Who is Asim Ghafoor?
Asim Ghafoor is a well-respected civil rights lawyer who has represented the Muslim American community for the past two decades. While traveling through Dubai airport, Asim was grabbed by UAE authorities and sentenced in absentia to three years in jail.
Asim’s parents settled in St. Louis, Missouri in the 1960’s after having grown up in Hyderabad, India. Asim’s father was a founding member of the Muslim Students Association, which eventually became the Islamic Society of North America — the largest Muslim organization in the country. Sadly, his father died in a Saudi Airlines plane crash in 1980 when Asim was only twelve.
With his two sisters, Asim was raised by a single mom. She moved to Houston, Texas, where her sister resided. Asim attended Olle Middle School and Alief Hastings High School. From an early age, Asim’s mom encouraged him and his siblings to be civically engaged. At a time when few Muslim Americans were involved in politics, Asim and his family were the exception.
Asim went to the University of Texas for undergrad and for law school. For his second summer at Texas Law, Asim interned for then-State Representative Ciro Rodriguez. That fall, Ciro Rodriguez won his election to the U.S. Congress, representing the 23rd district of Texas in the San Antonio area.
After law school, Asim went to Washington, D.C. to serve as Congressman Rodriguez’s legislative aide. From 1997-2000, Asim served as a Legislative Aide, Deputy Chief of Staff, and then Acting Chief of Staff. At the time, Asim was one of only two Muslim Americans who worked at Capitol Hill. Asim and his colleague sought permission from then-Speaker Newt Gingrich to use a basement space at the Capitol to host Jummah, the Friday congregational prayers that all Muslim adhere to, which continue on Capitol Hill weekly to this day.
After 9/11, Asim launched his civil rights practice. He represented many Muslim charities and non-profit organizations that were being unfairly targeted by the United States government. He also helped Muslim advocacy groups get their voices heard on Capitol Hill. He became a respected civil rights lawyers in the Muslim American community.
In 2006, Asim was instrumental in defusing the Danish cartoon crisis. After a Danish newspaper published demeaning pictures of the Prophet Muhammad, an international controversy erupted with protest and riots throughout the Muslim World. He established a dialogue between Islamic scholars and representatives of the cartoonists in Copenhagen that helped resolve the crisis.
Around the same time, it was revealed that Asim – and many other Muslim Americans – were being unlawfully surveilled by the U.S. government. Alongside lawyer Wendell Belew, who was also wiretapped, Asim sued the federal government for surveilling his attorney-client privileged phone calls without a warrant.
In 2010, Asim won the case. He was awarded $2.5 million in damages. While the judgement was later overturned on appeal, Asim’s lawsuit became regarded as one of the important victories in the aftermath of the “warrantless wiretapping” scandal.
In 2014, it was revealed that the U.S. government had again surveilled Asim, alongside other civil rights leaders. Asim’s private communications had been wiretapped after the U.S. Department of Justice sought authority from the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) court. This surveillance occurred during Asim’s ongoing civil lawsuit against the government for the previous warrantless wiretapping.
The surveillance didn’t stop Asim from loving his country. In an interview, Asim said: “I’m really proud to have grown up in the U.S. And if you ever tap my calls and read my emails you’ll see that even though I sued the government, I love my country. I love America.”
In recent years, Asim has extended his advocacy for civil and human rights into the Middle East. In 2018, Asim helped the late Jamal Khashoggi incorporate Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN). Asim has continued to serve as a board member of DAWN into the present.
Currently, Asim is being detained in the UAE. On July 14, 2022, Asim was arrested at Dubai International Airport while in transit to a family wedding. He was told that he was tried in abstentia and sentenced to three years in prison for money laundering and tax evasion, which were charges that he had no knowledge of. Since then, he has been held in an undisclosed Abu Dhabi jail with no access to his US lawyers, limited access to his Abu Dhabi lawyers, and brief monitored calls with his family and has been denied bail several times. The Virginia Delegation, where Asim lives, issued this letter on July 22, 2022, and the Texas Delegation, where Asim grew up, issued this statement on August 5, 2022.