[1283] in peace2
Treatment of Muslim prisoner
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Landi M Parish)
Mon Dec 3 21:52:33 2001
Message-Id: <200112040252.VAA12367@home-on-the-dome.mit.edu>
To: peace-list@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2001 21:52:26 -0500
From: Landi M Parish <landi@MIT.EDU>
Hi,
What follows is an article from Newsweek I thought you might be
interested in. It was sent over a Muslim mailing list, l-Mukmin.
Best,
Landi
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Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 09:01:43 +0700
Dec. 10 issue =97 Mohammed Irshaid has lived in the United States fo=
r
22 years. Now a civil engineer in New York, the Jordanian-born Irshaid, 41,
went to college in Ohio at the University of Toledo; his three children are
American citizens, and he was close, he thought, to obtaining his
long-cherished green card. As he was sitting in his office on the morning o=
f
Nov. 6, he was arrested by federal agents who told him his visa had expired
and implied that they had information linking him to a terrorist plot.
Irshaid was ashamed to be led away in handcuffs in front of his co-workers.
=93It was absolutely the most humiliating thing to happen to me in my life,=
=94
he says.=20=20=20=20
=20
MORE HUMILIATION was to follow. He was thrown into a cell in
Passaic, N.J., with nearly three dozen other men. The men, all Muslims,
asked to hold on to their food trays so they could observe the Ramadan fast
and eat after sundown. The guard wasn=92t having any of it. =93I don=92t ca=
re
about f=97king Ramadan,=94 the turnkey said. The U.S. government never file=
d any
charges against Irshaid. After three weeks, he was finally released. Irshai=
d
says he was so happy he would have jumped for joy, had he not still been
shackled and chained in leg irons. =93This doesn=92t change my love of Amer=
ica,=94
he told NEWSWEEK. =93But with all due respect to Mr. Ashcroft, if somebody
wants to accuse you of something, they should tell you what it is.=94 =
=20
=20=20
Such stories are becoming uncomfortably commonplace. As innocent
Muslim men swept up in the post-September 11 dragnet begin to emerge after
being held in custody, often in secret, for weeks and months, they are
telling embarrassing and sometimes horrifying tales of official indifferenc=
e
and, occasionally, abuse. Civil libertarians and a growing chorus of
oped-page Cassandras are warning of a new McCarthyism and accusing Attorney
General John Ashcroft of playing a modern-day Torquemada.=20
U.S. Attorney General Ashcroft is not exactly shying from the role of Grand
Inquisitor: =93People have to make a choice,=94 the attorney general told
NEWSWEEK, =93whether they=92re going to help us prevent additional terroris=
t
acts or remain silent in the face of evil.=94
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
AGGRESSIVE CAMPAIGN AGAINST SUBVERSION=20
Secret military tribunals. A manhunt that has swept up 1,200 men,
mostly in secret. Orders to question every young male emigrating from the
Middle East for the past two years. Plans to loosen up rules that restrict
the FBI from spying on churches and political organizations. In the past fe=
w
weeks, Ashcroft has led such an aggressive campaign to stamp out subversion
that even old-time G-men are wondering whether the attorney general is
trying too hard to fill the shoes of the late J. Edgar Hoover.
Are America=92s civil liberties at risk? The Bush administration=92=
s
first line of defense=97=94trust us=94=97won=92t wash. The government, John=
Adams
wrote two centuries ago, is supposed to be made up =93of laws and not men.=
=94
Nonetheless, it is far too soon to declare that the attorney general is
undermining basic freedoms or tearing holes in the Constitution. Ashcroft i=
s
not a rogue operator: President George W. Bush strongly backs his words and
deeds, if not always the attorney general=92s dark and blustery tone. And B=
ush
has plenty of historical precedent on his side. Some of America=92s greates=
t
presidents, including Lincoln, FDR=97and John Adams=97cut back on civil
liberties during wartime. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld the
chief executive=92s extraordinary powers to protect the national security.
=93The Constitution is not a suicide pact,=94 wrote Justice Robert Jackson =
50
years ago.
