Arvinder Singh, who has been attending Des Moines mosques over the past seven years, was revealed to be an FBI informant.
FBI Betrayed Us: Iowa Muslims
IOWA – The Muslim community in Iowa is frustrated and angry over FBI’s sending informants into mosques to spy on worshippers, seething with a sense of betrayal that has undermined trust between American Muslims and security agencies.
“That was really surprising, very sad that somebody would come or the FBI or Homeland Security would send somebody here to pretend to be Muslim and try to find out what goes on here,” Dr. Hamed Baig, president of the Islamic Center of Des Moines, told CNN on Friday, February 3.
“I feel there is no need for that.”
In Des Moines, Iowa, a small yet diverse Muslim community is divided into four mosques from Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, among other nations.
Frustration among members of the Muslim community began after 42 year-old Arvinder Singh, who has been attending their mosques over the past seven years, was revealed to be an FBI informant.
Charged with “selling or transferring precursor substances for an unlawful purpose” in March of 2002, Singh said he was approached by FBI officers who told him, “‘You look Middle Eastern, and we need your help for the war against terror.’”
Singh, currently in Hardin County Jail in Iowa, where he’s been awaiting deportation, said the FBI came to him with a simple tradeoff: We’ll help you get your citizenship if you help us get some terrorists.
Having no information about Islam, Indian-born Singh was surprised to be approached by FBI agents.
“I was surprised. I said, ‘Me? I have no idea about this’ And they said ‘We’ll train you. You’ll get used to it. We’ll make you go and do some work for us.’”
Later on, he assumed a Muslim identity, Rafik Alvi, and went into the mosques pretending to be interested in converting.
He says sometimes the FBI gave him pictures of persons of interest and he would confirm that they were at the mosque. On a few occasions, Singh says he taped his conversations with congregants.
“They wanted me to go investigate some people in the area,” Singh told CNN in a jailhouse interview.
“See what they’re doing, who they’re meeting. Who’s their family member, who’s attending them, what they are talking about. That kind of work.”
Anger
The mosque infiltration has angered Iowa Muslim community, saying that the FBI just took a step backwards in building trust with the Muslims in his community.
“To know that somebody made an intrusive entry into the masjid for purpose other than prayer, or other than socializing or taking care of anybody who is in need makes me very much nervous and embarrassed, too, that I belong to a community where we have a member who has come for some other purpose,” Anis Rehman, executive board treasurer of the Islamic Center of Des Moines and a college professor, told CNN.
“But later when we saw that he was not actually a member but a pretender then it made me more angry,” Rehman said.
Rehman says the idea of a FBI informant in their tiny mosque is not only offensive but baffling.
“I find that to send an impostor into our community which is so small where not only we know each other but (where) the law enforcement agents can perhaps pick each one of us by name and by family, I don’t think that the incident [on] 9/11 could warrant such action in a small community like ours.”
Since 9/11, Muslims, estimated between six to seven million, have become sensitized to an erosion of their civil rights, with a prevailing belief that America was stigmatizing their faith.
FBI tactic of sending informants into mosques have deteriorated relations with the US Muslim community over the past few years.
In 2009, Muslim groups threatened to suspend all contacts with the FBI over sending informants into mosques.
US Muslims are particularly wary of the FBI’s history of targeting members of their community.
Basim Bakri, another Iowa Muslim, noted that if Singh’s claims are true, the FBI has just destroyed any chances of building trust with the Muslims in his community.
“I think the FBI owe[s] us an apology because they did violate our civil rights,” Bakri said.
“It wasn’t right at all, it wasn’t right from the beginning and they have no right to do that.”
February 7th, 2012 at 1:15 pm
payback time infilrate the FBI
February 7th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
It’s sad what the FBI has become. To think I wanted to become one when I was a kid.
February 7th, 2012 at 1:42 pm
I recall a similar case like this in Irvine involved entrapment issues. The informant was taping conversations and actively trying to goad gullible, impressionable youth in the Muslim community there into making stupid yet incriminating comments. I would say the biggest problem for me with cases like this are 1) Entrapment issues and 2) The fact that the FBI are sending convicted criminals to our mosques. Beyond these two issues I don’t mind as much about the spying as long as they are doing it to right wing anti-muslim and white supremacist groups as well. I’ve been to plenty of mosques all over the country and can honestly say that we have nothing to hide. So the spying by itself doesn’t bother me as much so long as it is being done equally across the board ( which I doubt).
February 7th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
@Hatethehaterz Yes, I attend the Irvine Masjid (ICOI) and remember the guy well. In fact i remember the day he did shahada..thinking damn this guy looks like someone from that show Oz..full body tats built like a bodybuilder.
what was most suspicious about the guy was that he spent his time trying to get close to the college aged sisters. I read a report recently about it that the FBI instructed him to do this and try to seduce them, so that he could in turn blackmail them.
and he apparently kept trying to get the overzealous brothers to attempt something violent.. who did these brothers immediately call..the FBI, (because like 99.9999 percent of muslims they don’t believe in committing violence against innocents)!
Of course what did the FBI do? they arrested the brothers who warned them about their own informant!
i don’t know what these Feds are thinking, how are we supposed to trust them?
February 7th, 2012 at 5:15 pm
@Lawrence, that is the definition of irony
February 7th, 2012 at 7:55 pm
Well Mr Singh…
Looks like you are getting your justice. You played innocent people, and the FBI played you.
I hope someone in your hometown sees this article and tells his friends…especially your Muslim friends.
February 7th, 2012 at 11:25 pm
If the Imams didn’t spew hate and encourage the takeover of the government, you probably wouldn’t be watched. But considering islam is at war with anything other than islam, you deserve to be kept an eye on. just saying.
