The American Civil Liberties Union, in its capacity as the representative of the nuclear scientist of Egyptian origin, Dr. Abdel Moneim el-Ganayni, filed an appeal in Pennsylvania against the U.S. Department of Energy for dismissing him last May. Dr. Ganayni, 57, has sued the Department of Energy, calling for explanation as to why his security permit was cancelled and he was dismissed from Betis Warships Industries. The Department of Energy did not disclose the matter for national security reasons. His first lawsuit was rejected, which made him return to Cairo. Witold "Vic" Walczak, legal director of the union, said this was the first time the Department of Energy uses national security as an excuse, adding that the court does not have jurisdiction to review such type of secrecy. “It is a threat to democracy, as it gives the executive branch unlimited powers,” he added. He told Al-Masry Al-Youm in an e-mail that the appeal would take one to two years. Ganayni claimed in his initial lawsuit that the Department of Energy called National Security only to hide the discriminatory grounds on which it cancelled his permit, namely that he was not born in America, that he is Muslim and that he was publicly critical of the U.S. foreign policy and how the FBI treated Muslims. Ganayni said he was not told of the reason his permit was canceled, but he deduced it during his interrogation that lasted for seven hours in October 2007 by the Department of Energy, Betis and the FBI.
He said the interrogation focused on his Muslim religious beliefs, his job as an Imam inside Pennsylvania Prison, his political opinions on the war in Iraq and his speeches delivered in local mosques in which he criticized the way the FBI mistreated the Muslims. He added that he was not interrogated about any security breaches or misuse of classified information.
In his complaint, he said that Muslims in Pittsburgh were mistreated after 9/11 and that the FBI went to his house some time between 2002 and 2005 and asked him to work for them, but he declined politely.
Dr. Ganayni is an Egyptian Muslim who went to the United States in 1980 when he was 29 years old to settle in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had his Master's degree in nuclear physics in 1983 and his doctorate in the same field in 1990 from the University of Pittsburgh. Ganayni married an American woman in 1982 and got the nationality in 1988. He has never left the United States since then except once for a short visit to Egypt.
