Unjustly Imprisoned: Mufid Abdulqader and the Holy Land Five

Mufid Abdulqader, a 64-year-old Palestinian-American political prisoner, was released on Dec. 12, 2024 to a halfway house after being imprisoned for nearly two decades for his involvement with the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) charity organization.
His case was underscored by human rights groups as an example of wrongful imprisonment in association with a case that was blown out of proportion, primarily targeting Muslim charities.
In a recent similar case, the U.S. accused the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA) staff in Gaza for having links to Hamas as well, an accusation that was debunked as baseless and lacking evidence.
Who is Mufid Abdulqader?
Abdulqader was born in Ramallah, a town in the West Bank, and holds both Jordanian and American citizenship. He grew up witnessing Israeli oppression against his countrymen following the regime’s occupation of Ramallah in the 1967 Six-Day War.
He pursued higher education in the U.S. and graduated from Oklahoma State University with both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in civil engineering. He later went on to work for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation as an engineer.
Abdulqader was widely recognized as one of key members of the Holy Land Five alongside Mohammad el-Mezain, Ghassan el-Aashi, Shukri Abu Baker, and Abdulrahman Odeh, who were also imprisoned in 2004.
According to the FBI, they were “convicted of funneling more than $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas,” a claim that Human Rights Watch condemned and refuted.
The Holy Land Foundation Five
Established in the late 1980s, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) became the largest Muslim charity organization in the U.S. It raised millions of dollars for impoverished Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
The foundation also organized programs across Palestinian territories and provided civilians with essential and life-saving resources amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
This made HLF a direct target of pro-Israel groups in the U.S. that claimed the foundation was raising funds for “terrorism.”
Starting in 1993, the foundation’s leaders were placed under FBI surveillance and in 2001, less than three months after the 9/11 terror attacks, the U.S. government froze HLF assets, raided its offices, and labeled it as a terrorist organization.
In 2008, the Holy Land Five were prosecuted on the notion that the social programs they financed “help win the ‘hearts and minds’ of Palestinian people for Hamas.”
Muslims and Post-9/11 Surveillance
Following the 9/11 attacks and the rise of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism activities, Muslims and Islamic civil organizations were systemically targeted across the nation – a move that pro-Israel organizations took full advantage of.
In a quest to shut down the largest Muslim charity organization in the U.S., former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon presented a document to then-U.S. President George W. Bush, allegedly showing “proof” of the Holy Land Foundation’s links to funding.
Eventually, the documents presented by Sharon were falsified due to lack of evidence, which led international rights groups to point out faulty translations and lack of evidence used to accuse the Holy Land Five.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the “dubious claims,” which “echoed those that the Israeli government has made against Palestinian human rights groups and advocates for decades.”
According to the HRW website, the defendants of the Holy Land Five were not accused of funding “terrorist organizations” or “terrorist attacks.” The Palestinian charities they funded were free of any accusations.
The “War on Terror” Continues
The HLF prosecution was clouded by the fear and suspicion of Muslims in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, a reality that continues to target Muslims in Western countries.
Abdulqader is one of the hundreds of Americans arrested for advocating for Palestinians in Gaza. Despite ongoing crackdowns on free speech across the U.S., pro-Palestine protests and demonstrations have only increased.
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