|
New York Times - February 28, 2006
U.S. is settling detainee's suit in 9/11 sweep
By Nina Bernstein
The federal government has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by an Egyptian who was among dozens of Muslim men swept up in the New York area after 9/11, held for months in a federal detention center in Brooklyn and deported after being cleared of links to terrorism.
The settlement, filed in federal court late yesterday, is the first the government has made in a number of lawsuits charging that noncitizens were abused and their constitutional rights violated in detentions after the terror attacks.
It removes one of two plaintiffs from a case in which a federal judge ruled last fall that former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other top government officials must answer questions under oath. Government lawyers filed an appeal of that ruling on Friday.
In the settlement agreement, which requires approval by a federal judge in Brooklyn, lawyers for the government said that the officials were not admitting any liability or fault. In court papers they have said that the 9/11 attacks created "special factors," including the need to deter future terrorism, that outweighed the plaintiffs' right to sue.
"A settlement like this is not a precedent, but it's a form of accountability," said Gerald L. Neuman, a law professor at Columbia University who is an expert in human rights law and was not involved in the case. "When the government finds it necessary to settle, that changes the government's incentives. It doesn't mean the government will settle future cases that it makes different calculations about," like another lawsuit, brought as a class action on behalf of hundreds of detainees, that is pending before the same judge.
A spokesman for the Justice Department said officials would not comment on the agreement. But lawyers who represent both the Egyptian, Ehab Elmaghraby, who used to run a restaurant near Times Square, and the second plaintiff, a Pakistani who is still pursuing the lawsuit, described the outcome as significant.
"This is a substantial settlement and shows for the first time that the government can be held accountable for the abuses that have occurred in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and in prisons right here in the United States," said one of the lawyers, Alexander A. Reinert of Koob & Magoolaghan.
The lawsuit accuses Mr. Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, of personally conspiring to violate the rights of Muslim immigrant detainees on the basis of their race, religion and national origin, and names a score of other defendants, including Bureau of Prison officials and guards at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
A 2003 report by the Justice Department's inspector general found widespread abuse of the noncitizen detainees at the Brooklyn center after 9/11, and in recent months, 10 of the center's guards and supervisors have been disciplined.
Mr. Elmaghraby, who spent nearly a year in detention, and the Pakistani man, Javaid Iqbal, held for nine months, charged that while shackled they were kicked and punched until they bled. Their lawsuit said they were cursed as terrorists and subjected to multiple unnecessary body-cavity searches, including one in which correction officers inserted a flashlight into Mr. Elmaghraby's rectum, making him bleed.
In a telephone interview from his home in Alexandria, Egypt, Mr. Elmaghraby, 38, said he had reluctantly decided to settle because he is ill, in debt and about to have surgery for a thyroid ailment aggravated by his treatment in the detention center.
"I wish I come to New York, to stay in the court face to face with these people," he said in imperfect English, adding that he had always expected the courts to uphold his claim. "I lived 13 years in New York, I see a lot of big cases on TV. I think the judges is fair."
The government had argued that the lawsuits should be dismissed without testimony because the extraordinary circumstances of the terror attacks justified extraordinary measures to confine noncitizens who fell under suspicion, and because top officials need governmental immunity to combat future threats to national security without fear of being sued.
The judge, John Gleeson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, disagreed, writing in last September, "Our nation's unique and complex law enforcement and security challenges in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks do not warrant the elimination of remedies for the constitutional violations alleged here."
In all, 762 noncitizens were arrested in the weeks after 9/11, mostly on immigration violations, according to government records. Mr. Elmaghraby and Mr. Iqbal were among 184 identified as being "of high interest" to investigators and held in maximum-security conditions, in Brooklyn and elsewhere, until the F.B.I. cleared them of terrorist links. Virtually all were Muslims or from Arab countries.
That in itself is not evidence of discrimination, government lawyers wrote in the brief they filed on Friday with the Appellate Division, Second Department, because "the Al Qaeda terrorists who perpetrated the Sept. 11 attacks were Muslims from certain Arab countries" who "viewed themselves as conducting a religious war."
"There were no clear judicial precedents in this extraordinary context," the appeal brief said, calling the policy of holding people until they could be cleared "a bona fide response to a national catastrophe."
