REISTERSTOWN, Md. -- About 60 Muslim Americans gathered in Maryland recently for a yearly retreat to share stories about family members who had been convicted of terrorist charges.
In the decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, civil liberties lawyers and activists noticed the need to support Muslim families with members who were targets of counterterrorism investigations. They created a group called the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms and, in 2012, held their first conference.
For many of those who attend, the group has become the only support system they have.
"For a lot of us, it was the very first time we had met," said Mariam Abu Ali, who maintains the innocence of her brother Ahmed, convicted in 2005 of plotting with al-Qaida to kill President George W. Bush. "It was a breath of fresh air, a sense of finally finding the support that we had been seeking all along."
Abu Ali said she had heard of many terrorism cases in Virginia, where she lived at the time, but it wasn't until the conference that she realized how many others were in her family's situation.
At the retreat, families participated in moderated discussions on different issues, including the criminal justice system. Many families shared their concern that their husbands and sons were "entrapped" by the government because paid informants were used to build cases against them.
"I come to the conference to listen [to other people]," said Nadia Alessa, whose son Mohamed Alessa was convicted of conspiring to travel to Somalia to join the militant group al-Shabab. She was attending the retreat for the fourth time. "Some hurt more than I do. My son got 22 years, but some have life sentences."
They also discussed the stigma of terrorism.
"I felt shunned by my Pakistani community," said Shaheena Siraj, who lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, and whose son Matin was convicted of conspiring to plant explosives in a Manhattan subway station.
Nida Baker -- the daughter of Shukri Baker, who was convicted of providing material support to Hamas -- said the stigma has even affected her marriage prospects.
"I've had guys who wanted to get to know me better, but they were afraid of the negative association," she said. "And even if it's not the guy himself, it might be his parents who are wary."
Reem Jayyousi was 16 when her father, Kifah Jayyousi, was sentenced to more than 12 years on a charge of providing material support to terrorists. Growing up in Dearborn, Mich., she struggled to understand why her father was behind bars. She never talked to any of her friends from school about this.
"I met other kids at this conference," said Jayyousi, now 25, still struggling with the depression that began with her father's conviction, "I am not alone. There are other people like me."
Her depression worsened as she grew older.
"In college I had a sleeping problem. Either I was depressed and I would sleep days at a time, or I was depressed and I couldn't sleep at all," she recalled. "What's the point of college? My dad went through college, was well-educated and then went to prison for something he didn't do."
Yusuf Abdullah, 50, is the father of Zacharia Abdurahman, one of six men who pleaded guilty last year in Minneapolis to conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State. After his son's plea, Abdullah said, he felt the community's support withdraw.
Though the alienation hangs over him, Abdullah said he came away from the conference feeling a little less isolated.
"It was heartbreaking. We thought we had the worst situation possible, but then I saw what some of the other families were going through," he said. "I can relate to them more than I can relate to my own community."
He worries about what's going to happen to his son in prison.
"But I'm happy that my child is here and alive, and not in Syria," he said. "I'm glad they caught him before he left."
A Section on 11/14/2016