Who ever said anti-imperialist solidarity means solidarity with progressives only? (discussion contribution to Communist Party of Canada Central Convention)

 Who ever said anti-imperialist solidarity means solidarity with progressives only?

By Saleh Waziruddin

(Discussion contribution to 2007 35th Communist Party of Canada Central Convention, this was held back from being printed in the discussion bulletin by the Central Executive until a response was prepared to print side-by-side. Also the footnotes were omitted.)

You can choose your friends but not family. You can't choose who your ruling class invades, yet you still owe them anti-imperialist solidarity. This is like how we can't choose who our boss attacks at work, it might be a Tory or someone bad at their job but we still have to defend their rights because if we let the boss win everyone else is next. This simple idea is Lenin's concept of anti-imperialist solidarity in “Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism,” solidarity is NOT just with workers and progressives but with all forces targeted by imperialism abroad. Otherwise we and they will be a reserve for the boss in going after one and then the other. This is not because imperialism's targets are automatically progressive, but because of how imperialism works in pitting us against each other.

The Main Political Resolution (see Bulletin #1) is dogmatic about anti-imperialist solidarity, especially point #21 where it not only opposes solidarity with Iran's government just because it is targeted by imperialism (not reason enough?!) but puts words in the mouths of people like me saying we must think the Iranian government is pro-worker or progressive since we are calling for support with it, as if anti-imperialist solidarity is only for progressives! The Resolution rightfully declares solidarity with Latin American countries opposing imperialism, who themselves publicly support Iran's government, but conspicuously leaves out forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in hot battles with imperialism and giving it a run for its money.

This confusion about imperialism is part of a growing divide in the communist and progressive movement. The Lebanese CP recognizes Hezbollah and the Palestine People's Party recognizes Hamas as part of the anti-imperialist resistance and give it armed support even though Hezbollah and Hamas are not progressive¹, and the Syrian CP² called the Iranian election a victory for anti-imperialist resistance³. Not just communists: the ALBA countries (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Honduras under Zelaya, Nicaragua, and three Caribbean countries) who the Political Resolution is in solidarity with, and Brazil, have publicly supported Ahmadinejad and the Iranian government for being in imperialism's cross-hairs⁴.

On the other hand, some other communist parties have called these anti-imperialist forces a threat to the working class⁵. Recently People's Voice carried an interview by Junge Welt with CC First Secretary of the Tudeh Party⁶ where he correctly pointed out it is dogmatic to criticize the Iranian opposition for not being purely working class, but why shouldn't the same anti-dogmatism not apply to the Iranian government's anti-imperialism? In the interview the Tudeh leader denigrates Iran's refusal to give in to imperialism by comparing it with the Taliban's combat against imperialism, without giving a reason for why this isn't anti-imperialism. Isn't it objectively anti-imperialist (and natural!) when you are actually fighting armies occupying your country, or are under threat of invasion but hold on to sovereignty anyway? Yes, there are limitations to these forces, but who can deny that they are not surrendering to imperialism?

Iran's government and its President Ahmadinejad in particular are being viciously attacked in a propaganda campaign like the Iraq WMD claims. Even some communists have swallowed the lie that Ahmadinejad is a holocaust denier despite him protesting “I'm not saying it didn't happen”,⁷ or that he has threatened Israel, even though leftists unsympathatic to Ahmadinejad such as professor Juan Cole have refuted the latter as groundless⁸. In the recent interview Tudeh's leader was asked point-blank about these accusations but he didn't refute them. Tudeh Party's 2005 statement repeats the canard that Ahamdinejad called for “wiping Israel off the map.”⁹

At the Mexico-Canada-US Peace trilateral in October the Tudeh representative said that Iran wants to conquer the Islamic world. This is not something the Iranian government has said and simply doesn't have the means to do, although anyone concerned about someone conquering the Islamic word should look no further than the US which not only has the means but is occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, bombing Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, declaring Syria and Iran to be next, and threatened Pakistan's government with being “bombed into the stone age!”¹⁰ Let's get realistic about who is a threat to the Islamic world let alone the whole world.