Unlike the detainees covered by the class-action lawsuit, who were held on immigration violations alone, Mr. Elmaghraby and Mr. Iqbal eventually pleaded guilty to minor federal criminal charges unrelated to terrorism: Mr. Elmaghraby to credit card fraud, Mr. Iqbal to having false papers and bogus checks. But they maintain that they did so only to escape the abuse. They were deported in 2003 after serving prison terms.
Mr. Iqbal was one of several detainees who returned to New York this year to give depositions in their lawsuits under conditions of extraordinary security, including the requirement that they be in constant custody of federal marshals and not call anybody. Mr. Elmaghraby did not come because of his ill health and because the settlement was close, said one of his lawyers, Haeyoung Yoon of the Urban Justice Center.
"His circumstances made it extremely difficult for him to continue," Ms. Yoon said. "But I also feel this is really the beginning of justice for what happened in New York and the United States after Sept. 11, the mass arrests, detention and basically disappearance of an entire community."
Mr. Elmaghraby, who had a weekend flea market stand at Aqueduct Raceway in Queens, was picked up on Sept. 30, 2001, in his apartment in Maspeth, Queens, when federal agents were investigating his landlord, apparently because years earlier the landlord, also a Muslim, had applied for pilot training. Mr. Elmaghraby says his wife, an American citizen, left him after being threatened with arrest by an F.B.I. agent when she arrived at his first court hearing.
Mr. Iqbal was arrested in his Long Island apartment on Nov. 2 by agents apparently following a tip about false identification cards. In his apartment they found a Time magazine showing the World Trade Center towers in flames and paperwork showing that he had been in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, picking up a work permit from immigration services.
The inspector general's report said that little effort was made to distinguish between legitimate terrorism suspects and people picked up by chance, and that clearances took months, not days, because they were a low priority. Among the abuses described in the report — many of them caught on prison videotape — were beatings, sexual humiliations and illegal recording of lawyer-client conversations.
After the report was released, Mr. Ashcroft said he made "no apologies" for finding every legal way to protect the public. Still, officials pledged to improve the system and punish abuses.
Traci L. Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said that its own investigation began in April 2004, after federal officials declined to prosecute.
She would not identify the 10 employees disciplined, but said that two had been fired and two demoted, and that the others had received suspensions ranging from 2 to 30 days. She listed the offenses as "lack of candor, unprofessional conduct, misuse of supervisory authority, conduct unbecoming, inattention to duty, failure to exercise supervisory responsibilities, excessive use of force, and physical and/or verbal abuse."
Because of the secrecy surrounding the cases, however, the taint of suspicion has been almost impossible for former detainees to dispel, their lawyers said. In one of the court hearings leading up to the return of the former detainees for depositions, for example, the federal magistrate asked what made them different from anyone else suing the government, "other than their ethnicity."
Ernesto H. Molina Jr., a Justice Department lawyer representing Mr. Ashcroft, replied, "That they came under the umbrella of a terrorist investigation, your honor."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/nyregion/28detain.html?hp&ex=1141102800&en=7ec5f7a8aa796941&ei=5094&partner=homepage
February 28, 2006
US compensates Muslim for post-9/11 detention
NEW YORK, February 28, 2006 - The US government has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle an illegal detention lawsuit brought by an Egyptian man who was among hundreds of Muslims rounded up in New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"It underlines that due process and fair treatment should be reserved and protected even in times of chaos," Alexander Reinert, the lawyer of Ehab El-Maghraby, was quoted as saying Tuesday, February 26, by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The settlement was filed in federal court in Brooklyn, but the US government stopped short of admitting any wrongdoing against the plaintiff.
Despite the lack of an admission of official liability, Reinert said the settlement amounted to "an important statement of accountability" for what happened to his client.
Elmaghraby's lawsuit, which named the then US attorney general John Ashcroft as a defendant, had been filed in May 2004, along with a co-plaintiff, Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani citizen.
As well as Ashcroft, the lawsuit named the former director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Kathleen Sawyer, as well as a number of former and current Metropolitan Detention Center officials.
A 2003 report by Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General found that some prison officers slammed detainees against walls, twisted their arms and hands in painful ways, stepped on their leg restraint chains and punished them by keeping them restrained for long periods.
