{"id":1375,"date":"2005-04-18T01:45:21","date_gmt":"2005-04-18T06:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=1375"},"modified":"2005-04-18T00:15:00","modified_gmt":"2005-04-18T05:15:00","slug":"looking_out_for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2005\/04\/18\/looking_out_for\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking out for “A” & “T”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saurav,<\/a> who co-writes on the new blog Detained<\/a>, updates us on the situation of the 16 year-old Bangladeshi and Guinean girls that the FBI recently detained, ostensibly as potential suicide bombers. My original posting<\/a> about this mentioned that the family was not economically capable of fighting the government and Detained elaborates.<\/p>\n\n

As you may have read recently in the New York Times and a number of other publications, two Muslim teenage girls have been detained. One is from Guinea, and the other is from Bangladesh. The government is using immigration law to jail these 16 year olds without charging them with a crime, holding secret proceedings against them without giving them access to the evidence that is being used against them, and slandering them in the media as \u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u0153suicide bombers\u00c3\u00a2\u00c2\u20ac\u00c2\u009d without providing proof.\n
\n
\nIn fact, an FBI official told The New York Daily News, “Nobody here believes they are wanna-be suicide bombers.” Another official at the Department of Homeland Security commented, “We’re not spun up about this case.”<\/strong> So why, then, are these young women in jail, cut off from their families? Why are their lives being ruined? This is an insane injustice.\n
\n
\nPlease open your hearts to both families. The family of A., the young Guinean woman, is in urgent need, and owes money to their lawyer. They have also lost their income, as the father has also been detained on immigration violations. As we learn more details about her situation, we may find they have other needs as well.\n
\n
\nThe young Bangladeshi woman, T., and her loved ones also face an enormous challenge. Her family needs to raise approximately $10,000 in the next three months just to get by. There are three children. The vast majority of the money would go towards housing, because the family has had to give up their apartment out of fear of surveillance or other threats to their safety. The remainder of expenses are for food, transportation and any legal expenses (although the lawyer is currently doing the case for free). Visits to the lawyer and to the detention center take 3 hours each way and cost money. It may also be necessary to fundraise for airline tickets for some family members in the future. There’s enough money available right now from various sources to cover them for a few days, but their situation could become dire very soon.<\/blockquote>\n\n

The April 12 editorial page of the New York Times included a scathing commentary<\/a> on this situation:<\/p>\n\n

The government calls the girls an “imminent threat,” and says it has “evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers.” But it has not described the evidence, insisting that national security requires that much of it remain secret. Because the girls are here illegally, they have been put into a deportation system that affords them far fewer rights than ordinary criminal suspects have. There is no definite limit on how long they can be held.\n
\n
\nNo one wants to leap to conclusions about a government case in such an important area. But the record is not reassuring. Last year, the government wrongly jailed Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer who is a Muslim, for two weeks after the F.B.I. mistakenly matched his fingerprint to one found at the scene of the Madrid train bombing. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department rounded up hundreds of Muslim men who were here illegally and detained them for months, often in deplorable conditions. The department’s inspector general later found that the F.B.I. had made “little attempt to distinguish” those with terrorism ties from those without. Shortly after 9\/11, federal authorities detained a Nepalese tourist for three months in a tiny cell after he inadvertently included an F.B.I. building in a videotape of the sights of New York for folks at home.<\/blockquote>\n\n

If you would like to make a monetary contribution to this family’s legal expenses than you can do so using the following information:<\/p>\n\n

CAIR-NY, a leading Islamic civil liberties organization that is involved in helping these two families and many others, has an Emergency Family Fund. To contribute to the fund, you can mail checks written to:\n
\n
\nEmergency Family Fund \/ CAIR NY
\nc\/o 9-11 relief program \/ Adem Carroll, ICNA
\n166-26 89th Avenue
\nJamaica, NY, 11432
\nDonations are tax exempt
\n
\n
\nIf you would like to direct your contribution to A and T and their families, please write that on your check. Otherwise, surplus donations to the fund will be used for the Emergency Family Fund for detainee families more generally. For more information, please contact Brother Adem at 718-658-7028 or visit Detention, the blog.<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saurav, who co-writes on the new blog Detained, updates us on the situation of the 16 year-old Bangladeshi and Guinean girls that the FBI recently detained, ostensibly as potential suicide bombers. My original posting about this mentioned that the family … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}