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Is
Falsely Claiming Food Is Halal a Federal Crime?
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The US Department of Justice appears to be criminally prosecuting
people for failing to satisfy Islamic religious standards, thereby
putting the First Amendment's Establishment Clause at risk.
The case concerns the financial empire of the Aossey family of Cedar
Rapids, Iowa. To summarize briefly, last year the government indicted
brothers Jalel and Yahya Aossey, along with two companies they operate,
Midamar Corporation (Midamar) and Islamic Services of America, Inc.
(ISA). Midamar distributes supposedly halal meat, which is to say,
meat slaughtered according to Islamic law. Islamic Services
of America, Inc. (ISA), certifies meat and other products as halal.
Jalel, Yahya, and their father William
(Bill) Aossey serve as corporate directors. Yahya is president
of ISA. Bill is president of Midamar.
ISA's website
claims the company is a "globally recognized symbol of Halal
integrity. Islamic Services of America is a leading Halal
Certification body in the United States and North America, recognized
internationally." Midamar's website
claims it is "a trusted Halal brand that has earned a solid
reputation for Halal integrity." Previously,
Midamar's website also claimed the company was a "trusted Halal food
supplier and sponsor for the annual conferences and conventions hosted by
ISNA, CAIR, AMC, ICNA, and MAS, and W.D. Muhammad" – each of which
has "had dealings
with Islamic extremist and/or hate groups." It is unclear
whether Midamar still supplies food to these groups.
The government's theory is that the defendants sold non-halal meat by
misrepresenting it as halal. Some of the claimed misconduct
involved falsifying paperwork to make it appear as though the meat were
slaughtered at a warehouse whose meat was halal, whereas in fact it was
slaughtered at another warehouse whose meat was not halal. Other
claims are even more obviously religious. For example, the
indictment states, "Contrary to representations made by
defendants... beef certified by defendant ISA as complying with the Halal
slaughter standards... had not been slaughtered in accordance with the
represented or required standards." It also claims defendants
misrepresented "the manner of slaughter" and "the level of
adherence to certain represented Halal practices and standards."
Bill Aossey was separately indicted
two months before the others. The charges against him were more
straightforward and less encumbered with religious claims.
On June 5, Jalel and Yahya Aossey, along with Midamar and ISA, filed a
motion to dismiss some claims against them on the theory that the court
could not decide whether they lied about the meat's halal status without
making religious determinations that would violate the Establishment
Clause. The defendants complain, "The United States
Attorney's office seeks the criminal enforcement of adherence to Halal
slaughter requirements of the Muslim countries of Malaysia, Indonesia,
Kuwait, and UAE."
It is possible that the charges are sufficiently focused on objective
issues of false paperwork to survive the defendants' challenge intact.
It is worth noting that last January, former Midamar operations
manager Philip Payne pleaded guilty
to falsifying US Department of Agriculture marks of inspection of halal
meat shipments, "to give the false impression that shipments of beef
complied with import requirements of Malaysia and Indonesia where the
beef was shipped and also complied with US export
requirements." Payne also admitted that some meat Midamar sold
as halal was actually kosher.
But, federal courts have generally declined to intervene in claims of
religious fraud, as noted in defendants' motion. In the 1995 case, Barghout
v. Bureau of Kosher Meat & Food Control, the federal Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Baltimore ordinance making it a
misdemeanor to sell non-kosher food mislabeled as kosher. Commack
Self-Service Kosher Meats, Inc. v. Rubin is a 2000 case in which a
federal court struck
down New York State laws aimed at protecting
consumers from fraudulent claims that food is kosher. In the
2013 case Wallace v. ConAgra Foods, Inc., the lower court declined
on First Amendment grounds to hear plaintiffs' claim
that the defendant "failed to slaughter cattle used in its products
in compliance with 'objective' standards" required for the meat to
be considered kosher; an appeals court later returned the case to state
court on jurisdictional grounds.
One "usual suspect" has been notably absent from the
proceedings. The American Civil Liberties Union has previously
opposed government involvement in identifying religiously-acceptable
food. Besides representing George Barghout in the case noted above,
it filed a lawsuit
in 2009 challenging the constitutionality of a Georgia law, the Kosher
Food Labeling Act. "By mandating that any food sold as kosher
in the state of Georgia must meet the 'Orthodox Hebrew religious rules
and requirements,'" the ACLU explained,
"the challenged statute delegitimizes alternative interpretations of
kosher adhered to in other Jewish communities." That suit was
voluntarily dismissed
after Georgia changed its law. Despite its track record on the
issue, the ACLU did not respond to inquiry about whether it had any
Establishment Clause concerns over prosecuting someone for halal meat
violations.
The ACLU's Iowa chapter likewise declined to express an opinion about
the prosecution. Interestingly, ACLU-Iowa was previously on the
same side as the Aosseys on an Establishment Clause issue. Back in
2003, the Aosseys were involved in a project of Muslim Youth Camps of
America (MYCA) to build a camp on the shores of Coralville Lake.
The proposed development tract was owned by the US
Army Corps of Engineers, and would have included construction of a
36-foot high prayer tower, in addition to a conference center, cabins,
and a caretaker's residence. Bill Aossey was MYCA's representative,
and Jalel Aossey served as a board
member. On that occasion, ACLU-Iowa had no
concerns about the prayer tower on federal land violating the
Establishment Clause. About the current case, ACLU-Iowa has taken
no position.
The government has not yet responded to the motion. The court
gave it until one week after the conclusion of Bill Aossey's trial
to respond. The trial concluded July 13 with a verdict
of guilty on 15 of the 19 charges against him. Jalel and Yahya
Aossey are scheduled to begin trial on September 28.
Related
Topics: Government, Halal, Legal
| Johanna Markind This
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integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its
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