Brutal Treatment of Muslim Detainees in Brooklyn, NY
"U.S. Is Settling Detainee's Suit in 9/11 Sweep" (NY Times, February 27, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/nyregion/28detain.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1141102800&en=7ec5f7a8aa796941&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin
More than a year ago Paul Moses, Pulitzer Prize winner, formerly of Newsday and now a member of our Brooklyn College English Department and a student list advisor, broke the nightmare story of the arrest and brutal incarceration of hundreds of NYC Muslims in our Brooklyn Metropolitan detention center:
http://www.bloggernews.net/2006/01/brooklyn-gulag-vicims-return-to-sue.html
Most have now been released after having been subjected to the same sorts of mistreatment publicized at Abu Ghraib and even caught on film by security cameras here in Brooklyn. The U.S. government has been reluctant to admit blame for this mistreatment, but as the Times article yesterday reported, a number of the guards and supervisors have been reprimanded and subjected to minor penalties and at least one victim desperately now in need of medical care has won a $300,000 award against the government.
The crimes committed by those detained -- all Muslims -- were not terrorism -- they were simply picked up and held without charges as Muslim Arab suspects. A number were eventually forced to plead to minor crimes as a means to escape the brutalities to which they were being subjected. Ehab Elmaghraby, his health broken, who won the first award for damages cited by the Times, now lives with his parents in Alexandria, Egypt. He had run a restaurant here in NYC. He claims that after a year of brutal treatment, he and others were forced to plead guilty to minor crimes as a condition of release and his American wife, faced with intimidation by the authorities, left him -- thus removing his grounds for resident status here in the States.
As one who has worked extensively with naturalization for the College, I am well aware of the problems that non citizens have in establishing their residence rights here -- refugee status applications, delays in renewal of work and study visas by our underfunded governmental agencies, etc.
We lost one of our finest students, Neemarie Alam, for whom we had fought for continued resident status here where her brother and sister are citizens and where she had grown up, attended Stuyvesant High School, and planned a medical career paralleling that of her doctor parents who had applied for family refugee status from Bangladesh. Despite our successful appeal on Nee's behalf, recognizing the threat of such incarceration for her parents following upon the denial of their refugee application post 9/11, Nee got her family to Canada where she is now on board for citizenship and has resumed her studies in a Canadian university. Her younger brother and sister, as American citizens born in this country, can travel back and forth between Canada and the U.S., but Nee who loves pizza, rock, and NYC may not return.
Frankly, as an American I am appalled by such torture and abuses being instituted boldly by the Bush administration which is horribly discrediting American democracy.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/nyregion/28detain.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1141102800&en=7ec5f7a8aa796941&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin
More than a year ago Paul Moses, Pulitzer Prize winner, formerly of Newsday and now a member of our Brooklyn College English Department and a student list advisor, broke the nightmare story of the arrest and brutal incarceration of hundreds of NYC Muslims in our Brooklyn Metropolitan detention center:
http://www.bloggernews.net/2006/01/brooklyn-gulag-vicims-return-to-sue.html
Most have now been released after having been subjected to the same sorts of mistreatment publicized at Abu Ghraib and even caught on film by security cameras here in Brooklyn. The U.S. government has been reluctant to admit blame for this mistreatment, but as the Times article yesterday reported, a number of the guards and supervisors have been reprimanded and subjected to minor penalties and at least one victim desperately now in need of medical care has won a $300,000 award against the government.
The crimes committed by those detained -- all Muslims -- were not terrorism -- they were simply picked up and held without charges as Muslim Arab suspects. A number were eventually forced to plead to minor crimes as a means to escape the brutalities to which they were being subjected. Ehab Elmaghraby, his health broken, who won the first award for damages cited by the Times, now lives with his parents in Alexandria, Egypt. He had run a restaurant here in NYC. He claims that after a year of brutal treatment, he and others were forced to plead guilty to minor crimes as a condition of release and his American wife, faced with intimidation by the authorities, left him -- thus removing his grounds for resident status here in the States.
As one who has worked extensively with naturalization for the College, I am well aware of the problems that non citizens have in establishing their residence rights here -- refugee status applications, delays in renewal of work and study visas by our underfunded governmental agencies, etc.
We lost one of our finest students, Neemarie Alam, for whom we had fought for continued resident status here where her brother and sister are citizens and where she had grown up, attended Stuyvesant High School, and planned a medical career paralleling that of her doctor parents who had applied for family refugee status from Bangladesh. Despite our successful appeal on Nee's behalf, recognizing the threat of such incarceration for her parents following upon the denial of their refugee application post 9/11, Nee got her family to Canada where she is now on board for citizenship and has resumed her studies in a Canadian university. Her younger brother and sister, as American citizens born in this country, can travel back and forth between Canada and the U.S., but Nee who loves pizza, rock, and NYC may not return.
Frankly, as an American I am appalled by such torture and abuses being instituted boldly by the Bush administration which is horribly discrediting American democracy.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 9:52 AM
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