The report said videotapes showed some detention center staff "misused strip searches and restraints to punish detainees and that officers improperly and illegally recorded detainees' meetings with their attorneys."
Tortured
Maghrabi and Iqbal, who were both working in New York at the time of the September 11 attack, said they were physically and mentally abused in the city's Metropolitan Detention Center, where they were held with hundreds of Muslims picked up in an anti-terror sweep.
The suit claims the plaintiffs were subjected to systematic cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including numerous instances of excessive force and verbal abuse, unlawful strip and body-cavity searches, the denial of medical treatment and extended detention in solitary confinement.
At one point, Iqbal said he was kicked in the stomach by his captors, punched in the face and dragged across a room.
Elmaghraby, who was held in the center's special unit for nearly a year, alleged that correction officers had inserted a flashlight into his rectum during one cavity search, leaving him bleeding.
The two men eventually pleaded guilty to minor charges unrelated to terrorism and were deported to their countries after serving prison time.
More than 1,200 Muslim and South Asian men rounded up after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a Reuters count.
Some of the detainees have sued the US government after their release for inhumane and degrading treatment and a total blackout of communications in detention centers on the US soil.
In August of 2004, a US judge has chided the US administration for building a terrorism support case against two Muslims in New York on false evidence.
A May 2004 report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded that the Arab Americans and the Muslim community in the United States have taken the brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers applied in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Amnesty International also repeatedly said that racial profiling by US law enforcement agencies had grown dramatically in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies)
http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-02/28/article07.shtml
Star-Telegram – February 26, 2006
A revived caliphate: Bogeyman, scapegoat and pinata
By Tom Porteous
At a time of growing political tension between the Muslim world and the West, a new bad idea is creeping into the discourse of European and North American political leaders and is being used to justify an intensification of Western political and military intervention in the Muslim world.
Donald Rumsfeld wheeled this bad idea out at a conference on global security in Munich, Germany. George W. Bush alluded to it in his 2006 State of the Union address in January. Tony Blair and his Home Office minister, Charles Clarke, have both spoken of it in the past six months. Dick Cheney has bandied it about for even longer. The rhetoric of the new German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggests that she, too, has signed up.
The new bad idea is this: The "free West," having defeated German Nazism and Soviet Communism, now faces a new strategic challenge from the ambition of Muslim radicals to re-establish an Islamic caliphate and impose Islamic law on half the world.
As the U.S. defense secretary put it at the Munich conference, Islamic radicals "seek to take over governments from North Africa to Southeast Asia and to re-establish a caliphate they hope, one day, will include every continent. They have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist Islamic empire."
Ouch! A map without borders! Is this the new WMD?
It is true that many Islamist groups, including terrorist groups like al Qaeda, say they would like to see the reunification of the Muslim world under one political leadership. They also frame this in terms of the re-establishment of the political institution that unified the Muslim world in the first few centuries of Islam: the caliphate.
But does this make it sensible, wise or proportionate for the leaders of the most formidable military alliance in the history of the world to base their strategic posture for the early 21st century on the invocation of an al Qaeda- or Iranian-run "terrorist caliphate" stretching half way around the globe?
No, it does not, and here's why…
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/13960532.htm
MAPC Bulletin – February 27, 2006
Muslim leaders pledge to form alliance to address
Muslim minorities during us-Islamic world forum
Los Angeles – February 27, 2006 -- The Brookings Institution, a major think tank based in Washington, DC, embarked on a major initiative for global dialogue earlier this month by assembling government officials, political activists and leading thinkers in the political, religious, science, and cultural arenas during its fourth annual "U.S.-Islamic World Forum". Set against the backdrop of the Hamas election victory and massive riots sparked by the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, prominent leaders who gathered in Doha, Qatar, pledged to form a working group intended to address the unique challenges faced by Muslim minority populations.
Under the theme of "Leaders Effect Change", the annual conference seeks to examine how the United States can reconcile its need to eliminate terrorism and reduce the appeal of extremist movements with its need to build more positive relations with Muslim states and communities. Among those to address the conference were U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes and several Gulf officials, who discussed repercussions of international events for the future of U.S.-Muslim world relations. Eager for interaction with and between the speakers, the 200 conference attendees shared ideas for addressing current challenges in numerous seminars exploring profound questions that the terrorist attacks of September 11th have raised for U.S. policy.