=20
Civil liberties are not absolute rights. They must be balanced
against the public safety. At a time when suicidal mass murderers are tryin=
g
to infiltrate the United States, the balance has shifted. That=92s fine wit=
h
most Americans: according to the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, 86 percent think the
administration has not gone too far in restricting civil liberties in its
response to terrorism. White House officials say that every time the
=93liberal media=94 fret about Ash-croft=92s assaulting civil liberties, th=
e
president=92s approval ratings go up. =93Attack us some more,=94 quips one =
aide.
And yet a closer look at the NEWSWEEK Poll shows some public
ambivalence about the details. Secrecy does not sit well; a majority (58
percent) want trials to be open all or most of the time. Less than half
believe that foreigners who are recent immigrants should be subjected to
military tribunals. Support for giving more power to the government to figh=
t
terrorism has waned since September 11, from 54 percent to 35 percent. And
NEWSWEEK has learned that some senior officials in the criminal division of
the Justice Department as well as at the FBI have also privately expressed
concerns about going too far.
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
KANGAROO COURTS?
The true test is still to come: will the military tribunals turn int=
o
kangaroo courts? That seems doubtful: under the scrutiny of a critical and
watchful press and Congress, the administration is likely to use the
tribunals sparingly and make sure that suspects receive some basic
guarantees of a fair trial. The greater risk may be that the heavy-handed
tactics could backfire. By rounding up young Muslim men for questioning, or
holding them indefinitely on minor immigration charges, the Justice
Department may alienate precisely the people they need to blow the whistle
on suspicious activity.
The actual impact of the administration=92s antiterror program turn=
s
on the way it is put into practice. In the beginning, White House officials
insisted it would be too dangerous and cumbersome to give terrorists normal
criminal trials. Judges, lawyers and jurors would be at risk of reprisal;
the government would not be able to introduce classified evidence without
compromising secret =93sources and methods=94 of gaining intelligence; high=
ly
publicized trials could drag on and become circuses. All true. But the
president=92s decree calling for military tribunals was so vague and overly
broad that it seemed to sweep aside any semblance of constitutional
safeguards. It applies not just to terrorists but those who =93harbor them.=
=94
Does that include landlords and cabdrivers? Only noncitizens could be tried
before the tribunals, but some 20 million noncitizens live in the United
States. On its face the president=92s decree would invite the military to
secretly whisk off suspects to a ship or to a distant military base and
summarily execute them.=20=20
=20=20
In fact, the precise rules for the tribunals are still being
written by the Pentagon. It is more than likely that by the time these rule=
s
are put into use, Congress and the career lawyers at Justice will have some
moderating input. Pentagon lawyers will be under pressure to build in basic
safeguards, like the presumption of innocence, proof beyond a reasonable
doubt, public proceedings (with narrow exceptions to avert real security
breaches), a unanimous verdict to impose a death sentence, a defendant=92s
right to choose his own counsel and a right of appeal to the highest
military court. Indeed, all these protections are already required by the
Uniform Code of Military Justice for ordinary courts-martial, notes NEWSWEE=
K
legal analyst Stuart Taylor Jr. The judges may also include not just
military officers=97who are beholden to their commander in chief=97but reti=
red
federal judges or prominent citizens whose stature and independence are
beyond question.
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
=91UNLAWFUL COMBATANTS=92
And what if the rules do not offer such safeguards? A terror suspect
captured abroad, it is true, will have no real recourse. In international
law, terrorists, like spies, are =93unlawful combatants.=94 They don=92t ev=
en
enjoy the basic rights of prisoners of war, who are entitled by the Geneva
Convention to be properly fed and housed and not subjected to torture. But
terror suspects living in the United States will be able to go to a federal
court to file a writ of habeas corpus, the ancient protection against
arbitrary imprisonment by the state. The federal courts are likely to throw
out any military tribunals that do not offer the =93fair and full trial=94
promised by the Bush administration. So far, according to senior officials,
only a small number of suspects now in federal custody are likely to be
considered to be tried in a military tribunal=97and only then if a strong
connection to the Qaeda network can be firmly established.
The United States aims to capture and try as many Qaeda leaders as
it can dig out of the caves of Afghanistan, at least those who don=92t die
there first. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whose swagger sometimes
outdoes even Ashcroft=92s, made clear that the Pentagon wants the Northern
Alliance and other Afghan tribesmen to hand over Taliban or Qaeda leaders
who fall into their grasp. But the United States may have more difficulty
persuading its European allies to turn over Qaeda operatives arrested
abroad. The laws of the European Union and many European countries prevent
the extradition of criminal suspects to countries where they could face the
death penalty.
