[Peace-discuss] National Day of Solidarity With Arab, Muslim and South Asian Immigrants ...

[Ra Ravishankar]

Friends:

Enclosed is the Call for the Second February 20 National Day of
Solidarity With Arab, Muslim and South Asian Immigrants, including
an updated list of endorsers. Please email, circulate, print and
post this far and wide. Send in endorsements ASAP as well as  notice
of planned activities.

Refuse & Resist!'s mission is to create a society wide atmosphere --
a climate, culture and community -- of resistance in opposition to
the culture of fear and snitching, disappearances and helplessness.
Since 911 Bush's secrete war-time police state has drastically
changed the basic concepts of justice, presumption of innocence, the
right to association, the right to dissent and the right to not have
the police intrude into every aspect of personal and public life.
The attacks on immigrants are the door through which much of the
repressive agenda is being swept in.

We say: No police State!
                Another World is Possible

We will Refuse & Resist!

Join us on February 20 and February 21st, the third deadline for the
"INS Special Registration" of Arab, Muslim and South Asian
immigrants from more than 20 specified countries including Iran,
Iraq, Pakistan, etc.

The National Office of Refuse & Resist!

FEBRUARY 20, 2003

NATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH MUSLIM, ARAB AND SOUTH ASIAN IMMIGRANTS

First they came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I
wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was
a Protestant.

Then they came for me, but by that time, no one was left to speak up.

--Pastor Martin Niemoeller, Nazi Germany

We call on people everywhere to come together for the second
February 20 National Day of Solidarity with Muslim, Arab and South
Asian Immigrants. We are at a critical and historic moment. This
time they are coming for the Muslim, Arab and South Asian
immigrants. Now is the time to sound the alarm and act.

In the face of forced registrations and the detention of up to 1,000
immigrants, a demonstration of 3,000 in Los Angeles on December 18
carried signs that said, "What's Next? Concentration Camps?" We
applaud the brave demonstrators, most of whom are themselves
immigrants. They dared to protest at a time when immigrants from the
Middle East are subjected to roundups and indefinite detention
without charges. Can we do anything less? This demonstration was a
moral challenge to us all.

January 10 was the deadline for immigrant men from 13 mainly Muslim
countries to register with the Immigration and Naturalization
Service. In over 15 cities, people of all different nationalities
organized protests and press conferences. Many wore the blue
triangle with the names of the disappeared. Opposition and
resistance are growing. But we have much more to do if we are to
stop the increasing repression.

The reality is that the government is registering and detaining
Muslim, Arab and South Asian immigrants now! Detention is not a
future possibility but a present reality. Federal authorities
detained over 1,200, maybe many more, in the immediate wake of
September 11. The government has given a strong indication that
there will soon be new waves of mass detentions as they go to war
against Iraq. The authorities want to silence those in this country
who can speak truth about the reality of life in the Middle East.
They want to silence the Palestinian who has lived through the
Israeli Air Force dropping U.S. supplied cluster bombs on his
refugee camp. They want to silence the Afghan-American woman whose
19 family members in Afghanistan were killed when the U.S. bombed
their wedding party. They want to silence the Afghan-American woman
whose husband was taken during the mass round-ups after 9/11, held
for nine terrifying months without charges, and then suddenly
deported without warning--away from his family, his life and
livelihood here.

In July 2002, Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission, proposed that a mass roundup and detention of Arabs and
Muslims may be necessary. Attorney General John Ashcroft proposed
detention centers where U.S. citizens deemed to be 'enemy
combatants' can be held indefinitely without charges. The Bush
administration has begun an unprecedented program to monitor Iraqi
citizens and Iraqi-Americans with dual citizenship in the United
States. The Bush administration is establishing a separate legal
system for anyone the government declares a terrorism suspect and
"enemy combatant." Citizens and non-citizens would be stripped of
long established constitutional protections and measures.

We must learn from history. February 19 is the anniversary of
President Roosevelt issuing the infamous Executive Order 9066 in
1942. It authorized the roundup and imprisonment of all Japanese
Americans living in the western coastal states.

New important dates are just ahead. February 21 is the deadline for
immigrant men from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to register. March 28
is the deadline for immigrant men from Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia,
Kuwait, and Jordan to register.

Send a powerful message on February 20. We refuse to accept the
registration and detention of people based on their nationality and
religion. We refuse to accept racial profiling, roundups, indefinite
detentions, secret courts, secret charges, secret evidence, secret
wiretaps, secret sneak and peek break-ins, secret military
tribunals, deportations, telephone and e-mail surveillance, and
demonizing of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and others based upon
where they were born, the language that they speak, the color of
their skin or the religion that they practice.

