|
CAIR membership falls 90% since 9/11
Membership in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has declined more than 90 percent since the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to tax documents obtained by The Washington Times. The number of reported members spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to fewer than 1,700 in 2006. As a result, the Muslim rights group's annual income from dues dropped from $732,765 in 2000, when yearly dues cost $25, to $58,750 last year, when the group charged $35.The organization instead is relying on about two dozen donors a year to contribute the majority of the money for CAIR's budget, which reached nearly $3 million last year. Asked about the decline, Parvez Ahmed, CAIR's board chairman, pointed to the number of donors. "We are proud that our grass-roots support in the American Muslim community has allowed CAIR to grow from having eight chapters and offices in 2001 to having 33 today," Mr. Ahmed said. M. Zuhdi Jasser, director of American Islamic Forum for Democracy, says the sharp decline in membership calls into question whether the organization speaks for American Muslims, as the group has claimed. "This is the untold story in the myth that CAIR represents the American Muslim population. They only represent their membership and donors," Mr. Jasser said. "Post-9/11, they have marginalized themselves by their tired exploitation of media attention for victimization issues at the expense of representing the priorities of the American Muslim population," Mr. Jasser said. CAIR listed contributors in its Form 990 filings with the Internal Revenue Service, but the IRS redacted all the names before releasing the documents. In 2001, 26 contributors gave more than $1.6 million; in 2002, 26 gave more than $2.6 million; in 2003, 24 gave more than $2 million; in 2004, 20 gave more than $1.4 million; in 2005, 19 contributed $1.3 million. The Washington Times requested from the IRS all the 990 Forms that CAIR has filed since its inception in 1994 under the law regulating tax-exempt organizations. The first two annual forms are no longer on file pursuant to agency regulations. Tax forms for 1997 and 1998 were "unavailable" either because the group's income was less than $25,000, was filed under a parent corporation or "the return may have been requested by another department of the Internal Revenue Service," the IRS said. CAIR's papers were provided by the government agency for tax years 1996, 1999, and 2000 through 2005. Revenue from those periods totaled more than $17.7 million, while program expenses totaled $8.5 million. CAIR constantly notes in its press releases that it cooperates with federal law-enforcement activities and claims to conduct sensitivity training for Homeland Security officials. A February press release from CAIR's Chicago office says it met with Homeland Security immigration officials and made an agreement to "conduct sensitivity training to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers and possibly prison personnel." Homeland Security officials deny such claims and a check of the Office of Management and Budget Watch database of government contracts since 2000 shows CAIR has never been awarded a grant or a government contract. "The department does not have a formalized relationship with that particular organization," said one Homeland Security official speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We do have formalized relations with other community groups with whom we do contracts for training and consultation on matters that are specific to a given community." "It is not uncommon for that particular organization to issue a press release attempting to overstate their interaction with the department," the official said. Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-06-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=190547 |