This restriction could be a serious hindrance in the
administration=92s push to wipe out Al Qaeda=92s global network. Already, p=
artly
at the prodding of the United States after September 11, some 50 countries
have rounded up about 360 terror suspects. On Nov. 18, Spain charged eight
suspected members of a Qaeda cell that, investigators believe, aided the
September 11 hijackers. But Spanish officials said they would be reluctant
to allow the suspects to be tried before a U.S. military tribunal.=20=20
=20=20
At the very least, there would be months if not years of legal
wrangling before terror suspects could be delivered to U.S. prosecutors.
This is not to say, however, that there are not other ways to deal with
terrorists. Under a new law, Britain will be able to hold suspected
terrorists indefinitely=97without any trial. A judge would have to approve =
the
detentions at six-month intervals, but few jurists would be likely to set a
suspected terrorist free. The CIA sometimes prefers that a terror suspect b=
e
extradited not to the due process of the American court system, but to a
country with less-forgiving methods of extracting confessions and other
useful information. In the little Arab emirate of Qatar a few weeks ago,
police arrested a suspect named Ahmed Shakir. The CIA and FBI are very
interested in Shakir. For one thing, he comes from Iraq and thus offers a
potential connection to Saddam Hussein. For another, he was spotted by
Malaysian intelligence at a terrorist gathering in Kuala Lumpur in January
2000 to discuss the suicide bombing plot on the U.S. destroyer Cole. Also a=
t
that summit meeting were two of the men who later hijacked the plane that
flew into the Pentagon on September 11. According to a senior Arab
intelligence official, the Qataris =93asked the Americans, =91Where should =
we
send this guy?=92 =94 The answer was, not the United States. The man was se=
nt to
Jordan instead. The Jordanians have been good about sharing intelligence
with the United States. The CIA prefers not to ask how the Jordanians obtai=
n
that intelligence.
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
LIKE OUT OF A BAD MOVIE
Some of the 1,200 men swept up in the FBI=92s dragnet since Septembe=
r
11 feel as though they might as well have been sent to a Third World
dungeon. On Sept. 18, Hasnain Javed, 20, a Pakistani national who lives wit=
h
his aunt in Houston, was on his way back to Queensborough College in New
York to study computer information systems. In Alabama, he was pulled off
the bus by the federal Border Patrol, who discovered that Javed was carryin=
g
an expired visa. They sent him to a county jail in Wiggins, Miss., where he
was put in a cell with 10 other inmates. What happened next was out of a ba=
d
movie.
One inmate, perhaps kindly, perhaps coldly, suggested that he bette=
r
ring for the guard. Javed rang the bell, but it went unanswered for more
than 20 minutes. During that time, several inmates beat him severely,
breaking one of his teeth, fracturing a couple of ribs and rupturing his
eardrum. As they kicked and pummeled the Pakistani youth, they jeeringly
called him =93bin Laden.=94 Then they stripped him naked and beat him some =
more.
=93I was crying and telling them I had nothing to do with it,=94 said Javed=
.
=93They were kicking me and punching me and pinned my head to the floor.=94
Finally, four guards arrived=97and watched. Struggling to his feet, Javed
begged for help, and at last the officers stopped the beating. Javed was pu=
t
into solitary confinement and eventually released on $5,000 bail. He is now
so traumatized he is afraid to appear in public. =93I=92ve never felt this =
way,=94
he told NEWSWEEK. =93I go out and worry if someone is looking at me funny. =
If
I see a police officer, I wonder if he is going to say something to me,
question me.=94
The two-week ordeal of Dr. Al-Badr Al-Hazmi, a quiet family man and
radiologist in San Antonio, Texas, was not as violent but just as chilling.
Al-Hazmi had wept on September 11 when he saw the terrorist attacks. =93My
eyes filled with tears. It was absolutely evil,=94 he says. He went to the
mosque and prayed for the victims. The next morning at 5 he was rising for
his dawn prayer when he heard a knock on his door. He opened it to find a
half-dozen federal investigators with guns. Frightened, Al-Hazmi let them
search his house, but he refused to answer questions without a lawyer
present. This seemed to surprise and antagonize his interrogators. =93I
thought you were going to cooperate with us and help us,=94 one said. Al-Ha=
zmi
asked, =93Help you with what?=94 One of the gumshoes said, =93You know what
happened.=94
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
HIS TROUBLES WERE ONLY BEGINNING
The investigators began quizzing him about the Holy Land Foundation.