On February 20 wear a blue triangle with the name of one of the
newly "disappeared". In the early 1940's, German Nazis used many
different colored triangles to categorize and divide people in the
concentration camps. We will not allow the same kind of profiling to
happen here. We will wear a blue triangle in a positive way to show
our solidarity with those being targeted today. Sponsor a speak-out
for the families of the disappeared so they can tell their stories.
Think of what it would mean if on that day churches, synagogues,
mosques, unions and schools declared that they would provide
sanctuary for the persecuted. Organize a vigil or demonstration at a
local INS detention center; hold a teach in at your local school,
college, or university; call your political representatives and
demand that these outrages cease; organize a poetry SLAM or a music
show; write a letter to your local newspaper calling for justice for
all; students demand that your colleges or universities not turn
over the files of immigrant students to the government; contact
local TV and radio talk shows asking to be part of the program. Find
the ways to express your solidarity with Muslim, Arab and South
Asian immigrants and your opposition to this repression. Use
February 20 as a springboard for press conferences and protests on
February 21.

Remember the roundup of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Remember the
roundup of the Japanese Americans in the United States. What would
you have done then? Think of the roundup of Muslims, Arabs, and
South Asians in the United States in 2003. What will you do now?

Please endorse this call & distribute, post & publish everywhere!
Funds are quickly needed to organize for February 20. We urge you to
immediately send donations. All actions on February 20 should be
publicized and popularized. Write, e-mail or call the Blue Triangle
Network with news of activities in your area:
P.O. Box 7451, Dearborn, MI 48121-7451 (313)942-7187

E-mail: NationalOffice at BlueTriangle.org www.bluetriangle.org

Our organization endorses or ___I personally endorse (check one)
the above "call" for a NATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH MUSLIM, ARAB
AND SOUTH ASIAN IMMIGRANTS (signing this "call" gives permission to
publish or otherwise make public this endorsement. If organizational
or institutional affiliation of a personal endorsement is to be
listed for identification purposes only check here.)

Signature

Name Printed .

Organization or Institution

Title .

Address .

Phone

E-mail .

Enclosed is my donation of $_____ to distribute, print, publish,
fax, and mail this call nationwide. Please return endorsed calls and
donations to Blue Triangle Network with news of activities in your
area: P.O. Box 7451, Dearborn, MI 48121-7451 Tel: (313)942-7187
E-mail: NationalOffice at bluetriangle.org Web: www.bluetriangle.org

Initial Endorsers: (as of Feb. 2, 2003)

American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, San Francisco, CA

Anarchist Action of Rochester, Rochester, NY

Council on American Islamic Relations --Southern California (CAIR--LA)

Freedom Socialist Party, NYC

Green Party of San Diego County, CA

Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton, Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of Detroit*

Hate Free Zone Campaign of Washington, Seattle, WA

Interfaith Coalition United for Justice and Peace, Los Angeles, CA

La Raza Centro Legal, San Francisco, CA

La Resistencia

Joan Maruskin, World Church Service Immigration and Refugee Program,
Washington, D.C.*

Mumia Defense Committee, Rochester, NY

Dale Nesbitt, Berkeley, CA

New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW)

Not In Our Name & Bush's Backyard Surprise, Houston, TX

October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the
Criminalization of a Generation

Pax Christi USA

Radical Women

Red Bandanna: Roma Against Racism, Burton, WA

Refuse & Resist!

San Francisco Day Laborers Program, San Francisco, CA

Holly Severson, journalist and activist, San Francisco, CA

South Asians Against Police Brutality and Racism, New York, NY

South Asian League of Artists in America (SALAAM), Geeta Citygirl,
Artistic Director, New York, NY

South Alameda County Peace and Social Justice Coalition, California

South Asian Network, Los Angeles, CA

South Bay Labor for Peace and Justice (SBLPJ), San Jose, CA

South Bay Mobilization to Stop the War (SBMSW), San Jose, CA

Triangle Foundation, Detroit, MI

United Muslims of America Interfaith Alliance, San Francisco, CA

United Teachers of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

Barbara Weith, San Diego, CA

Rev. Dr. David L. Wheeler, Senior Minister, First Baptist Church,
Los Angeles, CA*

World Alliance for Humanity, Fremont, CA

(* organizational affiliation for identification purposes only)

BLUE TRIANGLE NETWORK, P.O. BOX 7451, DEARBORN, MI 48121-7451 CALL
313-942-7187