In Canada we're not only subject to anti-Iranian war propaganda that it's our duty to counter, but Canada has exceeded the UN's sanctions against Iran despite Iran's compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Canada has banned direct air links with Iran and forbidden Iranian Cultural Centres¹¹, which has nothing to do with nuclear weapons but isolates our peoples from each other. As Leninists it's our duty to break open this blockade, instead of joining our ruling class in condemning Iran's government.

Anti-imperialist solidarity is being counter-posed to solidarity with workers. British labour unions backed out of a resolution for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, a turn-around they credited solely to Abdullah Muhsin of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions who is also of the Iraqi CP, whose open letter said withdrawal would be “bad for my country, bad for emerging progress forces, a terrible blow for trade unionism....”¹². We should reject this kind of “solidarity”.

I propose that we replace point 21 of the Main Political Resolution (see Bulletin #1) with:

“We also express our solidarity with Iran which is the target of a campaign of slander and misinformation portraying it as a threat to other countries, as well as under UN sanctions despite complying with international treaties, and additional sanctions by the Government of Canada that make travel and contact between peoples of the two countries difficult.

We convey our revolutionary solidarity with the anti-imperialists in Iraq and Afghanistan resisting direct occupations by NATO countries including Canada, some of the most powerful and vicious military forces in human history. The successes of the resistance are a crisis for for the same ruling class we struggle against.”

1For LCP see “Amid the bombs, unity is forged”, Herbert Docena, Asia Times Online, Aug. 17, 2006 (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH17Ak02.html); for PPP see “Deluge de feu sur le people de Gaza”, Pierre Barbancay, L'Humanite, Jan. 7 2009 (http://www.humanite.fr/2009-01-07_International_Deluge-de-feu-sur-le-peuple-de-Gaza)

2Lead by Wis'al Farha Bagdash

3 “Victory for Ahmadi-Nejad, a victory for the resistance option”, Peoples Voice issue 214, Jun. 18 to 24, 2009 (http://www.syriancp.org/ara/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1245259778&archive=&cnshow=news&start_from= )

4See for example Extraordinary ALBA-TCP statement of Jun. 24 2009 reaffirming “its support for the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and rejected foreign interference and the smear campaign waged against that sister nation”, available on the Venezuela CP web site http://www.pcv-venezuela.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5119&Itemid=98

5See for example South African CP's 10^th Congress Resolution calling for struggle against “backward, xenophobic, and fundamentalist ideologies” (http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?include=10thcongress/res.html)

6“Trust in Iranian Government Shattered”, interview with Ali Khavari, People's Voice Sept. 16-30, 2009

7“Iran's President: I don't deny holocaust”, New York Daily News, Sept. 24, 2007

8See blog posting at http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/ahmadinejad-i-am-not-anti-semitic.html (June 26, 2007)

9“Iranian Regime's Adventurism Gives Imperialists an Excuse to Intervene in Iran”, International Bulletin of the Tudeh Party of Iran, #230 Nov. 2005 (http://www.tudehpartyiran.org/TN_230_Nov05.pdf)

10“We'll bomb you to Stone Age, US told Pakistan”, The Times (UK), Sept. 22, 2006 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article647188.ece)

11 “Canada-Iran Relations”, Government of Canada, Aug. 2008 (http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/iran/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/canada-iran.aspx?lang=eng&menu_id=8&menu=L)

12See Steve Warwick's, chair of UNISON Labour Link committee, report to the Labour Party conference of 2004 which includes the letter from Muhsin, available online at http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/B1608.pdf, the open letter is also available separately at http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/B1571.pdf

Protesters support the 'Secret Trial Five' (Kitchener Record)

 Nadeem Lawji says he was outraged when he learned that Canadian officials could imprison suspects for years without laying charges against them.

He was among the students and concerned citizens who gathered to protest Canada's treatment of the so-called Secret Trial Five at Speakers' Corner in downtown Kitchener on Saturday.

"You're innocent until proven guilty," said Lawji, 30, a peace and conflict studies student at the University of Waterloo.

The Secret Trial Five refers to five Muslim men that Canadian officials have held in custody for years on security certificates.

Three of them -- Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud Jaballah and Hassan Almrei-- remain in custody at a high-security holding centre near Kingston, Ont., according to a leaflet the protesters distributed.

The other two -- Adil Charkaoui and Mohamed Harkat-- have been released on strict bail conditions.

