A#10 ADMJ 302 13937 S10 Chapter 8 - Arab Americans – This assignment
is due on March 20, 2010, prior to 5:00PM. Please download this
assignment from the Turnitin calendar date of March 15, 2010.
This is a simple reading comprehension test to have the students read a ‘long’
article and identify secrecy issues and illegal issues by copying and pasting
these examples into a numbered list. Students are not required to highlight their
copied text this is just for your information.
An “A” assignment will give 10 -13 examples for each subject area. Nine to 7
examples is good for a “B”. Six to 5 is good for a “C”.
An “A” submission will attach an article of and list all the common and different
factors. Your job includes reading these articles and making sure the students
have followed instructions.
I. Please read the following article, “In a Virtual Internment Camp - Muslim
Americans since 9/11”, and number and copy and paste, in the order in which
they appear in the article all examples of government ‘secrecy’ that allegedly
contribute to the persecution of Muslims in the U.S.
II. Please number and copy and paste in, in the order in which they appear in the
article, all the examples of government practices/policies in the “Virtual
Internment Camp” article that appear to violate the legal rights of Muslims
and/or others.
III. Please locate at least one article on the post 9/11 treatment of Muslims in the
United States and Please number and list, in the order in which they appear in
the article, all the issues that are also mentioned in the “Virtual Internment Camp”
article. Provide a separate numbered list of all the issues provided in your article
that are not in the “Virtual Internment Camp” article. You should copy and past
from your article to make your list. Please attach a copy of your article.
REQUIRED RESPONSE FORMAT:
I. Government Secrecy list
1. Because of government secrecy, the full extent to which people have been
affected must be extrapolated from media accounts and from projections based
on available government reports.
2. As early as October 17, 2001, US Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a
directive limiting the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
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3. On April 22, 2002, the Attorney General issued an interim regulation forbidding
any state or county jail from releasing information about INS detainees housed in
their facilities.
4. But the virtual internment camp relies on secrecy and apathy to survive; the
government doesn't want to tell and people don't really want to know.
5. Once again no statistics are provided by the government about how many
such local and regional operations have been conducted.
6. Now some of these 50,000 or so donors are being targeted for interview. Once
again, no numbers are provided.
7. Today, the FBI routinely spies on mosques, Friday sermons, and other lawful
Muslim activities.
8. Since hardly any of these people were ever charged with anything, it is unlikely
that any record was kept of their illegal detention.
9. On November 8, 2001, facing criticism that it had arrested so many people but
had charged none with any terrorist-related crimes; the Justice Department
simply announced that it will not issue a tally of its detentions.
10. The Attorney General informed the Senate Judiciary Committee early this
year that he had authorized more than 170 secret 'emergency' searches since
the Sept. 11 attacks' more than triple the 47 emergency searches that have been
authorized by other attorneys general in the last 20 years.
11. Abuse by law enforcement led Congress to establish secret courts under the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to authorize 'foreign intelligence'
wiretaps and searches.
12. This federal court meets in complete secrecy in a highly restricted room
inside the Department of Justice building in Washington D.C. Even though the
court's rulings may result in criminal charges, convictions, and prison sentences
for US citizens, their writs and rulings are permanently sealed from review by
those accused of crimes and from any substantive civilian review.
13. The Bush administration has refused to release Patriot Act-related records to
Congress; it has refused to release the names of detainees or open their court
hearings to the public; it is relying increasingly on secret evidence and
exemptions under the Homeland Security Act to the Freedom of Information Act.
We now have a secretive government acting outside the scrutiny of the public
and its representatives. Since the Attorney General has declared a war on the
streets of America against Americans, authentic information about the casualties
and collateral damage have disappeared.
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II. Government Rights Abuse of Muslim and others practices/policy List
1. Since the events of September 11, 2001, Muslims and brown-skinned people
in this country are under siege. While many have in fact been picked up and
jailed without any probable cause, the majority are living in virtual internment
camps.
2. All other local and state police were asked to conduct search and interview operations
for the FBI.
