9/11: How US Stole 15 Years From A Muslim Man Over False Charges

Yassin Aref was a victim of Islamophobia and a controversial arrest by the FBI that led him to 15 years in jail. The US Stole 15 years from him over false charges.

For Yassin M Aref, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is a sad reminder of 15 lost years spent in American prisons.

EkohotBlog reports that the man who is a former mosque leader at the Masjid As-Salam in Albany, the capital of New York state, was arrested in 2004 on a conspiracy charge brought by the FBI in a “sting operation”. He was accused of aiding “terrorism” based on “secret” evidence.

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His case drew criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics of post-9/11 counterterrorism policies in the United States.

Aref is a living victim of Islamophobia and hates speech that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, which served as the pretext by the George W Bush administration for invading Afghanistan and Iraq.

As the world remembers the 20th anniversary, the withdrawal of US forces, ending the war in Afghanistan, is a relief for the US and its coalition forces.

Aref was deported to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in 2019 after his release. Our platform obtained that Al Jazeera spoke with Aref in his tiny house in Chamchamal district in the Garmian area, west of Sulaimaniyah province, in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Aref and his wife, Zuhur, live together while their four children, two boys, and two girls, are studying in the US.

Narrating his experience, he said “I was 34 years old when I was arrested and at 49 I left the prison. During those 15 years which I spent in jail, I lost all my goals in life including completing my Ph.D. and building myself culturally and financially,” said Aref.

Tosin Ishowo