Muslim charities complain they are being targeted by the U.S. government in a “witch hunt” to locate terrorist funding, according to a Reuters article.

The U.S. Treasury already froze the assets of four suspected Muslim charities.

This attempt to root out charities supporting terrorist organizations is doing more harm than good.

One of the Five Pillars of the Islamic faith is the giving of alms to the poor, and while the government is not restricting Muslims from giving money, it is making them uncomfortable and worried that the money may be seized. One charity’s donations have dropped 20 percent.

In the article, Laila al-Marayati, a board member of the charity KinderUSA said, “People just assume that by definition if you’re Muslim, you’re going to have something to do with terrorism … We’re under the assumption that we’re under surveillance all the time.”

Yes, a group of Islamic fundamentalists did crash planes into the World Trade Center, but a Christian white supremacist named Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, Okla., and no one is checking into Christian charities because of it. Being Islamic does not make anyone a terrorist any more than being Christian makes anyone a white supremacist.

Charities can abuse their privileges (a la Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker in the 1980s) and should be subject to scrutiny. The scrutiny, however, should be distributed among all charities, not just those with contributors with Arabic names.

This discrimination can lead to further civil liberty losses and will only serve to fuel more resentment and anti-American sentiment.