The Council on American-Islamic Relations has earned a fierce reputation for defending Muslim civil rights.
Middle Tennessee Muslims turned to the group this year over a proposed state law they feared would threaten their faith. When vandals torched a Columbia mosque and construction equipment at the new Islamic Center of Murfreesboro site, CAIR demanded authorities investigate both incidents as hate crimes.
But the Washington, D.C.-based group’s work is being threatened as it faces scrutiny for failing to file tax returns.
CAIR was among 275,000 nonprofits nationwide stripped of tax-exempt status this month by the Internal Revenue Service. None of the groups filed required tax returns, known as Form 990s, for three years, and any donations to them can be taxed, the IRS reported.
CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said his group filed accurate, on-time returns but lost its tax-exempt status over an incorrect filing from several years ago. But employees couldn’t produce CAIR’s latest Form 990 this week, and critics suggest the charity avoided filing to hide financial dealings from the public.
Local Muslim leaders said they were surprised to hear the news about CAIR’s problems with the IRS. CAIR attorneys helped oppose Tennessee Senate Bill 1028 and House Bill 1353, which targeted some practices outlined in Shariah law, Islam’s code of conduct.
The bill — described by sponsors as anti-terrorist, not anti-Islam — passed in May after being revised to remove all mention of religion.
Imam Mohamed Ahmed of the Islamic Center of Nashville said he’s taking a wait-and-see approach to the latest news about CAIR. He hopes that the national nonprofit can clear up the matter quickly.
“We don’t want to jump to a conclusion,” he said.
Building trust
The IRS problem comes at a time when other Muslim groups are urging transparency to win Americans’ trust.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, Muslim Advocates in San Francisco and the American Islamic Forum for Democracy in Phoenix have filed their 990s on time. So have local chapters of CAIR in California, Florida, Texas, Minnesota and other states. Their forms are available online at Guidestar.org, a clearinghouse for information on nonprofits.
Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, said her organization, partnering with the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, has trained more than 400 Muslim charities and mosques around the United States on good governance practices. Because of the current political climate, in which fears of terrorism run high, Muslim groups have to uphold high standards, she said.
“Charitable giving and charitable activities are not only a core Islamic value, but it’s also a core of who we are as Americans,” she said. “We also recognize that in a post-9/11 world, our charities — perhaps more than other faith groups’ charities — are under the microscope by the public and the government.”
Part of that scrutiny stems from the troubles of the Holy Land Foundation, a Dallas-based Muslim charity. In 2008, five of the charity’s leaders were convicted of channeling money to the terrorist group Hamas. A number of Muslim groups, including CAIR, were labeled as unindicted co-conspirators during the Holy Land Foundation trial.
Khera said that federal prosecutors erred when releasing the list of unindicted co-conspirators. Because they weren’t charged with a crime, they can’t defend themselves, she said.
“They don’t have the opportunity to address the allegations in the court of law — it’s in the court of public opinion,” she said.
Zudhi Jasser, executive director of the Islamic Forum for Democracy, has been critical of CAIR, which he says too often claims to speak for all Muslims in America.
“If there is one way we can build a trusting relationship and be part of the solution, it’s through transparency,” he said.
CAIR defends itself
Hooper, CAIR’s spokesman, has insisted the group’s recent Form 990s exist.
“CAIR, along with 275,000 other nonprofit organizations nationwide, had a technical paperwork issue related to past IRS filings — and like many other organizations, we were not notified in advance of the IRS’ action,” he said. “This issue is currently being dealt with in cooperation with the IRS and should be resolved shortly. It shouldn’t affect our work or the donations of our supporters.”
When asked to send copies of the charity’s most recent Form 990, Hooper said he did not have access to it.
A Tennessean Washington bureau reporter visited CAIR’s offices Tuesday and requested the tax returns. According to the IRS, nonprofits must make their tax returns available to the public upon request, but the reporter was told that CAIR’s executive director was in a meeting, and she should come back the next day.
An IRS spokesman declined to comment on CAIR and pointed to a website that explains all on the list of 275,000 lost their tax-exempt status over failure to file returns for three consecutive years. Any charity on the list must reapply for tax-exempt status.
Joseph Farah, editor-in-chief of WorldNetDaily, a conservative website at www.wnd.com, is a longtime critic of CAIR. He said the charity is hiding financial data from the public, and he is not surprised that CAIR’s tax-exempt status was revoked.
“We know that they hadn’t filed tax returns,” Farah said. “This is the IRS you are dealing with. Eventually, they are going to get you.”
Farah’s organization and CAIR are locked in a legal feud over the book Muslim Mafia, which Farah’s organization published. The book is based on internal CAIR documents, copied from their files by Chris Gaubatz, who posed as a Muslim convert to gain an internship at CAIR.
Gaubatz has ties to the Center for Security Policy, an anti-Islam group whose leader, Frank Gaffney, testified in the lawsuit against the new Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, seeking to halt its construction.
CAIR sued Gaubatz and his father, David Gaubatz, over the book. Farah’s group is paying their legal bills. They’ve used the recent news about CAIR’s issues with the IRS to promote the book.