3. The first factor ' government action ' has done a great deal to undermine the
self-confidence of Muslims. Arrests, special registration, police raids, FBI
interrogations, profiling at airports, and secret evidence have left Muslims,
particularly men, feeling insecure and even paranoid.
4. The government does admit to at least five rounds of 'search and interview
projects' of profiled males, consisting of 5,000, 3,000, 6,000, 10,000, and 3,000
people. These interviews themselves amount to at least 27,000 persons.
5. There were many other localized raids which were conducted in different parts
of the US by the FBI. One such raid was 'Operation Green Quest' in northern
Virginia in which federal agents headed by US Customs Service swept through
Muslim homes, businesses, schools, and organizations breaking down doors,
handcuffing residents, and seizing personal property ranging from computers to
children's toys.
6. Another set of Muslims targeted for interrogation were donors to three of the
largest Muslim American charities which were banned, without investigation, after
9/11. Since all these charities had IRS tax exempt 501(c) 3 status, Muslims had
been donating their Zakat, an Islamic charitable obligation, to them with no
reservation. Now some of these 50,000 or so donors are being targeted for
interview.
7. In the early days after 9/11, arrests were so indiscriminate that on New Jersey
turnpikes, traffic would be stopped and all people with brown skin would be
detained. This type of trapping resulted in the detention of thousands of people
who were later released without any charge.
8. The 'hold until cleared' policy, which is now being criticized by the Inspector
General of the Justice Department, has become the norm. This policy was the
perfect embodiment of the government's 'guilty until proven innocent' stance
when it came to Muslims throughout the country. This same thinking resulted in
the arrest of between 400 and 1,000 Muslims who participated in the INS's
Special Registration program in December 2002 in California. Since immigration
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officers were unable to handle the last minute workload, they detained people
until they were processed.
9. The 'hold until cleared' policy, which is now being criticized by the Inspector
General of the Justice Department, has become the norm. This policy was the
perfect embodiment of the government's 'guilty until proven innocent' stance
when it came to Muslims throughout the country. This same thinking resulted in
the arrest of between 400 and 1,000 Muslims who participated in the INS's
Special Registration program in December 2002 in California. Since immigration
officers were unable to handle the last minute workload, they detained people
until they were processed.
10. Many of those detained during registration were let go after the government
took their passports, driver's licenses, social security cards, and other forms of
identification. The result was that many men were left destitute and could not
provide financially for their families. These men were left with no identification
and with no means to prove who they were.
11. Some 35 million people enter the United States every year but only Muslim
visitors are required to register. The program has been criticized as being nothing
but racism masquerading as national security. Of the 25 countries on the special
registration list, all but North Korea are Muslim or Arab.
12. Federal agents deported 75 percent more undocumented Arabs and Muslims
last year than the year before, a marked shift in immigration enforcement. At the
same time, officials booted out 16 percent fewer illegal immigrants overall as they
shifted their focus away from Mexicans. According to a Philadelphia Inquirer
analysis of 1993-2002 deportation data, the INS deported 3,208 people from the
33 'high-risk' Muslim countries. According to the National Lawyers Guild, 'People
with serious breaches of the law are not looked at, while in the Muslim or Arab
community somebody with a minor violation automatically gets deported.' At this
moment 13,434 Muslim immigrants who registered as part of the INS's Special
Registration Program are facing deportation.
13. This absence of controls or checks and balances has left people in the
Muslim community feeling like their lives are being lived under a microscope.
Privacy is arbitrary for many Muslims who even find their mail is routinely
opened, delayed, or lost without any information given to them or any attempt to
explain why this is happening.
14. Today even this secret FISA court has stated that the FBI misled the court in
75 cases.
