What is the line between talking to a terrorist group in the name of peace versus supporting them? That’s the question that for years has pitted many civil society organizations against the U.S. government — and the debate is about to get more heated.
In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court barred a group of nongovernmental organizations from providing U.N.-designed conflict resolution training to members of the Kurdistan Workers Party and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, both listed as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. After a lengthy legal battle, the court ruled that “training” and “expert advice,” even to promote peace, constituted “material support” to designated terrorists in violation of U.S. law.
Today, the outcome of this case, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, continues to cause uproar among civil society activists for allegedly impeding First Amendment rights and grassroots peacebuilding in the world’s most fragile contexts.