Fit the Profile, Go to Jail
Lawsuits Filed, Raids Continue
BY PHILLIS ENGELBERT AND JUNG HEE CHOI
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As his wife and four young children watched, federal agents arrested and handcuffed Rabih Haddad, a community leader and humanitarian aid worker, at their Ann Arbor home on Dec. 14, 2001. The agents refused to say where they were taking him or why. Eventually Haddad, a Lebanese immigrant, was charged with overstaying his tourist visa-a situation he believed he had remedied by applying for permanent residency. Over three months later, he remains in prison in Chicago.

Haddad is one of an estimated 1,200 people of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent who were racially profiled as potential terrorists and jailed after Sept. 11. Although none of them have been charged with participating in the Sept. 11 attacks, hundreds remain behind bars. In many cases neither their families nor the public have been notified of their detention or whereabouts.

Finally piercing government secrecy, a March 14 Amnesty International report concluded that many detainees have been denied the right to be informed of the reasons for their imprisonment, to have prompt access to a lawyer and to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise. AI uncovered reports of cruel treatment, including solitary confinement and use of shackles, as well as allegations of physical and verbal abuse.

Last November, the Justice Department began interrogating thousands of additional Middle Easterners living in the U.S. Officials admit that not one of the 2,300 interviewees was charged with being connected to terrorism.

FIGHTING NEW HARASSMENT

Yet the government recently announced that it is beginning a new round of interrogations of 3,000 more Middle Easterners. And, on March 20, in northern Virginia, federal agents raided the homes and offices of some of the most respected leaders and organizations of the American Arab and Muslim communities.

The Justice Department has also been investigating Global Relief, a Muslim charity Haddad co-founded. Officials are relying on secret evidence in an attempt to link Global Relief to terrorism.

Haddad was denied bond for the stated reason that he legally owned a registered hunting rifle. All of Haddad's hearings have been closed to the public and the media. Three Detroit-area media outlets, the Michigan ACLU and Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) recently won a suit against the INS, to open Haddad's future hearings.

The national ACLU has filed suit against the U.S. government under the Freedom of Information Act in an attempt to force officials to release the names of all those who have been detained. On March 27, the New Jersey ACLU won a ruling, now on appeal, for release of the names of detainees in two of that state's counties.

Community coalitions in Ann Arbor and Chicago along with members of Haddad's family, are coordinating the fight to release Haddad. For more information, see
http://aa-peacemaking.quaker.org/haddad.html.

Phillis Engelbert is the peace response organizer for the American Friends Service Committee in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Jung Hee Choi is a War Times editor.