15. Today even this secret FISA court has stated that the FBI misled the court in 75 cases
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VI. My article Title
V. My Article: List of factors in common
VI. My Article: List of different factors
In a Virtual Internment Camp - Muslim Americans since 9/11
By Abdul Malik Mujahid
[I wrote this article in July 2003. Since then lots of information and data has
changed. I am currently working on updating the article soon. While researching,
I noticed that my editor prefaced the article with the story of "Dr. Raman Aziz alAbi." I personally did not investigate the authenticity of that reference since I
trusted my editor thoroughly. But while researching for the revision of this article I
found that it was actually a fictional story used for a moot case among students. I
feel very embarrassed by this and would like to apologize to all of the readers of
Sound Vision. Although I have not used that editor since the writing of this article,
I believe she is a person of character and made an error in reading. I promise
you to be more thorough. This version is the same as the July 2003 article with
the deletion of that fictional story which students say was built upon the true story
of Professor Sami Al-Aryan.]
Since the events of September 11, 2001, Muslims and brown-skinned people in
this country are under siege. While many have in fact been picked up and jailed
without any probable cause, the majority are living in virtual internment camps.
The climate for Muslims today is very much as it was for Americans of Japanese
descent during World War II. Japanese-Americans in the Western states were
rounded up and moved to internment camps so they wouldn't aid and abet the
enemy. In a similar fashion, Muslims and other brown-skinned people perceived
to be Muslim, are treated like the enemy and are also living in internment camps.
The difference is the camps of today are virtual.
Concerted harassment by government officials, destructive and draconian laws
aimed at limiting freedoms, media indifference, hate-filled public figures, and an
apathetic citizenry have all come together to build the virtual internment camps
that house the American Muslim community.
Living with Hate and Fear
Since 9/11, Muslims in America are living in fear. This fear has had the effect of a
collective paralysis on the Muslim community and has made it easier for
government officials and agencies to systematically dismantle the civil rights of
this minority. There are three specific factors which together have fomented this
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fear: government action, irresponsible media, and the hate speech of some
national leaders.
I. Government Action against Muslims
The first factor ' government action ' has done a great deal to undermine the selfconfidence of Muslims. Arrests, special registration, police raids, FBI
interrogations, profiling at airports, and secret evidence have left Muslims,
particularly men, feeling insecure and even paranoid.
The administration of President George W. Bush has repeatedly declared that
the war on terrorism would not be a 'war on immigrants' or a 'war against Islam.'
But, in fact, it has turned out to be a war against Muslim immigrants and Muslim
Americans. Although widespread discrimination against Muslims and brownskinned people in America is coming from the general population as well, the
majority of the most egregious problems today stem from the actions of the US
Justice Department.
Dick Armey, a Republican conservative and a former House majority leader, said
it best: "The Justice Department seems to be running amok. This agency right
now is the biggest threat to personal liberty in the country." Despite this
assessment, few Americans are aware of the department's misdeeds. Media and
human rights organizations, while deploring the situation, have essentially failed
to explore and present the full impact and magnitude of government policies on
Muslims in America.
Because of government secrecy, the full extent to which people have been
affected must be extrapolated from media accounts and from projections based
on available government reports. These extrapolations are based on the
informed opinions of Muslim community leaders, human rights organizations,
peace groups, and lawyers' groups. They are shown below under the column of
estimates.
Population Estimates of Virtual Internment Camp
Government Action
FBI: interviewed/interrogated
Government
Admissions
27,000
Conservative
Estimates
90,000
investigated/questioned/raided
detained or arrested
Deported
in process of deportation
undergoing voluntary deportation
Fled the country in fear
6,483
3,208
13,434
n/a
n/a
15,000
3,208
13,434
Unknown
50,000
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subpoenas/search warrants
NSEERS: special
registration/interviewed/
fingerprinted/photographed
under surveillance through libraries
electronic surveillance
gone underground
Total
18,000
144,513
18,000
144,513
n/a
n/a
n/a
212,638
Unknown
100,000
Unknown
434,155
If the average Muslim household is made up of three persons, the same as the
general US average, the number of those directly and indirectly affected by these
government policies will be 637,914 according to the government's own statistics.
If we take our estimate and multiply it by three family members per household,
the total number of affected people is 1,302,465. Interestingly, this number is
close to the results of a Zogby International public opinion survey which finds that
25 percent of Muslims reported that they have been victims of anti-Muslim
discrimination, harassment or attack after 9/11.
