testblog

The prison cops confiscated reading material and medicines as they kicked Abdel-Muhti to the ground, punched him, and told him to “shut the fuck up” and to “go back to Palestine.” The officers, who were not wearing name tags, pushed Abdel-Muhti against the wall on at least two occasions, kicked him to the ground, and punched him on the side of the head. They then confiscated his personal property, including papers, address books and medicine, which was prescribed by the prison clinic for high blood pressure and a thyroid condition.

-Report from the Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti, regarding an attack on Palestinian detainee Farouk Abdel-Muhti on November 19, 2003.

This so-called "War on Terrorism" is not just being fought with foreign nations, as the news media would like us to believe. It is also being fought here at home, as thousands of individuals in the United States are being prosecuted and persecuted on the basis of their race, religion, and political beliefs by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Since the September 11th attacks, Bush and his Orwellian Department of Homeland Security have engaged in an illegal and racist program of round-ups and detentions. Thousands of men between the ages of 25 to 45 from South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa have been swept up and in many cases disappeared, spending years in jail without being charged with a crime.

The following instances from jails in New Jersey demonstrate the absurd conditions the detainees are being forced to endure:

• Two dozen detainees were brought to Union County Jail in Elizabeth, New Jersey after acting out their frustrations about jail conditions in a previous jail. For three days, detainees from Albania, India, Ghana, and elsewhere were beaten, held naked, made to crawl on their hands and knees through a gauntlet of jail officers, and forced to chant “America is Number One.” One Indian detainee claimed that between beatings, correctional officers used pliers to pinch the skin on his genitals and squeeze his tongue.

• A Pakistani national had been in the Passaic County Jail for three months without a lawyer.

This month, when the Republican National Convention comes to town, let’s join together in telling the Bush Administration that we will not stand for these racist policies, policies that do nothing to ensure our safety, and that do everything to curtail our freedoms and civil liberties. Join us in telling the Republicans what it can do with its policies regarding people of color, and let’s also take the time to mourn for our comrade Farouk Abdel-Muhti, who died as a result of these illegal and brutal policies of the Department of Homeland Security.

Join us!

from New Jersey Anti-Racist Action and various Philly affinity groups

Posted by Konrad at 07:25 PM | Permalink

In a decision filed Aug. 20 and made public on Aug. 24, the Board
of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruled that four Iranian brothers
jailed in San Pedro, California, are not a danger to national
security and cannot be deported to Iran because they would be
tortured there. However, the Board said that Mohammed Mirmehdi,
Mostafa Mirmehdi, Mohsen Mirmehdi and Mojtaba Mirmehdi do not
qualify for political asylum because they lied on their asylum
applications in 1999. (According to court documents, two Iranian
immigrants who processed the brothers' asylum applications and
coached them to lie in interviews with immigration officers were
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informants with criminal
records.) The Mirmehdis have been held without bail since Oct. 2,
2001. The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is
considering their challenge to Attorney General John Ashcroft's
decision to deny them bail while their immigration case proceeds.

Federal prosecutors argued that the brothers' support of the
Iranian opposition group Moujahedeen Khalq (MEK) made them a
national security threat. The Mirmehdis deny being members of the
group, although two of them attended a June 1997 rally in Denver
sponsored by the MEK at a time when it had wide support among US
lawmakers, before the State Department designated it a foreign
terrorist organization in October 1997. Ashcroft, then a US
senator in Missouri, continued supporting the MEK; in September
2000 Ashcroft and Sen. Chris Bond (R-MO) issued a written
statement of solidarity with the MEK which was read to a crowd of
demonstrators in front of the United Nations in New York,
Newsweek reported in 2002.

The Mirmehdi brothers' attorney, Stacy Tolchin, said the BIA
ruling means they could be freed within 90 days. But Manny Van
Pelt, a spokesperson for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) in Washington, said the agency will instead try to deport
the brothers to a third country. "We have a 90-day removal period
to find an alternate country that will accept them," said Van
Pelt.

