"Racial profiling is wrong. It is a violation of basic human rights, and it does nothing to keep Americans safe from crime or terrorism," Bothne maintained

Dina Rashed, IOL Correspondent

CHICAGO, October 19 (IslamOnline.net) - Chicago leaders from diverse communities spent Saturday, October 18, listening to public testimonies on and personal accounts of racial, ethnic and religious profiling that has been increasingly targeting minorities.

Called the Public Truth, the hearing is one of two sessions organized by Amnesty International (AI), Applied Research Center (ARC), Arab American Action Network (AAAN), coalition of African, Asian, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois, Justice Coalition of Greater Chicago and Southwest Youth Collaboration.

The two hearings hope to bring to the public as well as to the Commission body, which is made up of the community leaders, a collective body of testimonies about increasing challenges to civil rights of minorities, especially after September 11^th.

Organizers and sponsors attempt to put forward this file of first hand testimonies to change unjust public policies pertinent to racial, ethnic and religious communities, to serve as an educational tool for other organizations involved in the civil rights movement and to help fight the increasing police and law enforcement brutality against these communities.

The Saturday hearing brought over 150 community members and activists into the main hall of the New Covenant Baptist Church in Chicago to listen to experiences of African, Arab, South Asian, Latino, and Japanese Americans who have been unjustly targeted.

"The truth is that we have seen blatant attacks on our constitutional rights," said Kareem Irfan, Chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago and member of the Commission.

"Unfortunately all is done under the guise of security measures and shamefully under patriotism," he regretted.

"We will not barter away from our constitutional rights for safety. We are here together as fellow Americans, and we must band together," averred Irfan.

Racial Profiling

The first round of Saturday’s testimonies, which focused on abuses by the local and state officials, showed how dress code, personal names and skin color can all be reasons for abusive policies.

"Immigrants of color have taken the brunt of racial profiling as a result of the recent laws on terror and inland security," stressed Hatem Abudayyeh, Executive Director of AAAN.

Racial profiling in Chicago is not a new phenomena, said Abudayyeh, adding that the city is not only known for its racial segregation, but even more for the notoriety of its police officers and criminal injustices against ethnic and religious minorities.

"There is a world-wide agreement that racial profiling is a form of discrimination," said Nancy Bothne, Midwest Regional Director of AI USA.

"We want to listen to these stories, share it with family members, students, people at the work place, then take action and engage the local government, the Illinois government in fighting racial profiling," she added.

Bothne said that a chronological assessment of the incidents where minorities were being targeted for search in borders and airports, showed a disproportionate increase in discrimination in the U.S. since 1999.

"Whenever and wherever it exists, racial profiling needs to be condemned," she told IslamOnline.net, "it’s getting worse and we need the government to take action, we need politicians to condemn racial profiling."

AI has been monitoring these abuses and speaking against them as human rights violations, Bothne said in an earlier statement.

"Witnesses at Amnesty International’s previous hearings have testified to the humiliating nature of being wrongly targeted by race-focused law enforcement practices that is destroying families and exploiting minor technicalities in the law to rob people including U.S. citizens of their freedoms.

"Racial profiling is wrong. It is a violation of basic human rights, and it does nothing to keep Americans safe from crime or terrorism," she maintained.

Echoing similar position, Camille Odeh, Executive Director of the Southwest Youth Collaborative and a commissioner, asserted: "What seems to be happening is the criminalization of certain people for whom they are."

"People are criminalized for what they wear, where they come from, even for their names. It seems to me there is a double standard."

For his part, Grace Hou, Assistant Secretary of Illinois Department of Human Services and one of the commissioners, asked: "How can we- as Americans - brag about the U.S. being the land of the free, when we know for sure that this is not the case for all residents of the U.S."

Targeting Minorities

The second round of testimonies brought more light on how the federal authorities target minorities.

Through the help of a translator, Elvira Arellano, told the audience in Spanish how she lost her job at Chicago O’Hare Airport after six years because of sweeping raids of Operation Chicago Skies following 9/11.

She was threatened by law enforcement officers in her house to have her five-year-old son removed to the state custody if she would not cooperate in the interrogation.

Manal ElHrisse and Sofia Ahmad gave two testimonies about members of the Arab Muslim community who were unable to tell their own stories, as one remains barred from re-entering the U.S. while the other suffers detention in custody.

ElHrisse spoke of the case of Sabri Samirah, a Palestinian activist who headed the United Muslim American Association, a young organization that focused on political representation of the community in Chicago.

Last year Samirah was denied U.S. entry after leaving for a visit to his parents in Jordan.

According to the U.S. officials the decision was based on security reasons and their claim of Samirah’s affiliation with what they considered terrorist organizations.

Since then Samirah has engaged in a legal and media battles to get permission to come back and clear his record, but was unsuccessful.

Ahmad told the case of Lina Daqa, a young Palestinian mother who was detained and taken into custody following her arrival from the occupied territories last spring.

Daqa, an asylum seeker, has spent at least four months in detention since then, while the rest of her family still resides in the southern suburbs of Chicago.

"This event, these testimonies, help us put a face on the suffering that is become wide spread in this country, especially in light of the increasing measure that is making it harder for immigrants to come here or to seek asylum," said Jesus Garcia, former Illinois State Senator who is part of the Commission.

"The most important challenge we face is to continue breaking the silence," he asserted.

Sharing Suffering

The Muslim and Arab communities, the two most unjustly treated since 9/11, have been finding support and guidance lately in the earlier experiences of the Japanese Americans during the WWII.

Chiye Tomihiro, a Japanese American whose parents were kept in internment camps for almost three years during the war, said she was sensing resemblance between what is taking place now and what has happened before.

"Now after 9/11 I see people being detained and I see the same incidents. History is repeated," said Tomihiro as she told the story of her parents’ detention to the multi-ethnic audience.

"I hope Japanese Americans will join you in fighting all kinds of discrimination that you are now experiencing."

The commission also included Hayelom Ayele, chairperson of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations Advisory Council on Immigrants and Refugee Affairs, Aaron Patterson, a pardoned death row inmate who was wrongfully convicted and Fred Tsao, Policy Director at the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

The second session of the hearing where community activists and experts are expected to give their testimonies will be held on Monday morning at DePaul University in downtown Chicago.