How is it that such widespread discrimination and harassment of Americans can
remain hidden? Because our government has decided to keep it hidden. As early
as October 17, 2001, US Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a directive
limiting the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). On April 22, 2002, the Attorney
General issued an interim regulation forbidding any state or county jail from
releasing information about INS detainees housed in their facilities. The battle for
information is now being fought in the courts by newspapers and human rights
organizations. But the virtual internment camp relies on secrecy and apathy to
survive; the government doesn't want to tell and people don't really want to know.
Various media have peeked at the human face behind the suffering of Muslim
Americans, Arabs, and South Asian communities. But what has been glaringly
absent is any report or assessment of the enormity of the overall situation.
Amnesty International, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and American Lawyers
for Human Rights, have all taken up the issue of the violation of civil liberties and
rights of Muslims, Arabs and South Asians. However, none has devoted
resources to statistically outline the total magnitude of the problem. The focus of
their complaints has been limited to the original 1,200 detainees of September 11
and the roughly 900 foreign detainees at the US Navel base in Cuba.
FBI 'reaching out' to Muslims
Attorney General John Ashcroft maintained a policy of constant law enforcement
activity across the United States. He said, 'the sheer volume of activity' ensured
that potential terrorists hiding in our communities knew that law enforcement was
on the job in their neighborhoods. Such a climate could cause would-be terrorists
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to scale back, to delay, or to abandon their plans altogether.' Since that
preventive and deterrent 'climate' can only be maintained by a constant show of
force in the Muslim community, one program after another was announced in
what could be described as ongoing dragnet activity.
Since the FBI's manpower was not enough for this perpetual activity, the Joint
Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), which includes at least 16 other agencies, was
established in the FBI's 56 domestic field offices. All other local and state police
were asked to conduct search and interview operations for the FBI. The Justice
Department offers no statistics about how many were interrogated, questioned,
tracked or searched. The government does admit to at least five rounds of
'search and interview projects' of profiled males, consisting of 5,000, 3,000,
6,000, 10,000, and 3,000 people. These interviews themselves amount to at
least 27,000 persons.
There were many other localized raids which were conducted in different parts of
the US by the FBI. One such raid was 'Operation Green Quest' in northern
Virginia in which federal agents headed by US Customs Service swept through
Muslim homes, businesses, schools, and organizations breaking down doors,
handcuffing residents, and seizing personal property ranging from computers to
children's toys. Once again no statistics are provided by the government about
how many such local and regional operations have been conducted. In some
Pakistani-American neighborhoods the net was cast so wide that FBI agents
knocked on almost every immigrant door, many times leaving a card in door
jambs and mailboxes throughout the neighborhood. 'Hello,' reads the handwritten
note on the back of a card. 'I'm with the FBI. Please contact me ASAP.'
The massive FBI investigation into the 9/11 terror attacks, dubbed 'PENTTBOM,'
involved 4,000 FBI agents and 3,000 support staff as they sifted through 96,000
tips provided to them by the public within a week of the tragedy. By January
2002, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, the FBI had received half
a million calls from concerned citizens with tips and leads. As the Inspector
General of the Department of Justice reports, these leads were put in 'an FBI
database that assigned each PENTTBOM lead a unique number. Leads then
were assigned to a JTTF team that included FBI and INS agents, among other
law enforcement personnel.' This process of following up more than half a million
leads itself must have led the FBI to check, interrogate, and investigate 100,000
Muslims and brown-skinned people even if they followed up on only 20 percent
of the leads.
Since the FBI followed a classic guilt-by-association game plan with the
detainees, it is highly likely that the agents ran checks on all names, addresses,
and telephone numbers lifted from detainees' cell phones, palm pilot s, and
address books. In many cases, those interviewed by INS and FBI agents were
asked to provide the names and numbers of their friends and relatives as well. If
each of the 27,000 people contacted in the government's five rounds of
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interviews provided another five names, the dragnet would yield another 135,000
new persons for the FBI to follow up with.
Another set of Muslims targeted for interrogation were donors to three of the
largest Muslim American charities which were banned, without investigation, after
9/11. Since all these charities had IRS tax exempt 501(c) 3 status, Muslims had
been donating their Zakat, an Islamic charitable obligation, to them with no
reservation. Now some of these 50,000 or so donors are being targeted for
interview. Once again, no numbers are provided.
