|
U.S.
Muslims, Others Voice Concerns Over Raids, Call for Action
 |
| Raids
against Muslims raised questions about human rights
violations. |
By
Ayesha Ahmad, IOL Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON,
March 29 (IslamOnline) - A number of organizations, Muslim and
non-Muslim, call for an active response to last week's federal raids
on Muslim businesses, institutions and homes in northern Virginia,
denounced by many Muslim groups as a "fishing expedition"
that unfairly targeted Muslims.
The
Washington-based Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) is one among a
coalescing group of Muslim, Arab-American and civil libertarian
groups that expressed outrage at the method and targets of the
raids. MPAC leaders have been working with the northern Virginia
Muslim community since last week to aid them in approaching
government officials for redress.
On
Tuesday, MPAC put out a press release describing its demands for a
congressional hearing into the raids. The following day, it released
a "case statement" addressing its central concerns
regarding the raids - misconduct on the part of the federal agents,
the possible motivations behind the raids and their consequences on
civil rights.
Over
the weekend, MPAC political advisor Mahdi Bray and director Hassan
Ibrahim coached members of the northern Virginia Muslim community on
how best to make their representative, Virginia congressman Frank
Wolf, aware of their concerns in a town hall meeting with him on
Saturday.
Congressman
Wolf encouraged the Muslims to bring specifics of their complaints
to him directly; on Thursday, Bray and Ibrahim met with Wolf to
discuss their concerns.
In
its case statement Wednesday, the group said it "received
reports that law enforcement agencies made an unprovoked effort to
create an intimidating climate while conducting these raids."
Actions
that concerned them included the handcuffing of two women who posed
no threat to the agents - a Customs agency spokesman said that
handcuffs were used to prevent individuals from fleeing or
destroying evidence, according to a New York Times report Wednesday
- as well as the brandishing of guns towards innocent people and
loud ordering.
But
Hussein Ibish, communications director for the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said that warrants are almost
always served in this way.
"Certainly
there was some insensitivity," he said, but "I'm sad to
say, that's normal. That's the way warrants are executed… It
raises serious questions about the way warrants are executed."
Ibish
said the agents conducting the raids "deliberately created an
atmosphere of intimidation and violence… [but] that's the way
it’s done… People would be wrong to say that … these people
[Muslims whose homes and businesses were raided] were treated
differently."
However,
at meetings over the past several days, Muslim organization and
community leaders said that they feel the raids were carried out
differently, citing the less abrasive serving of search warrants on
the failed energy corporation Enron and its consulting firm Arthur
Andersen LLP, which was criminally indicted by the federal
government.
ADC
offered a statement of its concern the day after the first raids,
saying that the sealing of certain legal documents involved in the
raids opened "the possibility for abuse of civil, legal, and
constitutional rights to what may be new use of secret
evidence."
ADC's
main concern regarding the raids, Ibish said, was to find out
exactly what the raids were about.
"The
first order of business… is to find out what's going on," he
said. "The affidavit is sealed… it's extremely difficult for
anybody to come to any serious conclusion" about what the
government is looking for.
Although
the warrant was available, the sealed affidavit "puts everybody
in a difficult situation," Ibish said. "It raises all
kinds of questions about what the government is doing and why."
MPAC
was also concerned about the motivations behind the raids,
describing them as a "fishing expedition" in search of
evidence that did not exist - echoing ADC's concern about the
possible use of secret evidence.
"MPAC
will not stand by and allow our Bill of Rights to be trampled and
innocent people raided and mistreated, and will continue to work for
full government oversight into this issue," MPAC said in its
March 26 statement.
Although
Muslim and Arab organizations are working locally to solidify a
response to the raids, other groups have stepped out to condemn the
raids as well.
Kit
Gage, of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom, spoke
to the Muslim community at another town hall meeting on Monday in
Sterling, Va., reminding them of their rights and urging them to
work with groups that had more experience in the area of civil
rights and civil liberties.
And
the international ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism)
coalition, which formed right after the September 11 terrorist
attacks to bring together people and groups opposed to war, racism
and the deterioration of civil liberties, released a statement last
Friday condemning the raids.
Sarah
Sloan, an ANSWER organizer in Washington, D.C. said that the
coalition's massive anti-war demonstration planned for the nation's
capital on April 20 would include protests against the targeting of
Muslims and Arabs by the federal anti-terror investigation.
"Through
the new laws that have been passed [the administration of President
George W. Bush was] clearly taking advantage of the events of
September 11" to pass laws it had long wanted to push through,
she said. "They believed that in the wake of September 11,
people would accept these attacks on civil liberties."
With
many member groups representing Muslim and Arab - especially
Palestinian - interests, Sloan said that ANSWER would "take a
stand in solidarity with the Arab and Muslim community."
|
