Qatar Awareness Campaign – Carnegie Mellon

Carnegie Mellon University
Office of the President, Dr. Subra Suresh
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-2000

Dear Dr. Suresh:

This letter is being sent to you on behalf of the Qatar Awareness Campaign Coalition. The purpose is to inform you and the public of the activities of Qatar, the country whose capital hosts a campus of Carnegie Mellon University. Since 2001, the Qatar Foundation has borne all campus development costs associated with the campus in Doha’s Education City. (Also see here.)

Since 2004, Carnegie Mellon has operated Carnegie Mellon in Qatar, as part of Qatar’s Education City. The educational focus of this campus is in the sciences, including biology, business administration, and computer and information systems. Regarding Carnegie Mellon’s computer science programs, the University has a long-standing relationship with the U.S. Department of Defense. The Software Engineering Institute is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center, sponsored by the Department of Defense.

We live in an age permeated by fears of devastating cyberterrorism, including to our power grid. Carnegie Mellon’s computer science programs being a critical part of the cyber defense of the United States, it is noteworthy that according to the U.S. Department of State, Qatar has the worst counterterrorism record in the Middle East – worse than even Iran. Equally as distressing, Doha is home to two of the largest U.S. military bases in the region, one which serves as CENTCOM for the Middle East.

In light of these clear and present security risks, we urge to you read the information below, which includes evidence that Qatar is arguably the preeminent sponsor of terror in the world today. It is a benefactor of the genocidal armies of ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram; it is involved in Taliban narcotics trafficking through a relationship with the Pakistani National Logistics Cell; and profits from operating a virtual slave state. Qatar has leveraged its relationships with violent jihadi groups to its own benefit, and to the detriment of the United States and her allies.

So the public has a fuller context of Carnegie Mellon’s role in cyber security, and their footprint in Doha, here are some pertinent facts:

• This September, Carnegie Mellon received a $5.6 million NSF grant for Cybersecurity Education. The award “aims to strengthen the workforce charged with protecting the nation’s critical information infrastructure.”
• In 2001, the Qatar Foundation funded an initiative in Doha, the Education City. It welcomed six American universities, Carnegie Mellon, among them (in 2001), to build campuses in the complex. The Qatar Foundation, which has noted links to terrorism, pays all associated campus development costs.
• The September, 2014 Carnegie Mellon class will be the 11^th in Qatar, with an enrollment of 427 students.
• In April, the Department of Defense awarded Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh a five-year, $7.5 mil research grant that seeks explore the foundations of mathematics.

The QAC Coalition and petitioners ask that you consider the attached sourced report on Qatar’s activities. The links cited are vetted and credible sources. We hope you take the time to verify the truth of the statements for yourself.

After doing so, the Coalition of the Qatar Awareness Campaign calls on you to exert due influence on the Qatari government to cease any type of involvement in all forms of Islamic terrorism, slavery, and drug trafficking!