In going after Muslims charities, two categories of 'collateral' suffering have
occurred. There are those people who were already relying on the goodwill of the
Muslim community in America; projects and programs that were run by these
charities in poor areas, in America and abroad, have obviously come to a halt. In
addition to those people, many Muslims caught in the post-9/11 dragnet spent
months languishing in jail or were deported simply because they did not have the
funds to fight their cases. Had these funds been available, these innocent victims
would have been able to retain counsel and at least had the opportunity to clear
their names in a court of law.
In addition to charity donors, many Muslims with any kind of police record, even
as victims, are being interviewed. Muslim professors, Imams, journalists and
leaders have also told this author about regularly being visited by FBI agents.
Today, the FBI routinely spies on mosques, Friday sermons, and other lawful
Muslim activities.
These various estimates together put the number of Muslims caught in the FBI's
dragnet at over 310,000. If we give the FBI the benefit of the doubt and say our
estimates are over by 50%, that still leaves some 150,000 people the FBI has
questioned, interviewed, or spied on. For more accurate figures, Americans will
have to wait for the election of a more accountable and less secretive
government.
More than 15,000 detained and arrested
In the early days after 9/11, arrests were so indiscriminate that on New Jersey
turnpikes, traffic would be stopped and all people with brown skin would be
detained. This type of trapping resulted in the detention of thousands of people
who were later released without any charge. The 'hold until cleared' policy, which
is now being criticized by the Inspector General of the Justice Department, has
become the norm. This policy was the perfect embodiment of the government's
'guilty until proven innocent' stance when it came to Muslims throughout the
country. This same thinking resulted in the arrest of between 400 and 1,000
Muslims who participated in the INS's Special Registration program in December
2002 in California. Since immigration officers were unable to handle the last
minute workload, they detained people until they were processed.
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As per the Attorney General's orders, 'suspected terrorists' can be picked up for
any reason and on any occasion. Here are some examples:
Reason/occasion
Number Detained
asylum seekers from targeted Muslim countries unknown
who are now automatically detained
detained at the airport for hours b/c of inclusion unknown
on 'no fly' list, other lists, or suspicion
detained for minor crime which would not have unknown
resulted in arrest for non-Muslim
detained at borders for hours before being
unknown
cleared of undisclosed suspicion
detained at road blocks in New Jersey
unknown
immediately after 9/11
Since hardly any of these people were ever charged with anything, it is unlikely
that any record was kept of their illegal detention. For the people who were
actually arrested, the government does occasionally give a number totaling 6,483
in the following way:




Detained during Special Registration: 2,783
Arrested absconders from Muslim countries who were targeted to be kept
in detention instead of deportation: 1,100
Arrested based on the new entry system: 1,400
Arrested in 9/11 investigations: 1,200
Shortly after September 11, the Attorney General announced that he would use
every law on the books to target and detain 'terrorists.' He said, 'Let the terrorists
among us be warned: If you overstay your visa ' even by one day ' we will arrest
you. If you violate a local law, you will be put in jail and kept in custody as long as
possible.' The Attorney General used 'terrorist' and 'suspected terrorists'
alternatively, essentially for the Muslim community. He further declared, 'In the
war on terror, this Department of Justice will arrest and detain any suspected
terrorist who has violated the law. Our single objective is to prevent terrorist
attacks by taking suspected terrorists off the street. If suspects are found not to
have links to terrorism or not to have violated the law, they are released. But
terrorists who are in violation of the law will be convicted, in some cases
deported, and in all cases prevented from doing further harm to Americans.'
While theoretically this position is all well and good, the question was and is how
to transform such a policy into action. While the Attorney General may or may not
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be referring specifically to Muslims, those charged with law enforcement in the
field ' police officers, FBI agents, immigration officers, border guards ' have no
guidelines or even a general clue about how to administer the 'find the terrorists'
directive. This has led to widespread and indiscriminate targeting and racial
profiling of Muslim people.