The brothers lived in the San Fernando Valley and worked in real
estate before their arrests. Mostafa, the oldest, came to the US
in 1978. Mojtaba and Mohsen arrived in 1992. Mohammed, the
youngest, came in 1993. Mohsen, Mostafa and Mojtaba were arrested
in 1999 and freed on $50,000 bail while their deportation cases
proceeded. Mohammed got out on $75,000 bail in September 2000.
Alleging "changed circumstances," authorities re-detained the
four on Oct. 2, 2001, after an FBI investigation into a Los
Angeles cell of the MEK. Mostafa Mirmehdi said the FBI offered to
let him and his brother Mohammed go if they would
"cooperate...and give false testimony" against five Iranians and
two Iranian Americans indicted for fundraising over $1 million
for the MEK. The brothers refused. "Personally, I do not believe
in giving false testimony," said Mostafa Mirmehdi. In June 2002
US District Judge Robert Takasugi of Los Angeles threw out
indictments against the seven fundraisers, saying the State
Department's method of designating terrorist groups is
unconstitutional because members cannot challenge evidence
against them. The government has appealed.
[Los Angeles Times
8/25/04, 6/7/04]

from

Immigration News Briefs

Vol. 7, No. 35 - August 28, 2004

Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; fax 212-674-9139; wnu@igc.org. INB is also distributed free via email (see below).

Immigration News Briefs (INB), a weekly English-language summary of US immigration news, is forwarded out to the email list of the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants (CHRI). If you receive INB as a forwarded message, and you wish to subscribe directly to INB, or to the CHRI email list (which includes INB and local NYC area events, average 4-5 messages a week), write to wnu@igc.org(indicate "CHRI list" or "INB only").

Immigration News Briefs (INB), un resumen semanal en ingles de noticias sobre inmigracion en los EE.UU., es enviado cada semana a la lista de correo electronico de la Coalicion para los Derechos Humanos de los Inmigrantes. Si el INB le llega como mensaje reenviado, y usted quiere subscribir directamente al INB, o a la lista de correo de CHRI (que incluye INB, mas anuncios de actividades en el area de NYC, promedio de 4-5 mensajes por semana), escriba al nicajg@panix.com (indique si quiere "lista de CHRI" o "solo INB").

Posted by Konrad at 11:33 AM | Permalink

After arriving in Islamabad, the deportees were held on the plane for over two hours for "security reasons" while the president of Bosnia boarded a plane out of Pakistan after an official visit. Pakistani immigration officials interrogated the deportees, noting their personal information and asking them how they came to be arrested and deported. In the end, Pakistani authorities held one individual for further investigation and allowed the rest to go on their way.

The Pakistani daily The Nation said most of the deportees refused to talk to reporters, while The News International Pakistan reported that most complained of being tortured in US detention.
[The Nation (Pakistan) 8/27/04; The News International Pakistan 8/27/04; GEO Pakistan 8/26/04]

from
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 7, No. 35 - August 28, 2004

Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; fax 212-674-9139; wnu@igc.org. INB is also distributed free via email (see below).

Immigration News Briefs (INB), a weekly English-language summary of US immigration news, is forwarded out to the email list of the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants (CHRI). If you receive INB as a forwarded message, and you wish to subscribe directly to INB, or to the CHRI email list (which includes INB and local NYC area events, average 4-5 messages a week), write to wnu@igc.org(indicate "CHRI list" or "INB only").

Immigration News Briefs (INB), un resumen semanal en ingles de noticias sobre inmigracion en los EE.UU., es enviado cada semana a la lista de correo electronico de la Coalicion para los Derechos Humanos de los Inmigrantes. Si el INB le llega como mensaje reenviado, y usted quiere subscribir directamente al INB, o a la lista de correo de CHRI (que incluye INB, mas anuncios de actividades en el area de NYC, promedio de 4-5 mensajes por semana), escriba al nicajg@panix.com (indique si quiere "lista de CHRI" o "solo INB").

Posted by Konrad at 11:02 AM | Permalink

Posted by Konrad at 10:55 AM | Permalink

The survey said whites stopped being the majority as of last year. Most of Texas' population expansion since 2000 has come from births and international immigration, both sources of predominantly Hispanic growth.

Estimates show that the state was 49.5 percent white in 2003, down 1.5 percentage points from 2002 but still a large plurality.

Posted by Konrad at 09:43 AM | Permalink

By REUTERS

ALBANY, N.Y. (Reuters) - Two Islamic men accused of supporting terrorism after an FBI sting operation were ordered released from jail on Tuesday by a judge who blasted the government's case by saying there is no evidence they have any links to terrorists.

