By Waseem Shehzad

It was only a matter of time before America's war on the Muslim community would engulf the Afro-American community as well. With the March 20 arrest of Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin of Atlanta, the mask has come off. The charges against him - the alleged shooting of two police officers on March 16, one of whom later died - and the manner of his arrest, by letting loose police dogs upon him, all indicate the brutality and deadly intent of the so-called law-enforcement agencies in the US.

Imam al-Amin is no stranger to police and FBI harassment. The latest series of events began on the evening of March 16 when two police officers approached his grocery store in the West End neighbourhood of Atlanta to serve an arrest warrant upon him. According to the police version, shots were fired from an assault rifle, and the two police officers, Ricky Kinchen and Aldranon English, were hit. Kinchen died in hospital the following day. Deputy English accused Imam al-Amin, who had disappeared, as the person who had fired the shots.

In an incredible move, a number of Muslim organisations, among them the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the American Muslim Council (AMC), called upon Imam al-Amin on March 18 to give himself up to "American justice." This was challenged by the Washington-based Peace and Justice Foundation, which took issue with these organisations' acceptance of the police's account of events, virtually accepting the police version, thus effectively branding Imam al-Amin without question or considering the circumstances. Two days later, the Muslim organizations backed down to Muslim public opinion, and announced plans to monitor Imam Al-Amin's trial and to provide support for his legal defence.

Imam Jamil al-Amin was arrested in Whitehall, a small town between Selma and Montgomery, in Alabama. Police dogs were let loose on him on the night of March 20 in a field where he was found. When he appeared in court two days later, Imam al-Amin said that this was part of a "government conspiracy" against him. His lawyer also said that they would challenge his extradition to Atlanta.

In interviews broadcast on local television stations, Bill Imfield, an FBI agent based in Mobile, Alabama, said federal agents had begun looking for him in Whitehall. The FBI and local law-enforcement agencies flooded the area with officers, helicopters and dogs. Imam al-Amin had run into a field when the dogs found him, Imfield said. "When the dogs were turned loose, they flushed out H. Rap Brown [the Imam's name before he became a Muslim in 1976], and he ran right into the arms of a waiting sheriff," FBI agent Imfeld said. There are reports that the FBI had resorted to the illegal use of electronic wiretaps and cellular-phone transmissions to track him down.

According to reports, the arrest warrant was issued for Imam al-Amin's alleged failure to appear in court to answer charges of theft by receiving a stolen automobile, impersonating an officer, and driving without proof of insurance. According to El-Hajj Mauri Saalakhan, Director of the Peace and Justice Foundation, based on information obtained from Issa Smith, a member of Imam Al-Amin's community in Atlanta, the sequences of event was as follows:

"Imam Jamil was stopped last year, about six or eight months ago, for driving an auto which at one time had been stolen. He had borrowed it from a friend who owns a car-lot. He was charged with possessing a stolen item, no insurance, because he didn't have an insurance card in his possession, and also impersonating a police officer. Now the car dealer resolved the charges of possession of a stolen vehicle and driving without insurance, because that was his responsibility and he gave documentation to that effect."

Issa Smith continued: "On the issue of impersonating a police officer, Imam Jamil had been given a badge by the mayor in this little Alabama town called Whitehall, where we had this project. The mayor had invited the Muslims to come and settle down, and a number of families did. The badge given to Imam Jamil made him an honorary member of the police department, which comprised only three people. When they [police] asked the Imam for identification he pulled out his wallet and they went through it and saw the badge, and accused him of impersonating a police officer. The mayor of that town sent his own letter stating, 'we presented this to him as an honorary thing, and he doesn't go around impersonating a police officer; he certainly doesn't go around wearing a blue uniform'."

The police, however, were clearly looking for an excuse to arrest the Imam. Despite this information being available, the authorities approached Imam Jamil's attorney indicating they would pursue the charges unless a deal could be worked out whereby he would spend six months in jail. Imam Jamil rejected the deal saying that he had done nothing wrong. When the court date came, he did not attend.

There is a strong feeling in the community that the current controversy is part of a bitter continuation of unfinished business stemming from an incident in 1995. On August 7, 1995, Imam Jamil and his seven-year-old son Kairi were arrested in connection with the July shooting of one William Miles, 22, near his store. Imam Jamil's store was closed at the time. Miles, however, was pressured by the FBI into identifying Imam Jamil al-Amin as the unknown assailant, threatening that if he did not cooperate, the FBI would jail him for possession of marijuana (see Crescent International, September 1-15, 1995).

Even members of Atlanta's Police department openly expressed amazement when agents of the FBI, the FBI's Domestic Counterterrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms became involved in a case that the police themselves described as "a routine aggravated assault." In the words of Michael Hauptman, the attorney who represented him in that case, "Given all that has gone on in his life, he [Imam al-Amin] would have to be an idiot to believe that he was not targeted by the police."

Imam al-Amin became a Muslim in 1976, after years of involvement in the "liberation struggle" in America during the 1960s and 1970s, first with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and later with the Black Panther Party. It was during this period that he became famous as H. Rap Brown. His more recent 'crime' has been to fight drugs and prostitution in the West End neighbourhood of Atlanta, and provide security to ordinary people, something the police have failed to do. Imam Al-Amin's success has exposed the police's criminal methods.

His other 'crime' is that he has been organising the Muslim community in the area into an independent and active body. This is something the US establishment will not tolerate.

Not surprisingly, both the media as well as police and FBI reports continually call him H. Rap Brown and describe him as a "former member of the Black Panther Party." That he embraced Islam in 1976 and became a responsible member of the Muslim community is conveniently overlooked, as is his contribution to cleaning and stabilising crime- and drug-infested neighbourhoods.

The Imam is now in the custody of a police force with a record of brutality and perversions of justice. High-profile police incidents include the vicious beating of Rodney King, a black motorist, by the Los Angeles police department in 1993 (the police officers involved were cleared); the brutal treatment of Haitian immigrant Abner Luema in 1997, which included being sodomized by a plunger, and the murder of unarmed Somalian immigrant Amadou Diallo last year, when four New York police officers fired 41 bullets at him outside his apartment in New York; they were acquitted earlier this year.

Those who expect justice from such a system had better think again. The instinctive reaction of many Muslim groups and organizations is a disgrace and a disappointment. The Afro-American Muslim community in north America has often felt itself the victim of discrimination within the Muslim community as well as from non-Muslims. Unfortunately this episode is likely to increase these suspicions.

Muslimedia: April 1-15, 2000

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