On November 8, 2001, facing criticism that it had arrested so many people but
had charged none with any terrorist-related crimes, the Justice Department
simply announced that it will not issue a tally of its detentions. The arrests have
continued. Using Georgetown University Professor David Cole's formula, if
detentions had continued at the initial rate of approximately 600 a month, there
would be more than 12,600 arrests after 21 months. It is likely that the rate of
arrests dropped off after the first few weeks, but it is also possible that it
remained high, considering multiple dragnet initiatives were carried out after
9/11. The only way to ever come to an accurate calculation of the total number of
Muslim and brown-skinned detainees would be to collect all the data from local,
state, and federal law enforcement agencies of all arrests and temporary
detentions even in cases where the person was not charged.
National Security Entry Exit Registration System (NSEERS)
Despite loud protest from all civil rights groups and lawyers' associations, the
Justice Department's Special Registration program resulted in 144,513 males
between the ages of 16 and 40 being interviewed, registered, photographed, and
fingerprinted. Their Sixth Amendment right to counsel was denied as they were
not allowed to have their lawyers present while they were being interrogated.
Many of those detained during registration were let go after the government took
their passports, driver's licenses, social security cards, and other forms of
identification. The result was that many men were left destitute and could not
provide financially for their families. These men were left with no identification
and with no means to prove who they were. What is the total number of Muslims
who faced this trauma? No one knows. Many who refused to register went
underground and have created a new underclass. Their fear of registration has
now rendered them illegal. How many are part of this new underclass? Once
again, no one knows.
Some 35 million people enter the United States every year but only Muslim
visitors are required to register. The program has been criticized as being nothing
but racism masquerading as national security. Of the 25 countries on the special
registration list, all but North Korea are Muslim or Arab. This program is
essentially working on the premise that if the net is wide enough and cast far
enough, that it may snare a few important fish. That, of course, is assuming any
terrorists or their sympathizers will register. Ultimately, the NSEERS dragnet
elicited some eleven people suspected of terrorist connections. But this has been
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at the expense of the dignity of the Muslim American community and relations
with the Muslim world as a whole.
Targeted Deportations
Federal agents deported 75 percent more undocumented Arabs and Muslims last
year than the year before, a marked shift in immigration enforcement. At the
same time, officials booted out 16 percent fewer illegal immigrants overall as they
shifted their focus away from Mexicans. According to a Philadelphia Inquirer
analysis of 1993-2002 deportation data, the INS deported 3,208 people from the
33 'high-risk' Muslim countries. According to the National Lawyers Guild, 'People
with serious breaches of the law are not looked at, while in the Muslim or Arab
community somebody with a minor violation automatically gets deported.' At this
moment 13,434 Muslim immigrants who registered as part of the INS's Special
Registration Program are facing deportation.
The carelessness is evident in the statement of Barbara Comstock, a Justice
Department spokeswoman, who said many detained foreigners were guilty of
something even if officials couldn't prove it. The figures provided do not include
'voluntary deportation' which many Muslims chose over the absence of proper
access to defense and harsh treatment in the prison system.
Search, Seize, and Spy
There are more than 80 FBI planes and helicopters being used to 'track and
collect intelligence on suspected terrorists,' according to a March 15, 2003
Associated Press report from Washington DC. Note the word 'suspected.' No
warrants are necessary for the FBI to track cars or people from the air. For those
searches which require a warrant, some 18,000 terrorism-related subpoenas and
search warrants have been issued since 9/11.
This absence of controls or checks and balances has left people in the Muslim
community feeling like their lives are being lived under a microscope. Privacy is
arbitrary for many Muslims who even find their mail is routinely opened, delayed,
or lost without any information given to them or any attempt to explain why this is
happening. This is simply one example of how broadened federal power is being
used. Government agencies now obtain private communications, business and
library records, financial data and classified intelligence, often in secret. The
Attorney General informed the Senate Judiciary Committee early this year that
he had authorized more than 170 secret 'emergency' searches since the Sept. 11
attacks'more than triple the 47 emergency searches that have been authorized
by other attorneys general in the last 20 years.
