Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker are the co-founders of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a successful Texas-based charity that contributed at least $56 million between 1992 and 2001 to areas in the West Bank, Gaza, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Turkey, West Africa and the Southern United States in response to natural and man-made disasters. After being prosecuted along with three colleagues, they became known as the Holy Land Five. The other defendants in the case were fundraiser Mufid Abdulqader who is due to be released in 2024, New Jersey charity director Abdelrahman Odeh and San Diego charity director Mohammad El-Mezain who were released in 2020 and 2022 respectively. Ghassan and Shukri were each sentenced to 65 years so the campaign is focused on their release.

Ghassan Elashi is now a father of six who, according to his sons and daughters, has been more present as a father than some fathers who are free. Even from prison, he has inspired his children to follow their dreams. With an enormous heart, an infectious laugh and a resilient spirit, he has spent his long years in prison creating geometric art, exercising, practicing yoga and collecting photos of his several grandchildren that he dreams of holding on his lap one day.

Shukri Abu-Baker is now a father of four, including Sanabel who was born with two chronic degenerative illnesses and due to the high quality medical care she received in America, he made it his life’s mission to provide that level of care to the children in his native community. Sanabel has since passed away during his incarceration. Tragically, he was not able to attend her funeral. Shukri, an impassioned, motivational personality, has spent his long years in prison writing poetry, crafting beads out of dried bread and watching his two grandchildren grow up from afar.

They are sons, husbands, fathers, grandfathers, pioneers, community leaders, intellectuals and peacemakers who shared a passion for philanthropy. Their mission was noble: to make a difference by providing relief and assistance to thousands of people, thereby being a solution to an international crisis and meeting the humanitarian needs of Palestinians and others worldwide living below the poverty level.

Ghassan and Shukri have already served 15 years of a 65 year sentence and their case has been widely criticized by the human rights and law communities as a grave miscarriage of justice. They stood up for kindness; let us stand up for them. Mass movements have been at the heart of every human rights, civil liberties and social justice change. By supporting this clemency campaign, you will be joining the mass movement advocating for a compassionate world. This campaign is also an important opportunity to protect our commitment to the Constitution, specifically our:

• First Amendment right to give charity;

• Fifth Amendment right to due process;

• Sixth Amendment right to confront a witness;

• Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment and

• Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection.

Ghassan and Shukri’s continued political imprisonment goes against our democratic ideals and what we stand for as a nation. It now falls on us to urge President Biden to right this wrong and commute their sentences to time served. Sign the petition now!

Guilt by association. The foundation leaders were using the same Palestinian charity-distributing organizations called zakat committees that U.S. government agency, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and other NGOs like the Red Cross and UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), were using to distribute their aid to Palestinians in need.

These committees were the most reliable way in the area to distribute aid to those in need. Former US consul general in Jerusalem Edward Abington testified during the trials that he was never informed that the committees had ties to any blacklisted groups. In fact, these local committees were operating with the approval of the Israeli government and none of the ones listed on the indictment were blacklisted the entire time the foundation was operating with them.

Circumstantial evidence. Not a single piece of evidence linked the HLF funds to any blacklisted groups. In fact, the prosecution did not contend the money went to any act of violence. The prosecutors admitted in court that the money was transparent and was all traced to indisputable philanthropy. Rather, they asked the jury to infer an indirect link, arguing that the zakat committees were affiliated with blacklisted groups. However, as aforementioned, nonprofits nationwide and worldwide were distributing charity through the same zakat committees.

Anonymous witnesses. Both trials included the unprecedented use of anonymous witnesses as experts. One of them, who only identified as “Avi,” testified as an expert that the zakat committees listed in the indictment were affiliated with blacklisted organizations. Neither the jury nor defense could challenge his credentials and what made him an expert. The second one, who went by the pseudonym “Major Lior,” produced ambiguous documents allegedly seized by the IDF linking the HLF to a blacklisted organization. Due to the anonymity of the documents and his testimony, the defense wasn’t able to meaningfully cross examine him. Letting expert witnesses testify anonymously was unheard of before this case.