The protesters were calling on the Canadian government to close the holding centre where the three men are being held, dubbed Canada's Guantanamo North.

The event drew more than a dozen protesters, who wore signs over their chests with messages such as, "Close Gitmo Now" and "Abolish security certificates."

The protest was staged in conjunction with other Canadian demonstrations marking the fourth anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, where the United States has been detaining terror suspects.

"What we're saying is this shouldn't happen in Canada," said organizer Alison Murray, another student of peace and conflict studies at the University of Waterloo.

None of the five Muslim men have been convicted of criminal offences in Canada, Murray said.

The Canadian government should release the three still in custody, or charge them and allow them a fair and open trial, she said.

Through security certificates, the Canadian government can declare a foreign national or permanent resident inadmissible to Canada and detain them without charge, according to a Canadian Border Services fact sheet.

A certificate cannot be appealed. When judged to be reasonable, it becomes a deportation order.

"It's a fundamentally flawed process," Murray said.

rcureatz@therecord.com

Illustration

Photo: PETER LEE, RECORD STAFF / Saleh Waziruddin hands out leaflets at a protest in Kitchener on Saturday against Canada's so-called 'Guantanamo.'

Credit: RECORD STAFF

Word count: 393

(Copyright (c) 2007 The Record (Waterloo Region). All rightsreserved. )

Naming names: Mispronunciations, assumptions cause some to consider changing their monikers (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

 L.A. JOHNSON

A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service. -- Henry David Thoreau 

Saleh Waziruddin's name routinely gets mangled -- as gnarled as a Mercedes grille in a crack-up with a Mack truck.

Some have twisted his Arabic name, Saleh, into Saul, Solid, Salad and even Slutch.

Slutch?

For the record, his name is pronounced (SA-leH Wa-ZEER-ud-DEEN).

When he has introduced himself over the phone in political circles, some have misheard him, mistaking him for former Pittsburgh city official Sala Udin and offering him a hearty, "How are you doing, councilman?"

"I can't say there haven't been times where it was to my advantage not to make the correction," says Mr. Waziruddin, 28, of Wilkinsburg. He often obtained the information he was seeking or had his call transferred more quickly when he was mistaken for the former councilman.

When he momentarily has stepped out of the room at business meetings, some have asked his colleagues how to pronounce his Persian last name and have simply been told, "You don't."

Despite the chronic mispronunciations, Mr. Waziruddin doesn't plan to change his name.

"Changing wouldn't be true to the consciousness of who I am," says the Canadian-born Mr. Waziruddin, who moved to Pittsburgh 11 years ago.

"There are periods when ethnic pride is very high, and people say, 'I'm going to keep my name,' " says Edward Callary, a Northern Illinois University associate professor of English and past editor of the American Names Society's quarterly journal, Names. "Then, in the 19th century it was more common to translate or Americanize your name."

What is in a name? A name can easily roll off the tongue or cause lips to stumble. Names and their perceived meanings can shape or distort identity. Some once considered Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's name a potential political liability in a terror-fearing post 9/11 America. However, now that he's a popular political darling and mulling over a bid for the U.S. presidency in 2008, his is a winning brand name rich in political capital.

For as long as immigrant communities have been coming to America, people have grappled with the idea of changing their names.

Throughout history, some have changed their names because they were difficult to pronounce or to hide their country of origin because of biases toward certain groups, says Stanley Lieberson, a Harvard University sociologist.

"Right now, it's rough having a Middle Eastern name," Professor Lieberson says. "In World War II, if you were German, you sure didn't want to have a German name."

There were times when Irish immigrants dropped the "O' " from their surnames and Italian immigrants omitted vowels at the end of theirs.

"Between a third and 40 percent of American names have been changed," says Edwin D. Lawson, professor emeritus of psychology, State University of New York at Fredonia and past president of the American Names Society. Of the 685,000 who've become naturalized citizens in the past year, about 16 percent have requested a name change, according to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics.

In the eight-county region that includes Allegheny County at its center, about 15 percent of the estimated 1,300 people who became naturalized citizens during the past year asked for a name change.

Of the 506 people who have become naturalized citizens in Pittsburgh thus far this year, about 33 percent have changed their names.