The Fourth Amendment requires probable cause of a crime before a phone can
be tapped or a home searched. Abuse by law enforcement led Congress to
establish secret courts under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to
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authorize 'foreign intelligence' wiretaps and searches. The FISA court was
established in 1978 amid revelations that the FBI had abused its authority by
spying on high-profile Americans, such as Martin Luther King Jr.
This federal court meets in complete secrecy in a highly restricted room inside
the Department of Justice building in Washington D.C. Even though the court's
rulings may result in criminal charges, convictions, and prison sentences for US
citizens, their writs and rulings are permanently sealed from review by those
accused of crimes and from any substantive civilian review. Today even this
secret FISA court has stated that the FBI misled the court in 75 cases.
Fleeing the Land of the Free
In Brooklyn, New York, the Pakistani immigrant community numbered some
120,000. Of these, some 15,000 have fled. Because of the flight of immigrants,
business on Chicago's Devon Avenue, the largest South Asian neighborhood in
the Midwest is down about 50%. Dozens of businesses have simply shut down.
In Buffalo, NY, refugee shelters and motels were overflowing and the local prison
was overcrowded with Pakistani families that had been arrested en masse. Not
all of them were illegal immigrants, but they feared what the special registration
process would bring for them. If we assume a similar pattern of flight for
immigrants from all 25 targeted countries, we are looking at a mass exodus of
some 50,000 people.
II. Media and the Lack of Information
Since 9/11, mainstream media, generally, have taken up the cause of the
government and fully support the 'war on terror.' But in their zeal to be onside
they have set aside their duty to critically reflect on what is happening in our
country. Part of this neglect can be seen in the way Muslims are treated in the
media. From time to time we do see stories about the day to day hardships in the
lives of Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians. But there has been no attempt to
generate any real and serious debate about the domestic and foreign policies
resulting from the events of 9/11 that have contributed to these hardships.
Government policies that have been the single most important contributive factor
in the creation of this climate of fear have never been successfully challenged.
For the most part, media outlets in this country have been, at best, negligent
about covering stories that illustrate how quickly our country is changing and
abandoning the values that make it great. At worst, the media have been
complicit in keeping the public in the dark about these changes. For example,
few Americans have heard about the Afghan-American film director who was
killed and dismembered by his film's producer. The producer said he killed the
man because he suspected he was pro-Taliban. The story only came to the fore
when the film received an Oscar nomination in 2002. The indifference to this
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event speaks to media disinterest in covering stories about people now suffering
in the USA because of their religion, national origin or skin color.
There have been many stories that have serious implications for the direction our
country is going in that have been given the equivalent of 15 minutes in the
spotlight. There was no serious discussion of the leaked sequel to the Patriot Act;
there has been no real discussion of the government's decision to collect DNA
from anyone arrested for anything. In other words, if someone gets arrested at a
political rally, for example, he or she can expect to have their DNA forcibly
collected. There has been no real discussion of the deportation of thousands of
people in the wake of 9/11 for minor visa violations; no discussion of the secret
arrests and detainments; there has been no discussion of how US citizens
accused of crimes have been stripped of their rights and are being held
indefinitely and without charge. These are all examples of the successive steps
the government is taking toward limiting the freedoms of all Americans and yet
those who are responsible for carrying this discussion are silent.
While mainstream media reporting has essentially failed to generate any debate,
national opinion makers, through their 'talk radio' and syndicated columns,
regularly throw up poisonous and ignorant commentary. In the wake of 9/11,
syndicated columnist Ann Coulter wrote America 'should invade their [Muslim]
countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.' Coulter also called
for the 'mass deportation of Muslims.' William Lind, with the Free Congress
Foundation said, 'Islamics [sic] cannot fit'..They are a fifth column in this country.'
Some of these media campaigns have specific goals. One such campaign in
Florida, with massive play given to it by a local radio host, resulted in the firing of
tenured professor Dr. Sami Al-Arian from the University of South Florida. There
was also a similar campaign in North Carolina to force the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. to abandon its requirement that students study a
selection of verses from the Quran in the summer of 2002.
