Muslims were encouraged and sometimes even paid by the FBI to commit terrorist acts during numerous sting operations after the 9/11 attacks, a human rights group said in a report published Monday. Twenty-seven cases involving 215 people, including those charged or convicted in terrorism cases, their relatives, defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges, were examined from investigation through trial by Human Rights Watch.
"Far from protecting Americans, including American Muslims, from the threat of terrorism, the policies documented in this report have diverted law enforcement from pursuing real threats," said the report by Human Rights Watch, aided by Columbia University Law School's Human Rights Institute. "In some cases the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act," the report said.
According to Agence France-Presse, half of the convictions in the cases reviewed resulted from sting operations, with an undercover agent playing an actively prominent role for about 30 percent of those cases. "Americans have been told that their government is keeping them safe by preventing and prosecuting terrorism inside the U.S.," said Andrea Prasow, the rights group's deputy Washington director. "But take a closer look and you realize that many of these people would never have committed a crime if not for law enforcement encouraging, pressuring and sometimes paying them to commit terrorist acts."
However, the undercover operations have strongly been defended as "essential in fighting terrorism" by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. "These operations are conducted with extraordinary care and precision, ensuring that law enforcement officials are accountable for the steps they take - and that suspects are neither entrapped nor denied legal protections," Holder said July 8 during a visit to Norway.
HRW has cited the case of four Muslim converts from Newburgh, N.Y., who were accused of planning to blow up synagogues and attacking a U.S. military base, according to AFP. A judge in that case "said the government 'came up with the crime, provided the means, and removed all relevant obstacles,' and had, in the process, made a terrorist out of a man 'whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope,'" the report said.
Additionally, it was stated by the rights group that the FBI often targets vulnerable people, with mental problems or low intelligence. "The U.S. government should stop treating American Muslims as terrorists-in-waiting," the report concluded.