[News] Second 'spy' confessed to working with anti-Muslim group, rights group says

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeasteye.net 
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-spy-for-anti-muslim-group-confessed>


  US: Second 'spy' confessed to working with anti-Muslim group, rights
  group says

By MEE staff in Washington - December 22, 2021
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Council on American-Islamic Relations says the unnamed person was 
paid $3,000 a month to spy on prominent Muslim leaders

While Muslims have witnessed their communities being surveilled over the 
past two decades, the news still came as a shock.

While Muslims have witnessed their communities being surveilled over the 
past two decades, the news still came as a shock (AFP/File photo)

Published date: 22 December 2021 17:35 UTC | Last update: 41 mins 50 
secs ago

A second individual has confessed to spying in the US on behalf of an 
anti-Muslim group, whose alleged goal was to "protect the Israeli 
government" by undermining Muslim activists, according to the Council on 
American-Islamic Relations <https://www.cair.com/> (Cair).

The person, whose identity has yet to be revealed, has created further 
links demonstrating a pro-Israel campaign to spy on Muslim communities 
and organisations throughout the United States, Cair said on Tuesday.

The advocacy and civil rights group said 
<https://twitter.com/CAIRNational/status/1473394214994165762> the 
founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism 
<https://www.investigativeproject.org/> (IPT), Steven Emerson, paid the 
"spy" $3,000 a month, a total of more than $100,000 over more than four 
years, in order to spy on a mosque in the US and "record prominent 
Muslim leaders".

"One of Emerson's goals, we were told, was protecting the Israeli 
government by undermining Muslims engaged in political and human rights 
activism," Cair said.

During a news conference last week, the Muslim civil rights group 
revealed a series of emails between Israeli officials and the IPT. In 
one, an official asked the IPT whether it had information related to 
Students for Justice in Palestine, a student advocacy group with 
chapters in universities across the country.

The Israeli embassy in Washington did not respond to Middle East Eye's 
request for comment.

The rights group said that the individual came forward, confessed to his 
actions, and agreed to cooperate with mosque leaders. Cair added that it 
will provide further information, and publicly identify the person after 
it obtains further information.

The IPT did not respond to MEE's request for comment, but has said 
previously that it "has never and will never monitor the wider American 
Muslim community". However, it added that it will not hesitate to report 
on groups it claims are conducting "radical Islamist activity".


      'We've identified three moles'

The news comes after last week's revelation by Cair that the executive 
director of one of its state chapters in Ohio, Romin Iqbal, had been for 
years secretly working with the IPT to provide intelligence, including 
audio recordings, and leak confidential information to the group.

The announcement came out of a third-party investigation conducted by a 
forensic expert retained by Cair-National.

While Muslims have witnessed the numerous ways in which their 
communities have been targeted and surveilled by the US government over 
the past two decades, the news still came as a shock for many Muslim 
communities throughout the country.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/cair-us-rights-group-leader-spying-anti-muslim-group>

Leader of US Muslim rights group fired for allegedly spying for 
anti-Muslim group

Read More » 
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/cair-us-rights-group-leader-spying-anti-muslim-group> 


Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy director of Cair-National, told reporters 
last week that based on the investigation, at least a dozen 
organisations have been targeted by this espionage campaign.

"We can't know everything that IPT was doing, but based on the evidence 
that we have, I would say that easily over a dozen Muslim organisations 
or mosques were targeted," Mitchell said.

"We believe we've identified three moles."

The IPT, founded by Steven Emerson, describes itself as a research group 
reporting on "radical Islamic terrorist groups". It has, however, been 
deemed an anti-Muslim group by the Islamophobia Network 
<https://islamophobianetwork.com/organization/investigative-project-on-terrorism/>, 
a project of the Center for American Progress that tracks anti-Muslim 
groups and donors.

According to the network, the IPT uses "unsubstantiated threats that 
portray Muslims as dangerous to accrue funding" and that Emerson has a 
reputation "for fabricating evidence to substantiate his ravings about 
Muslim extremism".

According to Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative 
<https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-steven-emerson/>, 
Emerson himself has had a "history of promoting falsified information 
and conspiracy theories about Islam and Muslims".

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