U.S. Magistrate David Homer ruled Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain should be released on $250,000 bonds and held in home detention under electronic surveillance while they await trial. He said that could take up to two years so the men will be allowed to work and attend mosque until the trial.

The pair had been ordered held without bail earlier this month -- a ruling largely based on an address book that prosecutors said was found in an Iraqi terrorist training camp. The book referred to Aref as ``the commander'' in Arabic.

The government now says that translation was an error and the word is "brother'' in Kurdish.

The order to release the two comes amid criticism that the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies have caused authorities to leap to unfounded conclusions in cases that have fizzled or been dropped altogether after initial high-profile announcements.

Muslims in Albany -- home to about 7,000 followers of Islam -- have called the arrest of the two men a tragic misunderstanding and many have avoided attending mosques out of fear of being labeled terrorists.

Aref, 34, the leader of an Albany mosque, and Hossain, 49, a pizzeria owner, were arrested in a sting operation in which authorities said they agreed to help an FBI informant launder $50,000 from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile as part of a fake plan to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat.

They pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering, supporting terrorism and conspiracy on Aug. 10.

NO TERRORIST LINK

The judge chided the government, saying the case is much weaker now than it first appeared. He said the two were not plotting violence and are not a danger to the community.

"The evidence in this case appears less strong today,'' Homer said. ``There is no evidence ... to support the claim that Mr. Aref has any contact with any terrorist organization.''

"There still is no evidence of Mr. Hossain's involvement with any terrorist organization,'' he said.

The judge said the case could take one to two years to come to trial as much of the evidence has to be translated from foreign languages.

Defense attorney Terence Kindlon said the government was not merely overzealous but had presented false information.

"We've gone from something that sounded sinister and ominous and scary and terrible to zero in less than two weeks,'' he told the judge. ``Our government doesn't need to go after a pizza man and an Iman who are perfectly innocent.''

He added: ``All we have here is basically the wreckage of the first hearing at which the government presented a lot of information that turned out to be bogus.''

Members of Aref's and Hossain's families were tearful during the hearing, but they were greatly relieved by the ruling, said Faisal Ahmad, a teacher at Aref's mosque.

"I think they are very thankful to God,'' he said. ``We just have to be patient. It's a test. Everything is a test.''

Prosecutors argued that whether the word was "commander'' or ``brother'' was irrelevant and does not affect the criminal charges the two men face. They say the pair were willing participants in the sting operation set up by the FBI.

Defense attorneys argued that Hossain thought the money was a loan, that Aref was brought in to unofficially witness the deal and that both men were victims of entrapment.

Under terms of their release, which is likely in one to two days, neither men may leave the area without permission. While both men have surrendered their passports, Hossain's five children would surrender theirs as well.

Posted by Konrad at 10:14 AM | Permalink

But a Director's Blog ought to be a freer kind of discourse, that informally, gradually clues the interested few into why a man sets out on producing a documentary showing how the U.S. government lashes out against non-white communities in times of fear.

So though it's basically a form of procrastination, I've been checking out Michelle Malkin's blog as she tries to spread her gospel of racial profiling. In the above-linked piece she mostly sticks to points that make sense. But all her opinions on profiling are moot because she has no idea what's happening today to immigrant communities.

Despite her repeated, strident claims of being a "journalist," Malkin's knowledge of post-9/11 profiling doesn't extend beyond skimming the top news stories. Otherwise she'd know the extent to which her dreams are already being carried out on immigrants -- policies that are draconian, abusive and utterly useless in the misnamed "War on Terror."

But serendipitously on her site I found a link to an article by Daniel Pipes, "Naming the Enemy. In it he quotes George W. Bush:

"We actually misnamed the war on terror. It ought to be [called] the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies and who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world."

War of Error War Using Terror Error for Terror Era of Terror Era of Error Era of War

Help me out, somebody.

Posted by Konrad at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Published: August 20, 2004

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 — Three men have been charged with raising millions of dollars for Hamas, the group blamed for carrying out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, through a shadowy network of United States banks as part of a 15-year racketeering conspiracy, Attorney General John Ashcroft said today. Advertisement

Two of the suspects were arrested Thursday night, while the third is now in Damascus, Syria, and is classified as a fugitive, Mr. Ashcroft said at a news briefing here. He identified the suspects as Abdelhaleem Ashqar, who has lived in the Washington area; Muhammad Salah, who has lived in a Chicago suburb; and Mousa Abu Marzook, formerly of northern Virginia and Louisiana and now in Damascus.

