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Groups Urge Sensitivity in Hezbollah Probe
Leaders of the country's Muslim, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities are urging the FBI to use sensitivity if it investigates possible activities by the Islamic militant group Hezbollah on U.S. soil.

Twenty-five groups, including the Islamic Society of North America and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, urged FBI Director Robert Mueller in a letter Wednesday to issue instructions to field offices and agents to avoid unwarranted profiling and respect the legal protections of people they may question.

"We want the FBI, not so obviously, to protect our nation from those who do us harm, but we want them to focus on smoke and mirrors actual credible evidence of wrongdoing and not target people based on their ethnicity or religion or based on First Amendment political expression," said Farhana Khera, head of Muslim Advocates, the lead drafter of the letter. "We want to avert any kind of raw fishing expedition-type initiative."

Khera, whose group is the charitable arm of the 500-plus-member National Association of Muslim Lawyers, said activists decided to send the letter after learning in recent days that the FBI has increased its focus on the worldwide activities of Hezbollah in light of the most recent fighting in the Middle East.

The letter says that since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the FBI has launched a number of interview programs that targeted Arab and Muslim men in particular. Some agents engaged in "harassing, unduly burdensome and improper questioning," it states.

On Wednesday, Mueller told reporters at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., that the agency's efforts continued. But when asked if there was any indication Hezbollah is planning an attack in the United States or on U.S. interests abroad, he said, "At this juncture, no."

FBI spokesman Stephen Kodak said the agency plans to reach out to the groups that sent the letter. He said there are no plans for large-scale interviews regarding Hezbollah.

"We are sensitive to the cultural differences in dealing with the Muslim community," Kodak said, adding that the agency already has guidance about how to deal with the various groups. "Whether or not there's going to be special, additional guidance, that I don't know at this time."
Posted by: ryuge 2006-07-27
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=161017