"You can change your name to anything but Jesus Christ," says Keith Anderson, deputy clerk for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

When Sayeh Tavangar became a U.S. citizen in 2000, she thought about adopting an American middle name.

"I couldn't take everybody butchering my name," says Ms. Tavangar, 25, of McCandless.

When she orders a drink at Starbucks, she gives the name Lola to avoid hearing, "Venti soy latte for Siher." The same goes for restaurant waiting lists.

"It's just so much easier," she says.

She vividly remembers her first day of fourth grade in 1990 when she'd just moved to Queens, N.Y., from Iran and didn't speak any English.

"The teacher kept trying to introduce me saying, 'This is the new girl from Iran,' and I didn't even know she was saying my name because she was saying it so incorrectly," says Ms. Tavangar, whom Pittsburgh magazine in January named one of the city's 25 most beautiful people. "I always hated the first day of class."

Her name is pronounced (SIGH-eh TAV-an-jer). She has been called Saiey, Sigh-ee, Sisi, Suheh and Messiah. And more than once, perhaps because of the speed or cadence of her voice, people have thought she said her name was Diane, when she's answered her work phone.

She's given up on correcting most people because they still say it wrong. A supervisor at a previous job never got it right.

"You want to slap them and say, 'How can you not know my name? I've worked here so long,' " she says, laughing.

"Every time I tell people I'm Persian, they say, 'Oh, Peru,' " she says, laughing even harder. "And I think, if this person thinks I'm from Peru, is it worth correcting them? Do I even want to talk to them?"

When she explains that Persia is the former name for Iran, people immediately think of Iraq. Then, the questions begin.

"What do you think of terrorism? Do you have family back there? Do you have anybody in your family who has been involved in that?"

"When they make such a stupid comment, I kind of look at them and think there's no hope," she says. "I just ignore it."

Growing up in New York, she didn't experience people having as much trouble with her name, she says, because New York is more diverse and names like hers are more common. She's proud of her name and doesn't intend to change it.

"Just because I live here and have to deal with this, I'm not going to give up my culture and heritage," says Ms. Tavangar, who serves on the board of the Iranian American Council.

When she has children, she plans to give them "definitely Persian names as well that are very hard to pronounce," she says.

Alex Colon, whose full name is Alejandro Jose Colon Vale (Al-e-HAN-dro HO-zay Ca-LOAN VAL-ay), doesn't yet have children, but to spare his future children the moniker mangling he has endured, he may give them English-language names if they're going to be growing up in Pittsburgh.

"If I lived in Miami or California or New York or someplace like that where I knew they wouldn't have such a hard time with the same name, I might consider giving them Spanish names," says Mr. Colon, 28, of Shadyside.

He moved from Puerto Rico to Orlando, Fla., in 1998, lived in Germany for a time and then moved to Pittsburgh in 2004. When he went to set up his cell phone service, the saleswoman had a difficult time with his name.

"My last name was a big deal for her and why did I have two last names and how do you say the first one," he remembers the woman asking him.

His two first names and two last names prove too difficult for many to pronounce. He's been called Alesandro, Alejandro, with a hard "J," Colon, as in rectal, and Vale like Vail, Colo.

"Isn't that tragic," he says.

So, he goes by his childhood nickname, Alex, and just one of his last names.

"Some people have some sort of exposure to other cultures or they may have heard the name before," he says. "Other times, they just don't get it."

American-born Kamala Ramaswamy (ram-a-SWA-mee) is half American and half east Indian. Her German-Hungarian-Irish mother from Akron, Ohio, gave her and her siblings Indian first names to match their father's last name.

"I have to learn to say THAT?" she recalled thinking as a kindergartner, when she saw her name written out.

People routinely mispronounce her first name, even though it rhymes with the familiar Pamela. She's been called Carmella, Camera, Kuhala, Camille and Camilla, when she studied Russian.

"It's a good call screener," says Ms. Ramaswamy, 38, of West Homestead. "If you can't say my name, I know you don't know me."

She corrects people up to three times, then gives up.

"I know who they're talking about and I might as well just answer," she says. "If I speak to you once a quarter or barely need to talk to you, it doesn't really matter."

What's maddening is the assumptions people make about her because of her name, she says.

She grew up in Brownsville, White Oak and Irwin and specifically mentions that she's a Western Pennsylvania native in job cover letters, because people think she is from India.