Al-Hazmi says he gave money to the group because it runs health clinics in
Palestine. The investigators told him that they had just raided the Dallas
office of the Holy Land Foundation because, they said, it funnels money to
Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group (an allegation the foundation
vehemently denies). The tone of the questioning grew sharper. The G-men
began asking Al-Hazmi if he knew the names of several of the hijackers. He
said he did not, but he could see that his troubles were only beginning.
Taken to the FBI office in San Antonio, he was allowed to call his
lawyer and his wife. It was the last time he would speak to her for 11 days=
.
In shackles, he was led to a small room with no bed, just a mattress on the
floor, and a gown that did not protect him from the chill. The extremely
near-sighted Al-Hazmi was deprived of his eyeglasses so he could not read
and was denied antibiotics that he was taking for his bronchitis, which
steadily worsened. When the guard closed the door that evening, he told
Al-Hazmi, =93Merry Christmas.=94
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
=91AL-HAZMI IS A COMMON NAME IN SAUDI ARABIA=92
Still unsure why he was being held, Al-Hazmi was put on a plane for
New York, where he was greeted by U.S. marshals holding automatic weapons.
At the Metropolitan Correction Center, Al-Hazmi claims that he became the
target of physical abuse (a charge the FBI denies). Al-Hazmi says that
agents routinely kicked him in the small of his back while shouting at him
and demanding his name. Finally, on Sept. 19, he was allowed to have a
court-appointed lawyer and was told why he had been arrested: he shared the
same family name as two of the hijackers, Salem Alhazmi and Nawaf Alhazmi,
and in 1999 he had contacted Abdullah Binladen, one of Osama=92s 50-odd
siblings, about his organization, World Assembly of Muslim Youth, an Islami=
c
group. He had also booked flights on Travelocity, the same Web service used
by the hijackers. Al-Hazmi is a common name in Saudi Arabia. =93It=92s a bi=
g
tribe. It=92s like John Smith in the U.S.,=94 said Dr. Al-Hazmi.
On Monday, Sept. 24, he was released, without his glasses or
clothes, in blue jail pants and a black top. He went home to San Antonio. H=
e
is thinking about quitting his job at University Hospital, where he is now
treated with suspicion by some colleagues, and moving back to Saudi Arabia.
He says he is not angry at the U.S. government. =93Forgiveness is one of th=
e
principles of Islam,=94 he told NEWSWEEK. But he worries about his children=
.
His son, 8, cried all time while he was in custody and still does not seem
quite right. His daughter, 6, said to him, =93You were in jail.=94 His eyes
filling with tears, Al-Hazmi says, =93How can you explain to innocent kids
what happened? I=92m embarrassed, ashamed to explain.=94
For the first two months of the dragnet, the Justice Department
refused to say much about the growing list of Middle Eastern men who were
disappearing into jails all across the country. Under normal circumstances,
outrage in the press and legal community would have forced a more complete
accounting, if not an end to the roundup. But with dissent muted since
September 11, it wasn=92t until mid-November that the criticism rose to a
level that forced Ashcroft and Bush to provide more answers.
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
DIFFERENT RATIONALES
Last week Ashcroft revealed that 603 people, none of them U.S.
citizens, remain in custody. Perhaps a dozen are being held as =93material
witnesses=94 because they have been somehow linked to the attacks. An
additional 55 have been charged with crimes, like lying to federal
investigators. The rest are being held for immigration violations. Normally=
,
immigration proceedings are public. But Ashcroft ordered the Justice
Department to go to considerable lengths to keep them secret requiring
hearings to be conducted behind closed doors. He has even refused to releas=
e
the names of the detainees. The attorney general has offered different
rationales. First, he said he wanted to protect the privacy of the
detainees. Then he said it would be irresponsible in a time of war =93to
advertise to the other side that we have Al Qaeda membership in custody.=94
Justice Department officials acknowledged privately last week that the
government has no evidence that any of the immigration detainees are member=
s
of Al Qaeda.
