FBI Revokes Award to Michigan Arab Leader

October 15, 2003

Source: The Detroit News

http://www.detnews.com/2003/metro/0310/15/e01-298323.htm

On October 15, 2003 The Detroit News reported that "federal officials cleared community activist Imad Hamad of any terror suspicion Tuesday. But Arab-American leaders said their trust in government won't be restored unless they can meet with FBI head Robert Mueller and win reinstatement of a national community service award rescinded from Hamad... More than a dozen Arab-American leaders have decided to continue monthly meetings with U.S. Attorney Jeffrey G. Collins... But Mueller's decision last week to rescind a national award for Hamad, the regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, could still be a fatal blow to government's relationships in the community, said Noel Saleh, vice president of the Dearborn's Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services. The message of the award flap "is that the Arab-American community is perhaps expendable, not particularly important and certainly suspect," Saleh said.