"Gee, you speak English good," some have said to her. She jokes she doesn't bother to correct their grammar.

"If you're in a technical area or medical office, they want you on their team because people think you're better," she says.

But when she and her siblings were young, over a number of summers, they each applied for jobs at a local ice cream shop and none of them ever got a call back even though a "Help Wanted" sign remained in the shop window.

In a previous job, a client from Brownsville questioned her about her name saying, "How do you say that name? We just don't get names like that down here."

"What's funny is, that's where my dad had his practice," she recalls.

Some people also seem surprised to learn she's Lutheran and enjoys country music.

While names can be indicative of someone's ethnic heritage, they don't necessarily reveal who someone is, she says. The biggest lesson people need to learn about people and names is simple.

"Don't assume."

First Published November 14, 2006, 12:00am

We're eager to meet with the FBI to develop protocols (Letter to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Letters to the editor

October 28, 2006 12:00 AM

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

We're eager to meet with the FBI to develop protocols

The Islamic Council of Greater Pittsburgh delegates from local mosques heartily appreciate FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeffrey B. Killeen's stated desire to foster mutual understanding with the Muslim community and protect our civil rights ("It's Wrong to Suggest the FBI Targets Those of Arabic Origin," Oct. 21). In the spirit of Mr. Killeen's letter, we have two requests of the FBI that we have made in writing directly but have not received a reply to, and after your publication of his letter we are confident that the FBI will support its stated desires with actions:

1) We would like a meeting with the FBI to develop a protocol for searching mosques without causing an unnecessary disruption of services or intimidation of the congregants. We believe it is possible for the FBI to conduct investigations without putting a cloud of suspicion on our whole community as was done on the June 30 raid of the Light of the Age Mosque. We believe this meeting is consistent with Mr. Killeen's statement that the FBI reaches out to the Muslim community.

2) We would like an inventory of any items removed from the Light of the Age Mosque in the raid that took place on June 30. The provision of an inventory is standard, and we are sure the FBI does not believe Muslims should be singled out to be denied this right.

We look forward to a successful meeting on protocols for searching our mosques as well as a delivery of the inventory, and we look forward to a Post-Gazette story on such positive steps the FBI can take to show that we can believe its assurances about its relationship with your Muslim neighbors.

YUSEF ALI
President
Islamic Council of Greater Pittsburgh Executive Committee
Point Breeze

The letter also was signed by Jibril AbdulHafeez, vice president; Khalid Chatta, treasurer; and S. Saleh Waziruddin, secretary.

Racial Profiling Doesn't Keep Us Safe From Terrorists (Letter to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Letters to the editor: 08/24/06

August 24, 2006 12:00 AM

Racial profiling doesn't keep us safe from terrorists

The writer of the Aug. 21 letter "Go for It" assumes that racial profiling has been "proven successful in stopping terror threats," is necessary for keeping the writer's family and neighbors safe, and that anyone against it has something to hide or is selfish.

Tell that to Getu Tewolde, one neighbor who was arrested as a terrorist here in 2002 without any evidence. After a yearlong campaign by more of our neighbors, who have nothing to hide in their unselfish outcry against racism, Getu was released and cleared of the terrorism charges.

In the last year newspapers have been full of stories of more of our neighbors of color who have been released after being held since 9/11 without charges because the government admits they were not criminals but victims of roundups. Taking away your neighbors' rights based on race has nothing to do with making anyone safer and everything to do with racist anxieties whipped up by sensational rhetoric and headlines.

Racism hasn't worked in the "war on crime" and the "war on drugs," and it's not working in the "war on terror." Profiling and shakedowns feed into racism and demagoguery; they have nothing to do with protecting anyone from crime, drugs or terrorism, and definitely have nothing to do with spreading freedom and democracy.

If you don't speak out when they come after your neighbors, there will be no one left to speak out when they come after you.

S. SALEH WAZIRUDDIN
Wilkinsburg

The writer is chair of the Anti- Discrimination Committee
of the Islamic Council of Greater Pittsburgh.