III. Anti-Muslim/Anti-Islam Speech
The third factor that has helped create and sustain fear is the hate speech of
public figures and leaders close to the Bush administration who regularly and
very publicly vent anti-Islamic speech. Since 9/11, President Bush has
consistently said that Islam is a religion of peace and warned against anti-Muslim
prejudice. However, one of his close personal advisors and an influential public
figure, Rev. Franklin Graham, called Islam a 'very wicked and evil' religion.
Daniel Pipes, President Bush's nominee to the United States Institute of Peace, a
federal agency that gives grants and hosts scholars, suggests that mosques in
America are breeding grounds for militants. US Attorney General, John Ashcroft,
has gone so far as to compare his God to the God of Muslims, saying "Islam is a
religion in which Allah requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is
a faith in which God sent His son to die for you."
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President Bush has continued to say that Muslims are good people and that
Islam is peaceful, but he has also continued to coddle and patronize people who
are outspoken about their dislike, and in many cases hatred, of Islam and
Muslims. Jerry Falwell, Pat Roberston, Jerry Vine, all people who are high-profile
men in America and yet all have had extremely destructive things to say about
Islam and Muslims. Unfortunately, these are also men of influence and have a
huge sway with Americans, especially Christians. When anti-Islamic speech
comes from a particular group within a faith community, it appears as though
those are the sentiments of the entire community. These men have helped create
an environment in which it seems there is a fundamental conflict between
Christians and Muslims.
A January 2002 poll showed that some 24% of Americans had a negative view of
Islam and Muslims. By October, that number had risen to 33%. The most recent
PEW Foundation survey found that the number as of July 2003 was 44%. The
number of Americans who think this way is increasing as the 'war on terror'
continues.
Conclusion:
Our country is in the grips of a threat greater than terrorism. Democracy is
eroding and it seems no one cares. We are heading down a road which will
ultimately lead to a country where no one is safe and no one is secure. Right now
it is a small minority that is being targeted but Americans would do well to
remember that our post-9/11 laws and policies can apply to any and all. Muslims
in this country are being persecuted solely on the basis of their religious affiliation
but because of our secretive government, complicit media, and hate-spewing
public figures Americans are unaware of most things and don't care about what
they do know.
The Bush administration has refused to release Patriot Act-related records to
Congress; it has refused to release the names of detainees or open their court
hearings to the public; it is relying increasingly on secret evidence and
exemptions under the Homeland Security Act to the Freedom of Information Act.
We now have a secretive government acting outside the scrutiny of the public
and its representatives. Since the Attorney General has declared a war on the
streets of America against Americans, authentic information about the casualties
and collateral damage have disappeared.
In 1942, 110,000 Japanese-Americans were herded into internment camps. They
were singled out because of their race and country of origin. They were declared
enemies of the state and lived, imprisoned in these camps, until the end of World
War II. Only recently has our government apologized for this outrage.
But less than a decade after apologizing for this injustice, America has once
again embarked upon a campaign that has severely undermined the civil rights of
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a minority community. This time, the fear and suspicion are aimed at Muslims
and brown-skinned men. But rather than putting this new enemy in actual
internment, their imprisonment is virtual. The walls of this virtual internment camp
are the interrogations, home invasions, detentions and arrests, special
registration, closed courts and their secret evidence, deportation, and
discrimination that Muslims have faced since 9/11. This virtual internment camp
is sustained by fear and hate, as well as a potent mixture of wartime racism,
religious bigotry, and intolerance.
Most Americans seem to feel that sacrificing other people's liberty is fine as long
as it means security for themselves. We should heed the words of one of this
nation's founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, when he said, 'Those who would
give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither
Liberty nor Safety.'
A sustainable democracy requires an active and educated citizenry. Passivity
and apathy will end up being worse enemies for us than any terrorist group. Our
lack of engagement and lack of caring for our neighbors makes it easier for our
government to enact laws and make policies that will make America less free, not
just for some shunned and humiliated minority, but for us all.
© 2003 Abdul Malik Mujahid
http://www.soundvision.com/info/muslims/internment.asp
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