Support Ptech Employees

Ptech, a Quincy based software firm, founded in 1994 by a young Lebanese Muslim, Ossama Ziade, has become the leading provider of enterprise architecture software in the US, with its software used widely throughout private business and government agencies. Ptech recently fell prey to a relentless media campaign that claimed, without any substantiation, that the company had connections to terrorist organizations. This was based on information that an early investor, Saudi financier Yasin al-Qadi, had been a director of a company that gave Ptech start up funds. Al-Qadi had not made further donations to the company though he helped steer investors its way until 1999, when he ended his involvement with Ptech. During this period, Al-Qadi was prominent in Washington circles and even showed President Jimmy Carter and Dick Cheney around during their visits to Saudi Arabia. Recently, Al-Qadi has been put on the Treasury Department's list of individuals suspected of financing terrorism.

The Executive team of Ptech had been in communication with the FBI on 3 occasions after Al-Qadi had been put on the list. It offered to show the Bureau its records in order to ensure full cooperation with them and to help allay any worries. In order to avoid any undue attention, the FBI arranged a discreet late night visit with Ptech. On December 6th, 2002, the media broke a sensationalized story that maliciously reported a "midnight raid" of the firm by the FBI. The FBI never raided Ptech. Upon government inspection, Ptech's software has been fully cleared of suspicion. The media, however, capitalized on Al-Qadi's early investment in Ptech and has equated it to a "terrorist connection". As a result of this negative publicity, Ptech has lost a significant amount of business. At the same time, FleetBank terminated the personal accounts of five of the Muslim employees of Ptech without a clear and justifiable explanation.

This appears to be discriminatory practice since the accounts of non-Muslim employees were untouched and it occurred around the time of Ptech's negative publicity. The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts is working with the employees of Ptech, the American Civil Liberties Union, and leaders of the Muslim community to try to rectify the situation. Ptech is actively working with lawyers to pursue complete resolution of this matter as quickly as possible.

We need your help to ensure that companies that engage in discrimination based on religion and do not believe in the American value of "innocent until proven guilty" fully understand the consequences of such practices.

On February 3rd, 2003, The ADC-MA wrote a letter to the CEO and Chairman of the Board of FleetBank. Our goal was to arrange a meeting with them to allay the community's concerns about their apparently discriminatory practices. Unfortunately, we have received no response to this letter. Our attempts at arranging a direct meeting have also been rebuffed.

The legal department of the ADC National Office will be sending a letter advising the Bank, again, of the troubling situation and asking them to contact us for a meeting to discuss this issue. If we receive no response within 10 days after the ADC National letter was sent, we will advise our community on further action that will include transferring to banks that are committed to fair practices and community service.

CALL TO ACTION - FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 2002
The ADCMA has written a model letter. You may modify it, as you deem appropriate. You can download either an Adobe Acrobat version (ready to print onto a letterhead) or a text version (to cut and paste into a document, if you want to add your own comments). We ask you to fax this letter as an individual, or on behalf of your company/organization if appropriate, on your stationary, to FleetBank on Friday March 14. The fax information is as follows:

ATTN: Mr. Charles Gifford, Chair and CEO, FleetBank
FAX NUMBER: (617) 434-4200

If you don not have access to a fax machine, please send the letter via post on Wednesday, March 12 to:

Mr. Charles Gifford, Chair and CEO
FleetBank
1 Federal St.
Boston, MA 02110

Please notify us at info@adcma.org after you have faxed or send the letter to Mr. Gifford so that we can keep a record of how many faxes he has received.

Our community needs to show unity on this important issue. We thank you for your participation.

Merrie Najimy
President, ADCMA