Prejudicial Evidence & Unreliable Informant. The prosecution introduced four additional testimonies and evidence in the second trial, which ended in guilty verdicts; that’s compared to the first trial that ended with a hung jury and no convictions just a year earlier.

First, the prosecution brought on to the stand Robert McBrien from the Treasury Department who testified that checking OFAC’s list of blacklisted organizations was not enough. The appellate court agreed with the defense that this testimony was highly prejudicial and should not have been admitted.

Secondly, the prosecution introduced hearsay evidence of undated and unauthored documents allegedly seized during an illegal military raid. These documents and scraps of paper supposedly stated that the zakat committees were associated with a blacklisted organization. The judge in the first trial had refused to admit this evidence but the judge in the second trial let it in. The appellate court held that this evidence was unreliable hearsay that was prejudicial and should not have been admitted.

Third, Steve Simon, a staff member of the National Security Council, was permitted to testify about 9/11 – which had nothing to do with the defendants. Again, the appellate court held that this testimony was prejudicial and should not have been admitted.

Fourth, the prosecution brought forth an unreliable new witness, Mohamed Shorbagi, who had pleaded guilty to various crimes and was hoping for a more lenient sentence. Shorbagi attempted to link the zakat committees to blacklisted organizations, even though he had never been to the West Bank. The appellate court ruled that his hearsay testimony should not have been admitted.

In all four cases, even though the court ruled that introducing this testimony and evidence to the jury was highly prejudicial to the defendants, it found all of it to be “harmless.”

Unadmitted evidence. Nineteen prosecution documents that were not admitted into evidence went to the jury room during the first trial’s jury deliberations. A double jeopardy motion was filed after the first trial stating that these documents could have affected some jurors’ opinions. The motion was denied.

Disproportionate sentences. Two of the foundation leaders, Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu-Baker, are serving excessive sentences of 65 years in prison. This is considered by human rights organizations and law experts as unjust punishment. More notably, if they had been found guilty in Israel for the same charges, the maximum punishment would be four years, two years in prison and two years under house arrest.

Upon the charity’s inception, in order to ensure their philanthropic efforts weren’t diluted by foreign policy debates and ongoing international politics, the foundation leaders consulted with attorneys and were told that as long as they distributed aid through licensed, registered charities and clearly documented all of their sponsored projects, they would be safe.

Despite their efforts to operate lawfully, a defamation campaign against the foundation began in the early 1990s, with politicians, lobby groups and bloggers asking the state and justice departments to investigate the foundation, heightening Congressional pressure by proposing legislations that would target nonprofits and requesting that the IRS revoke the foundation’s tax-exempt status. Even after some foreign organizations were blacklisted in 1995, the foundation leaders continued to seek guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department and were never advised to change their process. Despite all these libelous reports, the foundation remained open.

That is, until December 3, 2001, when then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited with President Bush. On December 4, Bush issued an executive order to freeze the HLF’s assets and shut it down.

Case Timeline

• July 27, 2004 | Arrested and indicted

• October 22, 2007 | Nearly acquitted after a hung jury, mistrial declared

• November 24, 2008 | Convicted

• May 27, 2009 | Given disproportionately long sentences

• 2011 | All appeals denied

• 2012 | Supreme Court declined to hear the case

Since 2001, more than 100,000 Americans of Middle Eastern or Muslim descent have experienced enhanced security measures, property seizures, arrests, secret detentions and lifelong sentences. Similarly, during World War II, 120,000 Japanese American families were ordered to live in internment camps.

“The government overstated the danger presented by Americans of Japanese descent during World War II, leading the Supreme Court to uphold orders restricting their liberty,” said HLF defense lawyer Nancy Hollander. “It took the courts 40 years to figure out that was wrong.”