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“This incident must be investigated to determine what the policy on fingerprinting Muslim citizens is and who is behind it,” said Awad
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By
Muneeb Nasir, IOL correspondent
TORONTO,
December 30 (IslamOnline.net) – US border authorities came under
fire for singling out a cohort of American Muslims for special
security checks upon their return from an Islamic conference in
neighboring Canada.
US
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials held up to 40 American
Muslims at the Lewiston Bridge border crossing near Niagara Falls for
questioning and fingerprinting on Sunday night and Monday morning
after attending the third Reviving Islamic Spirit Convention in
Toronto.
The
Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
dismissed, in press release a copy of which was sent to
IslamOnline.net, the measure as an example of religious profiling.
“The
image of a room full of American Muslim citizens apparently being held
solely because of their faith and the fact that they attended an
Islamic conference is one that should be disturbing to all Americans
who value religious freedom,” said CAIR Executive Director Nihad
Awad.
The
civil liberties group warned that the incident was in violation of the
American Muslims’ constitutional rights, especially the right to the
free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, peaceful assembly and
the right to be secure against unreasonable searches.
Thousands
of Canadian and American Muslims flocked to the Toronto Skydome, in
the heart of downtown Toronto, to attend the three-day convention,
which sought to promote greater understanding of their faith and a
more active citizenry.
“No
Rights”
According
to CAIR, a few of the detainees objected to being fingerprinted, but
were informed by CBP officials that “you have no rights” and that
they would be held until they agreed to the procedure.
Sawsan
Tabba told Buffalo's WKBW TV said she was pulled aside at the Lewiston
Bridge border crossing while returning home with her children from
Toronto.
She
recalled that one officer told her ‘this is not your lucky day,
you’ve been randomly chosen for inspection.’
However,
to her surprise she was not the only Muslim pulled over.
“When
I walked in I found all my buddies from my community, everybody who
belongs to the Muslim Community Center in Buffalo, all Muslim people
were pulled aside randomly for inspection,” Tabba recalled.
Several
of the detained Americans were held at the border crossing for up to
six hours.
WKBW
TV quoted a CBP spokesman as saying the American Muslims were pulled
over because some of the names or descriptions matched or were close
to matching those of people on watch lists.
A
CBP spokesman in Washington D.C. initially told CAIR that
fingerprinting of American citizens would be a “violation of
policy.”
However,
later he said it would be allowed to make fingerprinting “if there
was a law enforcement reason for doing so.”
A
new nation-wide poll, conducted by the Cornell University and posted
on its Web site, showed that at least 44 percent of the American
society back curbing
Muslims’ civil rights and monitoring their places of
worship.
Probe
Needed
CAIR,
the largest US Muslim advocacy group in the US, urged the Department
of Home Security to launch a formal investigation into the incident.
“This
incident must be investigated to determine what the policy on
fingerprinting Muslim citizens is and who is behind it,” Awad said.
Amnesty
International further said that racial profiling by US law enforcement
agencies had grown over the past three years to cover one in nine
Americans, mostly targeting Muslims.
A
May 2004 report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded
that the Arab Americans and the Muslim community in the United States
have taken the brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers
applied in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
On
July 1, agents raided an Islamic institute in Northern Virginia, with
no reasons cited, a move seen by an American Muslim civil rights group
as a “new fishing expedition.”