The three were named in an indictment unsealed today in Chicago. The indictment seeks forfeiture of about $2.7 million in bank accounts under the defendants' control, Mr. Ashcroft said.

The attorney general said all three defendants were charged with racketeering conspiracy for taking part in the affairs of Hamas, which the United States has designated a foreign terrorist organization since 1997 and which Mr. Ashcroft says has murdered many innocent people, including some American citizens abroad.

Mr. Salah and Mr. Ashqar are also charged with obstruction of justice, he said. Mr. Salah is believed to have lied under oath in testifying in a civil suit involving the murder of an American in the West Bank, while Mr. Ashqar at least twice refused to testify before grand juries despite a grant of immunity, the attorney general said.

Mr. Marzook is believed to be the deputy chief of Hamas's political bureau, which helps to coordinate terror attacks, Mr. Ashcroft said. He said the defendant, while living in the United States from 1988 to 1993, kept bank accounts in New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia and used them to funnel large sums of money to Hamas.

A lawyer for Mr. Ashqar told The Associated Press the indictment was "politically motivated." The lawyer, Ashraf Nubani, said his client was already under house arrest because of an earlier indictment accusing him of obstruction of justice, and that he had appeared at every required court hearing.

Mr. Ashqar came to the United States as a graduate student at the University of Mississippi, Mr. Ashcroft said. Mr. Ashqar is accused of being a money conduit for Hamas from 1989 onward, taking part in Hamas meetings in the United States and helping to plan the group's acts by means of coded telephone messages.

Mr. Salah traveled throughout the United States, Israel and the West Bank from 1989 to early 1993, meeting with Hamas members, recruiting and training new ones and distributing money to finance the organization, Mr. Ashcroft said.

Mr. Ashcroft said the case against the three defendants would have been much more difficult to bring, had it not been for legislation passed by Congress shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The legislation, dubbed the Patriot Act, makes it easier for intelligence-gatherers to share information with law enforcement agencies. The law's supporters say the law is a vital tool in battling terrorism; its critics say it can endanger civil liberties.

Posted by Konrad at 09:02 PM | Permalink

Join immigrant families and youth members of DRUM in raising the voices of people of color and immigrants against the ongoing WAR on Immigrants and WAR abroad! Support us in our fight to protest and organize as the city and cops prepare for the Republican National Convention.

The city is saying no, but we are moving forward...

TABLING by various NYC grassroots organizing groups!
Families SPEAK OUT against DEPORTATION!!
Collect signatures to win AMNESTY for immigrants!!
UNITE with other immigrant & communities of color!!
Send a message to BUSH AND KERRY to stop targeting immigrants & start respecting our dignity, labor, and rights to education, housing, and services without fear!

º Attend and bring your friends
º Outreach to your community- Pick Up flyers from DRUM office (availabe in Urdu, Bangla, Spanish, and English)
º Volunteer for the mela
º Contact politicians and media to attend & hear our demands

SEE YOU THERE before the RNC!!!!

Posted by Konrad at 11:27 AM | Permalink

WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 4, 2004
Sweeping changes in immigration laws have eroded the due process protection afforded to immigrants, according to a new joint report by the American Bar Association and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund. The report, "American Justice Through Immigrants' Eyes," details how seven years of changes in our nation's immigration laws have created a two-tiered justice system for American immigrants, and recommends ways to restore immigrants' due process rights.

Unless otherwise noted, the findings and recommendations in the report have not been approved by the House of Delegates or the Board of Governors of the Association and do not represent the policy of the Association.

"This report is a clear call to action," said ABA President Dennis W. Archer. "The laws as they stand are harming thousands of U.S. families and their immigrant loved ones. We must fulfill our nation's promise as a truly inclusive society by addressing these issues and making changes that provide our nations' immigrants the fairness and due process protections that are integral to our system of justice."

"This report is vitally important. The way in which immigrants are treated serves as the yardstick by which we measure our nation's commitment to civil rights," said Wade Henderson, counselor for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund and executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "It shows how the rights of one group of Americans - our newest Americans - have been severely eroded, setting a dangerous precedent that can easily wind up harming the rest of us."

Among the key findings:

* Changes in our nation's immigration laws have eliminated crucial checks and balances in immigration proceedings.