FBI Mosque Raid Sparks United Outcry (People's Weekly World)

(People's Weekly World was renamed to People's World and became online only, the article is now at https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/fbi-mosque-raid-sparks-united-outcry/)

FBI Mosque Raid Sparks United Outcry

by: Asad Ali

July 21 2006

People's Weekly World

PITTSBURGH — As the mostly African American and Latino congregation was preparing for weekly Friday prayers at Light of the Age mosque here on June 30, a dozen FBI agents raided the building and lined up worshippers outside at gunpoint. Agents ransacked the building and asked individuals detailed personal questions, demonstrating intimate knowledge of their private lives.

The agents had a warrant for a mosque member over a parole violation, but he and his vehicle were already seized outside hours before. Later a federal judge declared the man was no threat and released him without bail. The formerly incarcerated member had been pulled over in Utah for tinted windows. Because he was “nervous” his van was searched, turning up pieces of his wife’s permitted handgun. He was allowed to leave Utah and spent the night at the mosque. The FBI also tried to charge a parole violation in the State of Washington but the state wasn’t interested.

The real target of the raid may have been the unity of the local Muslim community and its allies. Over the past years, foreign-born Muslims who were voluntarily interviewed by the FBI noticed that African American mosques and personalities were central to the FBI’s questions. The day after the raid, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published erroneously that the mosque is not part of the Islamic Council of Greater Pittsburgh, an umbrella group. The prosecutor cited the article in court to justify the raid, and sensationalized the alleged parole violations.

The raid and media coverage galvanized the multiracial, multi-class Muslim community to respond. An emergency outdoor leadership meeting was convened in a city park with members of African American and foreign-born mosques.

A prescheduled cookout and piñata game for the mosque’s working-class neighborhood was held with a high turnout of support. A documentary crew making “The New Muslim Cool” for PBS, about African American and Latino Muslim hip hop, was on site.

It would take two weeks for the Islamic Council to reach consensus, but the raided mosque and African-American Muslim leaders organized an immediate response press conference July 7.

A vacant lot next to the mosque was packed with diverse supporters. Luqman Abdus-Salaam, the mosque director who is also a hip-hop performer known as “B-Tree,” read a statement asking why the FBI disrupted a community-service-oriented multiracial mosque.

Tahir Abdullah, assistant director, read a statement citing the FBI’s history of harassing African Americans from the Muslim Alliance of North America (MANA), the mosque’s national organization which is predominantly African American in its makeup. Speakers from the foreign-born community and the Nation of Islam also read solidarity statements. Leaders of civil rights, economic justice and labor organizations were also present.

Khari Mosley, local Democratic Party ward chair and League of Young Voters regional director, told reporters the mosque is a community asset and asked why “we have a war going on overseas, and poverty is escalating, yet we’re using our resources to be Big Brother and to raid mosques in a police state, Gestapo fashion?”

Mosque Members Still Questioning FBI Raid (from ThePittsburghChannel.com)

 http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/9485337/detail.html

 

Mosque Members Still Questioning FBI Raid

POSTED: 5:00 pm EDT July 7, 2006

PITTSBURGH -- FBI agents caused quite a stir when they swarmed a house of worship on the North Side last week.

So far, the bureau has refused to address the disruption at the Light of the Age mosque -- and its members are not happy.

"Why did the FBI raid our place of worship last Friday, preventing us from having our congregational prayer?" mosque director Luqman Abdus-Salaam asked on Friday.

On the outside, there are no obvious signs that the building at 1320 Boyle St. is a place of worship.

But inside, there are signs of faith -- and broken doors that mosque members said are the result of the FBI raid.

"We can be proud that Muslims of several different mosques have come forward in the hopes of preventing the FBI from doing any more injustice," said Saleh Waziruddin, of the activist group Jamaat For Justice.

The U.S. Attorney's office said FBI agents conducted a legal search of the mosque.

Investigators said they learned that Larry M. Williams, a wanted criminal, was staying there.

Prosecutors told Channel 4 Action News that Williams is a convicted rapist wanted in Utah for illegally possessing a firearm. He has also failed to register as a sex offender since moving to Pennsylvania, they said.

FBI agents arrested Williams outside the mosque last week, and they said they had a warrant to search the building.

"The FBI is charged with safeguarding the security of the nation, not the violation of civil and human rights of its citizenry," said Tahir Abdullah, the mosque's assistant director.

Members of the mosque did not take questions on Friday, even though they organized a press conference.