By sweeping with a wide broom=97arresting potential terrorists befo=
re
they strike=97the government hopes to disrupt future terrorist attacks. But
some former FBI officials, most prominently former director William Webster=
,
have openly questioned the dragnet approach. More typically in terror
investigations, the FBI has preferred to watch silently and wait, collectin=
g
evidence with wiretaps and other tools, until it was sure it could roll up
the entire plot. Webster claims that the bureau prevented 131 terrorist
attacks between 1981 and 2000. Of course, it missed the September 11
bombing, and Justice Department officials insist that the new threat calls
for different and more urgent tactics.
Old FBI hands are also skeptical about the Justice Department=92s
decision to question some 5,000 new arrivals to the United States. (The
order applies to all men between the ages of 18 and 33 who have arrived in
the United States from Middle Eastern and other countries on non-immigrant
visas since Jan. 1, 2000.) An official describes the effort as =93a nationa=
l
neighborhood watch.=94 Participation is voluntary. As an incentive to
cooperate, the administration is even offering to help noncitizens get gree=
n
cards if they offer up useful information. The prize is a coveted =93S Visa=
=94
(some joke that the =93S=94 stands for =93snitch=94). Speaking last week to=
a
gathering of U.S. attorneys, President Bush said, =93We=92re saying, =91Wel=
come to
America. You have come to our country; why don=92t you help make us safe?=
=92 =94
According to a Justice Department memo, the questioning is supposed to occu=
r
in homes rather than police stations, with interpreters present, and avoid
questions about religious belief.
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
SECRET EVIDENCE VS. NO EVIDENCE
But civil libertarians and Arab groups, as well as some veteran
investigators, say that young Middle Eastern men will be wary. They=92re
afraid that if they come forward, they=92ll end up in detention for an
immigration violation. If they don=92t, they=92ll be suspected of hiding
something. The fear in Middle Eastern communities that their rights are
being trampled by the Bush administration is ironic, says James Zogby,
president of the Arab American Institute. In a play for Arab-American votes
during the 2000 campaign, Bush vowed to end the Clinton administration=92s
practice of using =93secret evidence=94 against suspected terrorists in
deportation proceedings. =93They promised to do away with secret evidence=
=97and
they did,=94 says Zogby. =93The only thing is, they=92ve replaced it with n=
o
evidence.=94=20=20=20
=20=20
Political leaders worry that the hard line will roil ethnic
communities. Detroit, which has large African-American and Arab-American
populations, has worked hard to calm sometimes tense relations between
police, who are often black, and Arab-Americans in the shops and streets.
When his already stretched-thin department was approached about the
voluntary interview process a few weeks ago, Detroit Police Chief Charles
Wilson says he replied, =93No, we=92re not going to do it.=94 He later chan=
ged his
mind and assigned 10 =93experienced and savvy=94 officers who are, he says,
sensitive to civil rights. In Portland, Ore., a traditionally liberal
community, Police Chief Mark Kroeker refused to lend his officers to the
task. He was immediately bombarded with e-mails and chastised in the press
for being unpatriotic. =93I=92m surprised by the reaction,=94 says Kroeker,=
=93and
to some extent, I feel I=92ve been vilified. I=92ve never experienced anyth=
ing
like this.=94
Public fear is behind much of the aggressive stance taken by law
enforcement at all levels. One Justice Department official suggested to
NEWSWEEK that the administration chose to get tough now to head off a publi=
c
cry for even more draconian measures in the event of a second major terror
attack. If the terrorists do hit again=97a high probability, federal offici=
als
still warn=97panicked Americans might call for even more drastic steps.
Privacy safeguards would likely come under assault from government
eavesdroppers. And Americans really would have to start worrying about thei=
r
freedoms as well as their safety.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------=
- -
- ----
Daniel Klaidman, Mark Hosenball, Tamara Lipper, Martha Brant and Lynette
Clemetson in Washington, Christopher Dickey in Amman, Stryker McGuire and
Tara Pepper in London, Mar Roman in Madrid, Keith Naughton and Joan Raymond
in Detroit, Lynn Waddell in Tampa, Ellise Pierce in Dallas, Anne Pelli
Gesalman in Houston, Karen Breslau in San Francisco and Sarah Downey in
Chicago
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
? 2001 Newsweek, Inc.
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