February 8th, 2012 at 3:05 am
This Mr Singh is just a symptom of the problem,
What Iowa Muslims need to do is get to the root of the problem with the FBI:
What are they being taught? Who is teaching? What is the agenda? Who sets the agenda?
Look deep enough, and you’ll find Brigette Gabriels ACT for America lurking somewhere,
February 8th, 2012 at 8:14 am
@Ihateisbalam Just shut the hell up! These Imams don’t spew hate nor encourage the takeover of the government. You simple minded paranoid Bigot. How stupid of any Imam in the USA if they were to openly preach in his public friday sermons hate and the take over of the Government knowing its a Federal offense & could easily get them arrested. And further stupid and naive of you to think all of the congregants would sit silently and not utter a word to any authorities of such types of sermons?!
February 8th, 2012 at 9:29 am
ihate,in that case you need to monitored too because of your hate, otherwise, you could become the next Brevik or Loughner or Timothy McVeigh. You’re an embarrassment to your country!
February 8th, 2012 at 10:39 am
@ihateisbalam
Have you heard any Imams saying this, or are you just making it up?
February 8th, 2012 at 11:01 am
@Nur Alia what exactly are you hoping his muslim friends do to him?
February 8th, 2012 at 11:23 am
@Hardcoreathiest
why isnt it obvious!! Tie him up in a chair and dunk him into a local river! If he drowns hes innocent, if he survives hes a witch!!!…..
Well if someone betrayed you wouldnt you want to be informed so as to finally understand what occurred and have some closure? Maybe recount and learn from the experience?Or is something sinister the only thing that Muslims are capable of doing to him which by the way Nur didnt suggest they do anything to him.
February 8th, 2012 at 11:57 am
Maybe it’s just me, but Nur Alia’s post seems suggestive. I’m genuinely curious what they meant by the comment.
February 8th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
@Hardcoreatheist it is fairly obvious you a reaching pretty far to come to a conclusion.
February 8th, 2012 at 7:13 pm
@hardcoreathiest.
I would want for him what YOU (hardcorathiest) would want if someone betrayed YOU (hardcoreathiest), tried to set YOU (hardcoreathiest) up to be arrested.
February 8th, 2012 at 9:05 pm
lol, didn’t they realize someone with the last name Singh might attract suspicion? A Singh is almost guaranteed to be a Sikh.
February 8th, 2012 at 9:20 pm
What would I want? To be honest, I’m having a hard time coming up with an answer. I can’t really find away to relate to this. I’m not a member of any religious organization (obviously) nor am I a member of any political group, the closest thing I can come up with (and it’s a big stretch) is that I have an irrational OBSESSION with the Washington Capitals. So lets pretend some jackwaggon from Pittsburgh pretends to be a Caps fan and succesfully sets up some type of situations where a Caps fan could potentionally get arrested, what would I want to happen to them? My answer is nothing. I honestly wouldn’t care. And Nur Alia, forgive me if I read your post wrong, but I was disheartened to interpret your post as saying you’d wish for some group of thugs to come and set him straight. (and btw, I polled 5 people at my work what they thought of your post, 3 interpreted the same as me, 2 men, 1 women) That’s why I REALLY want to know what you mean.
February 8th, 2012 at 9:57 pm
hardcoreatheist,
That’s a pretty big conclusion that you seem to be suggesting in your original question….
To imply that when Nur Alia said about muslim friends actually could have meant something else (like something negative) is pretty fallacious…
February 8th, 2012 at 9:58 pm
The FBI must put an end to it’s Orwellian style Islamophobia.
February 9th, 2012 at 6:06 am
Khurassan EagleL For the queue stick on the pool table…to shoot the eight ball into the corner pocket with the cue st…living in america for all peoples except those read is no different than occupying the stolen land of Palestine. What rights can the smelting pot of people expect in their feckless policies to divide and conquer own and sell land. That land whose ritual right of landing and living is that there be no trade in usury-interest doubled and multiplied. Every land had its character. And by one one man the curse laid upon it by a people fit of nature-fitrah is the command to Die in your pollution (false worship). What else is the duality between state and church. P.U. Pew ! So on both sides of the fence you have met ground zero 9/11 sMILES SLAUGHTER. To be on cloud nine. The piece-peace Salaam to Mulla Omar: Two in the Cave the Third Allah.
http://www.loonwatch.com/2012/02/fbi-betrayed-us-iowa-muslims/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+loonwatch+%28loonwatch.com%29
February 9th, 2012 at 7:07 am
One common observation is that similar infiltration tactics helped break the power of the KKK.
My common response is to ask if they sent informants/provocatures into every white church in the South or bothered to narrow matters down any?
February 9th, 2012 at 10:50 am
@QualifiedAgnostic I am certainly not without my own faults, but I can’t help but interpret it the way I did. It’s the way I think, thus my continuing to ask what Nur Alia meant by the comment.
February 9th, 2012 at 1:04 pm
What did singh find after 7 years? People praying? EPIC FAIL.
February 11th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
@hardcore.
You dont have to be religious, or even a beliver in God to ‘want’ something for someone who has lied to, or about you, or betrayed you, or befriended you in order to set you up to be arrested.
So again, I would want the EXACT same thing you would want for someone who betrayed you, lied about you, and or befriended you in order to set you up to be arrested.
So…if you answer the same question for yourself, you can answer for me.
I think what you are trying to do is to claim…because I am Muslimah, I would want something bad to happen to him. However I would warn my friends of this person so that they could watch out for him, and be careful around him.
February 13th, 2012 at 10:33 am
America is not so dumb after all….