Seeking justice for Paterson Muslim leader
By Herald News,
03/04/08

Popular imam has been a voice of moderation
Between now and Imam Mohammad Qatanani's May residency hearing, we'll learn more about who he is and what he believes. We'll also learn more about what post-Sept. 11 America is and what its people believe, especially the political, religious and civic leaders.

In 1996, Qatanani came to the United States on a religious work visa. For years, the imam at Paterson's Islamic Center of Passaic County has been one of the state's most influential Muslim leaders. He's been hailed by religious, political and civic leaders as a staunch proponent of interfaith outreach and cooperation.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on America, he was among the first domestic Muslim leaders to denounce the despicable acts.
Nevertheless, he faces deportation on the grounds that when he sought to enter the United States he failed to disclose that in the early 1990s, while visiting relatives on the West Bank, he had been arrested by the Israeli government and imprisoned for three months, ostensibly for helping Hamas, an organization whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel. Qatanani says he sought to help individual people in need. He says he didn't know what affiliations they might have had. Further, Qatanani and his lawyer say that the Israeli government didn't charge him with a crime or apprise him of a conviction.
To Qatanani's supporters, the Palestinian man has faced the Kafkaesque circumstances of being imprisoned without charge in the Middle East and then threatened with deportation here because he didn't acknowledge a conviction he says he didn't know he had at the time he sought to come to America.
Viewed from another perspective, Qatanani, who has denounced Israel's occupation of the West Bank, could be a person who had found common ground with Hamas. In 2006, Hamas candidates were elected to lead the Palestinian Authority. The organization omitted the call for Israel's destruction from its election manifesto. America has a mythic, yet complicated history with religious tolerance, the rebellion against unjust laws and immigration. After all, some of the early Colonialists came to the New World seeking religious freedom. The nation is founded in the rebellion against British rule. And we pride ourselves on being a "nation of immigrants."
Still, a close examination of America's history also shows the nation's continual struggle with racial, cultural or religious differences and a willingness to tamp down on dissent from the status quo. Today, immigration is a visceral political issue, just as it was in the latter part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th. Now, in the name of national security and the "war on terror," post-Sept. 11 America has countenanced people with real or supposed terrorist ties to be jailed without charge.
We are a nation where Mitt Romney's Mormon faith hampered his attempt to win the Republican nomination for president. We are a nation where Barack Obama, a leading Democratic candidate for president, can be attacked by his political foes who simply repeat his "Muslim" middle name: Hussein.
Against that backdrop, Qatanani's supporters have resolved to support a man that Paterson's Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. says has "done nothing but good since he's been in the United States."
We encourage the Democratic congressman and others to put pressure on the government to ensure that Qatanani, who has filed a new application for residency, is treated justly.