Hamas-linked CAIR worked with the PR firm Hill and Knowlton a few years back, and may still be doing so. After all, if you need uncomfortable truths whitewashed and obscured, might as well go to the professionals. But I wonder if the Americans working in these lobbying and PR firms have any pangs of conscience. Would they have signed on to burnish the image of the National Socialist German Workers Party in 1942?
“Jamaat leader hires US firm to lobby,” by David Bergman in New Age, October 30 (thanks to Jamal):
A senior Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Mir Quasem Ali, along with his US-based brother Mir Masum Ali, in the past year spent $310,000 (Tk 24 million) hiring one of the top United States lobbying firms to try and influence the country”s politicians and government officials on the “˜Bangladeshi War Crimes Tribunal” and issues relating to the “˜political opposition,” according to documents lodged with the US congress.
In March 2010, the Awami League government set up the International Crimes Tribunal to prosecute people alleged to have committed war crimes during the 1971 war of independence.
Since its establishment, the tribunal has detained seven men, five of whom are leaders of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.
Quasem Ali, a successful businessman, is a member of both Jamaat’s 15-member central executive committee and its working committee.
The head of the ICT”s investigation agency has previously confirmed to journalists that the agency is conducting inquiries into whether Quasem Ali committed crimes during the 1971 war of independence. It is understood that in 1971 he was president of the Jamaat’s Chittagong unit student wing.
His younger brother Masum Ali, who lives in New York and is understood to be a US citizen, is named as the project director of media and publications on the website of the Muslim Ummah of North America, an organisation which attracts US-based supporters of the Bangladesh Jamaat….
Gerald Cassidy is one of the most prominent and respected lobbyists in Washington.
In a subsequent “˜lobbying report” relating to work undertaken in the first three months of 2011, the lobbying company estimates that it would receive a further fee from Quasem Ali of $100,000 (Tk 7.9 million)
The form, this time stated that the company”s lobby was solely focused on the “˜Bangladeshi war crimes tribunal” and not on opposition party matters….