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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><B>-----Original Message-----</B><BR><B>From:
</B>The Infamous Vinnie Gangbox <<A
href="mailto:gangbox@excite.com">gangbox@excite.com</A>><BR><B>To: </B><A
href="mailto:gangbox@yahoogroups.com">gangbox@yahoogroups.com</A> <<A
href="mailto:gangbox@yahoogroups.com">gangbox@yahoogroups.com</A>><BR><B>Date:
</B>Friday, November 02, 2001 6:03 AM<BR><B>Subject: </B>[gangbox] Fwd : MORE ON
FBI HARASSMENT OF ARAB AMERICANS<BR><BR></DIV></FONT><TT>from the LONDON
INDEPENDENT :<BR><BR>Independent. 2 November 2001. Foreigners are shackled, then
jailed and <BR>denied their rights in FBI crackdown. <BR><BR>When the FBI came
for Al-Badr al-Hazmi in the early hours of 12 <BR>September at his home in San
Antonio, Texas, it thought that it had hit <BR>the jackpot in its burgeoning
anti-terror investigation. <BR><BR>The softly spoken Saudi radiologist had
booked five tickets on a flight <BR>from San Antonio to San Diego through the
online service Travelocity ? a <BR>pattern of behaviour similar to the suicide
hijackers who struck New <BR>York and Washington the day before. <BR><BR>San
Antonio appeared to be a jumping-off point for two other suspects <BR>taken into
custody after they were caught with box-cutters and large <BR>amounts of cash on
an Amtrak train, suggesting that Dr al-Hazmi might <BR>have been part of a local
terrorist cell. He also had a history of large <BR>money transfers from the
Middle East. And, most promising of all, he <BR>shared a surname with two of the
men who perished in the 11 September <BR>onslaught. <BR><BR>The trouble was,
none of it added up to anything. <BR><BR>Al-Hazmi is one of the most common
names in Saudi Arabia. The plane <BR>tickets were for Dr al-Hazmi and his family
to attend a medical <BR>conference. He had never heard of Mohamed Atta, the
suspected ringleader <BR>of the 11 September attacks, or the two men arrested on
the train. And <BR>the big money transfer was funding for Dr al-Hazmi's medical
residency <BR>at the University of Texas Health Science Centre. <BR><BR>A simple
misunderstanding, one might think, but the story turned out to <BR>be far from
simple. <BR><BR>Dr al-Hazmi was taken into custody, shackled, flown to New York
and held <BR>in solitary confinement in a Manhattan correction centre a short
<BR>distance from the World Trade Centre. For six days he had no access to a
<BR>lawyer, and his attorney in San Antonio said she was literally unable to
<BR>find out where he was. For 12 days he had no opportunity to learn what
<BR>the case against him was, or to answer it. When he did finally come face
<BR>to face with FBI interrogators, it took less than 24 hours to clear his
<BR>name and obtain his release. <BR><BR>He was one of the lucky ones.
<BR><BR>More than seven weeks after the attacks, the Justice Department says it
<BR>has taken about 1,100 people into custody but almost nothing is known
<BR>about who they are, why they have been detained, what charges, if any,
<BR>have been filed, and how many of them have been cleared and released.
<BR>One man has died in custody, in New Jersey, and others are being held
<BR>indefinitely on immigration violations. <BR><BR>While about a dozen
detainees appear to have some link to the terror <BR>attacks, almost nothing is
known about the rest except that they are all <BR>foreigners. Court proceedings
have been sealed in many cases, making it <BR>almost impossible to find out why
they are in detention and what access <BR>they have had to lawyers and consular
officials. <BR><BR>The veil of secrecy being maintained by the Attorney General,
John <BR>Ashcroft, has appalled civil liberties activists and is now starting to
<BR>cause widespread concern among members of Congress. <BR><BR>Yesterday, a
group of Democratic senators including Patrick Leahy, the <BR>chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote to Mr Ashcroft asking <BR>him to release the
names of those held and the reason for their <BR>detention. <BR><BR>Russ
Feingold of Wisconsin, one of the signatories, said: "To offer no
<BR>information on these people, why they are locked up and what access they
<BR>have to lawyers doesn't <BR>seem consistent with any law or provision that
I'm aware of." Senator <BR>Feingold is deeply concerned that innocent
people might be held <BR>needlessly and in possible violation of the Bill of
Rights. <BR><BR>The scanty reports to have surfaced about detainees are not
encouraging. <BR><BR>Some are said to have been beaten -- either by their guards
or by fellow <BR>prisoners, with the guards looking on. In at least one case, a
detainee <BR>appeared in court with fresh bruises clearly visible. <BR><BR>A
Saudi Arabian student, Yazeed al-Salmi, reported that he spent 17 days <BR>in
custody in San Diego, Oklahoma and New York despite being told early <BR>on that
he was not a suspect. He said he was denied contact with his <BR>family, held in
solitary confinement, prevented from washing or brushing <BR>his teeth and
repeatedly humiliated by his guards. "They don't call you <BR>by
name," he said of his time in Manhattan, "they call you 'f******
<BR>terrorist'." <BR><BR>In many cases, the immigration violations
justifying the detentions have <BR>been so minor that in the past they would
have been dealt with by <BR>exchange of letter. For example, Ali Maqtari, a
Yemeni citizen married <BR>to an American was detained on 12 September on the
grounds that there <BR>was a 10-day gap between the expiry of his tourist visa
and the <BR>beginning of his marriage visa. He remains in custody in a Tennessee
<BR>jail. <BR><BR>Dr al-Hazmi told The New York Times: "I would suggest
that Americans <BR>don't rely on the FBI."
<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________________<BR>Send
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