"As we approach five years after 9/11, the themes of tolerance and justice and freedom are common goal-posts in the dialogue, yet the political gap is widening between the US and the Muslim world," said MPAC Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati, who participated in the conference. "While dialogue inevitably reveals differences that are difficult to grapple with, it is through dialogue that we have the best chance to reach common ground in the future. The role of Muslim minorities could be the key to create the ever-elusive common ground."
Distinguished leaders, scholars, activists and intellectuals discussed the common challenges faced by Muslims living in non-Muslim nations during two seminars organized by Brookings' "Bridging the Divide Initiative". Among the primary goals of the initiative is to involve the American Muslim community in improving US-Islamic world relations. More than 500 million Muslims live as minority religious populations, including 150 million Muslims in India and nearly 40 million in Europe and North America. Participants stressed the importance of sharing knowledge, experience and expertise to combat the challenges of citizenship, Islamophobia, extremism and socio-economic marginalization.
Towards this end, they expressed determination to establish an alliance of minority Muslims that will work for their empowerment by addressing the politics of citizenship, notions of identity, and the significance of civic engagement. Participants also discussed the importance of Ijtihad (independent interpretation) and the need to understand Islam and Islamic practices in the context of the societies in which they live in order that Muslims may live "wholesome, integrated lives" while contributing to their broader society. Coordinated by Muqtedar Khan of Brookings Institution and Hady Amr of the Arab Western Summit of Skills, the sessions were chaired by M. J. Akbar, Editor in Chief of the Indian publication "Asian Age", and Imam Feisal Rauf, author of "What's Right with Islam".
The policy discourse has always been difficult to pursue. Hence, alternatives to policy -- such as science and technology, the arts, and education -- have provided substantive outlets for concreting and framing discussion and formulating tangible outcomes. There are great assets found in these arenas. In the end, however, leaders of the U.S. and Muslim World will have to address the core sectors where the winds of change originate -- politics and media.
The engineers of the "U.S.-Islamic World Forum" -- Professor Stephen Cohen, Ambassador Martin Indyk, Dr. Peter Singer, and Professor Shibley Telhami -- are to be commended for creating an opportunity for such rare and invaluable dialogue. For a complete record of the proceedings of the conference, visit http://www.us-islamicworldforum.org/.
Baltimore Sun – February 27, 2006
MD: Schools proposal disturbs Muslims
Baltimore County Schools would not close for holy days
A Baltimore County school board committee has made recommendations about religious holidays for the school system's calendar, and a leader of the Muslim community said he is disappointed that it didn't suggest closing for two Islamic holy days.
One of the recommendations is to allow students to have two "excused absences" from school for religious holidays.
But Bash Pharoan, president of the Baltimore County Muslim Council, has been lobbying to close schools on two Islamic holy days since 2004 because the system closes for the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
"The main issue is that the ad hoc committee failed again to recognize that the issue is about equality," he said. "We want equal treatment."
State regulations already deem religious observance a "lawful absence," along with illness or death of a family member. But the committee suggests that the county school system go a step further by petitioning the State Board of Education to amend its regulations so "religious observance would not mar a student's official attendance record nor prevent any student from obtaining perfect attendance."
"Currently they are penalized de facto by the fact that their record indicates an excused absence," committee Chairman Luis E. Borunda said….
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-md.calendar27feb27,0,4844129.story
Stanford Daily – February 24, 2006
CA: Panel highlights plight of many Latino Muslims
By Mima Mohammed
While Latinos and Islam may first appear to be unrelated subjects, yesterday's panel titled "Hispanos Musulmanes: Latinos embracing Islam" highlighted the unique population of Muslims residing in Latin American nations and the Caribbean.
The three-person panel, comprised of members from the organization "Members of Latino Muslims of the Bay Area," came to the El Centro Chicano community center to address students, with MeCHA and the Muslim Students Association co-sponsoring the talk.
The panelists focused on the phenomenon of young Latinos in major cities converting to Islam. These new converts face myriad hurdles in trying to reconcile their new faith with Latino cultural backgrounds. The speakers candidly spoke of their personal strife in fighting to win acceptance from their families and friends about the tenets of the Muslim faith.
