District Court in Albany found Aref and Hossain guilty of money laundering and supporting terrorism in 2006 and sentenced both to 15 years in prison.
“I don’t know about terrorism, terrorists, shootings or bombings. I know how many pounds of flour I used to make pizza,” Hussein told the judge after his sentence.
“Little Jimo”
Alef spent nearly two and a half years in solitary confinement and several years in a heavily guarded facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, nicknamed “Little Jimo“.
“In Terre Haute, I suffered psychological torture… It violates American law. It’s too far, and my family and children can hardly come to see me. Even family visits are a torture for me,” Ah Leif said.
“I’m not allowed to hug or kiss my child. We just made a phone call on both sides of the thick plastic window. They used various methods to make you mentally broken.”
Aref said he hopes that the “secret” evidence used by the FBI will be released at some point so that he can prove his innocence.
“The injustice I suffered in the United States has eroded my view of the United States as a place of democracy and human rights,” he said.
“Since 9/11, the United States has been retreating in the promotion of democracy and human rights… The United States is morally bankrupt. After September 11, I became a victim of Bush’s wrong policies and Islamophobia.”
“General fear of Muslims”
Alef’s lawyer Casey Manley also said that there is no serious evidence against him.
“Yasin is definitely a victim of Islamophobia after 9/11… He was convicted of general fear of Muslims because the judge told the jury that the FBI had good reason to target him. “Manley told Al Jazeera in an email.
“This is based on confidential evidence that we were not allowed to see, and later learned that it was false. His case was very eye-catching and was used in various ways by the Bush administration… These attractive cases are indeed often used in Political purpose,” she said.
Ben Friedman, the policy director for Defense Priorities, based in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera via Twitter: “Since September 11, Islamophobia in the United States has grown by leaps and bounds. Thanks to the efforts of politicians, especially Trump. , It has been maintained at a high level. Use these fears to treat Muslims as threats to others and win support for wars, immigration restrictions and other policies.”
It is worth noting that Alef said that despite the hardship he has suffered, he is not angry with the United States.
“Since I came to the Kurdish region, I have become a defender of the United States,” he said. “I do believe that Islamophobia still exists in the United States to some extent, but there is no doubt that compared to when I was arrested, the situation has changed and the environment is much better.”
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