Wednesday, November 4, 2009

‘Who is to define a terrorist?’ - By Bella Jaisinghani - TNN - The Times of India, Mumbai



http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Client.asp?Daily=TOIM&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&Enter=true&Skin=TOINEW&GZ=T


The Times of India

Updated: Thursday, 05 November, 2009 11:37:04am

‘Who is to define a terrorist?’


Bella Jaisinghani | TNN 


Mumbai: “The Taliban is not the enemy of the US. The only reason US soldiers are being killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan is because the Americans are in that country.’’ Words that caused heads to turn at an Islamic conference in the city which had invited a former detainee of Guantanamo Bay as Wednesday’s main speaker. 

    Straightaway, James Yusuf Yee drew an interested crowd of listeners, some sympathetic, most curious. The New Jersey-born cleric had been held at the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba for purported links with the Al-Qaeda even as he served as a chaplain with the US military.
 
    Charged with serious offences that include sedition, espionage and aiding the enemy, as well as minor ones like storing pornographic material on his official computer, Yee was held in Gitmo where he served for 76 days in 2003.
However, a year later, the US government dropped court martial charges and granted him an honourable discharge from service. 

    Since his release, the 40-year-old Chinese-American convert has written a book and become a sought-after speaker at international conferences, the lat
est being a ten-day peace meet organised by Zakir Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) at the Somaiya Grounds in Sion. Naik and his brother Mohammed flanked Yee as he freely expressed his feelings about the country of his birth without fear of retribution upon his return. 

    Even as he declared his pride in being American, his discourse was peppered with sardonic references to the “demonisation of Muslims’’ in that 
country and the “so-called war on terror that uses Islam as a weapon’’. “Who is to decide the definition of a terrorist?’’ Yee added. “Civil society must grant every person who is accused of terrorism the right to a full trial in a criminal court.’’ 

    As his defence assumed combative tones, he was asked to comment on the rights of victims of terrorism. “Well, there are bereaved families in America who feel that Gitmo detainees should be severely punished. But equally several others have forgiven them because they do not want others to experience a similar loss. At any rate, I do not think a single prisoner of Guantanamo Bay is actually involved in the 9/11 attacks,’’ Yee said. 

    Inevitably, a point was raised about President Obama’s premature Nobel being a direct result of his famous Reconciliation-with-Islam speech. Admitting that he had campaigned for Obama’s nomination over that of Hillary Clinton, then proudly recalling that he was present at the presidential inauguration, Yee went on to express disappointment with his former hero. “Obama has failed to come good on his word to close Guantanamo down,’’ he said, even though the closure is due in January 2010.


MAKING A POINT: Former US army chaplain James Yusuf Yee

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