The panel was composed of Alejandro Hamed, Daniel Islam and Issa Delgadillo. Hamed, a Muslim by birth but raised in Chile, was the first to speak. The son of Syrian immigrants, Hamed made immigration a central focus of his issue. He traced the roots of Islamic populations in Latino countries to the influx of Indian indentured servants to the Caribbean sugar canes in the late 1990s. Hamed also braced the influence of Islam on Spain as well, reflecting on its effect on architecture. He addressed the fact that a lot of Stanford architecture originated from Spanish and Islamic influences, as seen in the arches throughout the Stanford campus.
The second speaker with the coincidental name Islam hails from Tijuana and was raised in a Catholic family. However, after finding many of the Catholic rituals insufficient to fulfill his spiritual thirst, he turned to Islam, which he found to be more sensible. Despite his past frustration with his faith, however, Islam nevertheless expressed a strong respect for the Catholic community.
"Faith that the Mexicano have with the Catholic faith is incredible," Islam said. "Their faith was so strong, that they would give their last peso to people who were poor when in church."
Delgadillo, who is originally from Nicaragua but grew up in Los Angeles, said that converting to Islam changed his life completely. After a shameful past of gang activity and illegal activity, an old girlfriend of his, who had converted to Islam earlier, introduced him to the religion by bringing him books. Then she also took him to a mosque, where he was able to learn from other Muslims. Since he has become a Muslim, his life is completely different since he no longer drinks, as alcoholism is prohibited by Islam.
"Since I converted, my life from that moment changed," Delgadillo said. "My life is very different from how it once was, it is a lot easier, I have not had alcohol in over two years."
His mother, however, who is from a strict Catholic background, still has trouble coming to terms with her son being a Muslim, he said…..
http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=19579&repository=0001_article
Bergen Record – February 26, 2006
NJ: Many Hispanics finding faith in Islam
By Elizabeth Ilorente
Last year, Gaby Gonzalez wore black nail polish and black eye shadow. She had a messy room, standoffs with mom and occasional drinks.
Today, the Honduran-born 20-year-old is known as Sister Gaby.
She proudly wears her jade-green hijab, which forms a nearly perfect frame around her delicate features and large brown eyes. She prays several times a day and does not wear makeup, eat pork or even utter the phrase "happy hour" - that is all haram, she said, or prohibited in Arabic.
"In my past, I focused on myself. I didn't think about other people, about my parents, just myself and my circle of friends," she said. "Now, every day I strive to be better, to do good, to help others. I stopped being selfish and arrogant."
Gonzalez, who majors in anthropology at Montclair State University, is one of thousands of Latinos who have converted to Islam. So many Latinos have thronged to Islam in recent years that many mosques, including some in North Jersey, have set up special "Latino Muslim" groups within their congregations. And many now offer simultaneous Spanish translations as part of their religious services.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, mosque leaders saw the fear and anger mushrooming against Muslims and decided to reach out to non-Muslim organizations and community groups to demystify Islam and to condemn terrorism.
"When we reached out, we weren't even thinking of Hispanics; we didn't know much about Hispanics," said Mohammed Al-Hayek, the imam at the Islamic Educational Center of North Hudson, in Union City. "But they were the ones who responded. That's when we realized that our outreach focus had to be specifically Hispanics."
Al-Hayek brought in the head of a mosque in Ecuador and asked him to go out into the immigrant enclaves of Hudson County and talk about Islam. For four months, the Ecuadorean went out into the crowded streets of Union City and the surrounding towns, and encouraged people to ask questions about Islam and Muslims. He also visited homes and spoke to local organizations.
"Here was a Latino, someone the people in the Hispanic community could relate to, speaking to them in their own language about Islam," said Al-Hayek, a thin man with a friendly face and wide smile. "It wasn't Arabs speaking to them, and at the beginning especially, that made a big difference."
The mosque's efforts have paid off. Since Al-Hayek began the outreach program five years ago, some 500 Hispanics have visited the mosque, sitting in prayer sessions as guests and attending seminars on Islam. Many converted, usually from Catholicism. Now, Al-Hayek said, of the approximately 1,000 people who regularly worship at the mosque, nearly 200 are Hispanic converts…..
http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2ODg3ODg1JnlyaXJ5N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg==
|
