Blue and red lights are flashing in your rearview mirror. You turn on your turn signal to move out of the way for the officer, only to find the officer behind you is actually pulling you over. As you pull over, you start to wonder: What did I do? I was going the speed limit, I’m wearing my seatbelt, I wasn’t driving recklessly, nor was I on my cell phone. What could it be? You are sitting patiently as the clock ticks, wondering what it is that you did in order to get pulled over. After a few minutes, the officer exits his vehicle to make his way over to you. As you lower the window and greet the officer, you politely ask what it is that you were pulled over for. Immediately the officer responds, “Sir, I am pulling you over for the obstruction of view due to the little tree car scent hanging from your rearview mirror”. At this point, you proceed in handing over your license and the registration of the vehicle, with hopes of driving away with only a warning. In any normal situation, you would likely get a warning or a simple ticket for a fine that you would have to pay. But this isn’t any normal situation. If you are Muslim, along with being a member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir placed on the Terrorist Screening Center watch list, also known as the TSC list, here is where the normal traffic stop becomes a means for harassment.

As the officer queries your name, a little message pops up to call the Terrorist Screening Center. At this point, the officer believes they may be dealing with a suspected terrorist, so they immediately call for back up. Twenty minutes have passed by, and at this point, your palms start to sweat, wondering why this normal, routine traffic stop is taking so long and why a few more police cars have shown up. As you become even more nervous, you notice six to eight police officers walking up to your vehicle with their hands on their guns, asking you to show your hands and slowly exit the vehicle. The officers anxiously awaiting your exit from the car with their hands on their guns quickly ask you to turn around and place your hands on your back as they place you in handcuffs and detain you. At a loss for words, you are upset, not knowing what it is that you did for such a reaction. The officers begin to ask many questions, such as permission to search your car as they frisk you. After you politely state you know your rights, they back off a little and proceed to ask other questions not related to the traffic stop, such as: Where do you work? What is your son’s name? What school do you go to? And many others not related to the normal procedure. As you politely decline to answer, knowing your rights the officers keep you reprimanded till they have confirmed your identity and have been given the authorization by the FBI to release you. In the end, the officer lets you go with a warning for the traffic violation you were just pulled over for.

The story described may seem like a scene out of a movie, but nonetheless it is a true, first-hand account. In reality, this is one of the many different types of harassment that members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir living in America on the TSC list have had to face, and unfortunately, it does not stop there. Some of the other types of harassment faced have been hours of detainment at the border by the request of the FBI, being placed on the no-fly list, being denied jobs, forcible seizure of cell phones, and even interception of phone/Skype conversations domestically and with any entities overseas. It may seem a little far-fetched, but these are some of the extreme tactics employed by the United States Government to surveil such individuals. There was even an incident when one of the members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a US citizen based out of Washington DC, was talking via Skype to a friend who is also a US citizen and member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir abroad in Jordan, catching up and making arrangements to visit each other overseas in Jordan. Although the conversation was between the two of them, there was no doubt that someone else was in on the call. The two were very easily able to confirm once Jordanian intelligence brought in the friend for questioning, asking: Why is such and such person coming here? What business does he have coming? Why is he coming to visit you? For how long will he be coming? When will he be coming? It was a private conversation between two men, undoubtedly intercepted by the US Government and handed over to foreign intelligence for them to question. It may seem a bit extreme, but this incident confirmed the profiling and the measures taken by the US government in order to keep tabs on certain individuals, and more specifically members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in America on the TSC list.

You may be wondering at this point: Who or what is Hizb-ut-Tahrir? Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation, is a political party established in 1953 whose ideology is Islam. It works for the re-establishment of the Islamic way of life using a non-violent method to generate awareness amongst Muslims so they themselves change the situation. The scope of work for Hizb-ut-Tahrir in America is to create awareness of the Islamic Ideology for both Muslims and non-Muslims. The scope is not to establish “Shariah” in America. Source: http://www.hizb-ut-tahrir.org/index.php/EN/def

Members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in America are not the only ones being targeted by the US Government; other Muslims and Muslim groups are too, regardless of political view, by use of tactics similar to the ones the US Government condemns in human rights reports. This report of targeting and blacklisting Muslims was confirmed in two publications by the Intercept this past July, respectively titled Blacklisted and Under Surveillance. Members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir on the TSC list, with their first-hand accounts of harassment, can also confirm the constant surveillance done by the US Government. It can be noted in the picture below that nearly 50% of the people under surveillance have no terrorist group affiliation. One may wonder as to what the necessity is to surveil such individuals, and to what extent it is being done, especially regarding those members in the political party.

At what point does the Government draw the line, you may ask, if it induces such surveillance against Muslims and even brainwashes their subordinates to portray Muslims in a negative matter with biased training? According to a particular FBI training leaked by The Wire, the conclusion was drawn that “religious Muslims have been and always will be agents of aggression”. The article titled FBI Teach Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are “Violent, Radical” goes into further detail, by measuring the relationship between piety and violence among the text of the three major religions of Judaism, Christianity & Islam. It draws the line and makes the aforementioned conclusion that religious Muslims have been and always will be agents of aggression, as shown in the graph below, which was literally found in the FBI training.

The preemptive measure taken does little to help the current status quo. Instead, it reinforces the agenda in the ongoing war against Muslims. In order to insinuate and justify the actions of the US Government, to maintain or push the rhetoric agenda, we sometimes hear of sting operations and terrorist plots foiled. The fact of the matter is that Government agents are directly involved in most high-profile US terror plots. A report released by the Human Rights Watch titled Illusion of Justice highlights that some of the controversial “sting” operations were proposed or led by informants. In some cases the FBI may have even created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to take such action, the report alleges.

With all the various evidences and support brought forth, we circle back to a few questions that came to mind when putting this together. Since Hizb-ut-Tahrir does not call for any violence or armed struggle for political change, why does the US Government target members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir living in America and harass them on various extreme levels? Why go through such levels of surveillance with multiple agency cooperation, such as CIA, FBI, NSA, local law enforcement and even foreign intelligence organizations with known records of human rights violations through torture? Is the Government able to further expand their surveillance program or justify it by these entrapment cases done by the FBI? These questions need to be asked, and need answering, since it seems there is no definitive and legitimate reason. Such Governments need to be held accountable for their actions and need to address the world and the individuals under surveillance as to why the Governments go to such great lengths, since they pose no threat. Or is it simply sufficient for Muslims to know that you are guilty until proven innocent?