* Low-level immigration officers are making what can be life-and-death decisions with no standards of due process or judicial oversight.

* Expanded grounds for deportation have led to far tougher penalties for those born outside the United States than for those born within.

* Because many of these new laws were made retroactive, lawful permanent residents have been detained and deported for activities that occurred years ago, before they were deportable offenses.

* Business travelers, people fleeing genocide and torture, abandoned children, abused women, and the developmentally disabled are among those who have been deported as a result of the changes in immigration laws. Under prior immigration laws and policies, many would have been allowed to remain.

* Widespread detention of immigrants is costing U.S. taxpayers nearly a billion dollars every year and disrupts the lives of American families.

"America is a nation settled and built by immigrants. This unique national character has always been a point of pride, an asset that set us apart," said Esther Lardent, chair of the ABA Commission on Immigration, which authored the study. "This report shows that part of our American identity is at risk. It's time for us to come together and restore our reputation as a beacon of freedom and guardian of due process under the law."

The report makes nearly three dozen recommendations for reform, including the following:

* Severe restrictions placed on judicial review must be removed.

* Access to qualified interpreters should be provided throughout the removal process, particularly in expedited removal proceedings.

* Defendants in criminal proceedings should be informed of the impact on their immigration status before they enter a plea.

* The immigration consequences of a conviction should be proportionate to the underlying offense.

* Immigration and deportation laws should not apply retroactively.

* The federal government ought not ask or require other institutions, including local and state police, to assume enforcement responsibility for federal immigration laws.

* Removal hearings should be public, except when required to protect an individual's safety or welfare, or when a judge determines that disclosure could be harmful to national security.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is the nation's oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund is the research, education and communications arm of the civil rights coalition.

With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law in a democratic society.

Posted by Konrad at 11:16 AM | Permalink

But I still can't put money in the pocket of a woman who wants to convince the world that taking away my grandparents' house and forcing them to live in a camp in the desert was a good idea, that the fact my family was of Japanese ancestry made it their duty to comply with this. And furthermore, that what has been done to innocent people I know because they're Muslims is okay too. Without reading her book I know these are the points she's making because that's what she herself claims it proves.

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000337.htm

I think it's vitally important to get the history right because the WWII experience is often invoked by opponents of common-sense national security profiling and other necessary homeland security measures today.

Unfortunately for her, qualified historians already know about MAGIC intelligence and have debunked its value as a justification for evacuation/internment. But I don't know of any real historians on this subject who command anywhere near the massive media attention Malkin does. So we who have read David Loman's book and come out of it still knowing the evacuation/internment was wrong have a lot of work to do. There is a bit of self-righteousness about some of the noise coming from the anti-internment side, and many of the loudest voices condemning the internment still don't have a thorough understanding of what happened during that period.

Posted by Konrad at 10:26 AM | Permalink

Dear friends and colleagues,

You may have heard by now of the egregious new book IN DEFENSE OF INTERNMENT, by the FOX news correspondent and right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin. The book purports to justify the removal and incarceration of the Japanese Americans, in the service of advocating racial profiling by the Bush Administration. I believe that Malkin's work is a terrible distortion of history, and may cause damage among people unexposed to the proper facts, especially as the author is a mell-known and connected media figure whose last book was a bestseller. I have therefore joined Eric Muller, author of the fine book on the WWII JA draft resisters, FREE TO DIE FOR THEIR COUNTRY, in contributing a set of critiques of the book, showing its historical errors and ideologically-driven thesis. Our set of 11 texts is posted on a blog, the Volokh Conspiracy, which has a large readership:

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_08_00.shtml#1091629458

It is important that we get our voices heard and head off this book before the author starts on the Talking Head circuit.

Best
Greg

Many of you may be shocked to know there's people out there who have recently argued and written books justifying the internment of Japanese Americans. To catch up with what I know on the topic, you can read the online debate I had with one of these people last year:

Archived posts on the WWII internment

This debate arose from the story that Representative Coble, who was (still is?) Chair of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Domestic Security, had made comments favorable to the WWII internment on the radio, and has never retracted them.

Michelle Malkin is a substantial darling of the right wing; the fact she's Asian American may well lend legitimacy to the "pro-internment" side of a debate officially settled years ago, and bring others out of their hidey-holes.

Get ready.

Posted by Konrad at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)