In late March, two 16 year-old girls, A and T -- were taken into immigration custody and accused of "terrorism" by the FBI. They are now being held in a detention facility under secret evidence to which they have no access, are being questioned repeatedly and threatened, and will be subjected to closed hearings.
A new blog has been formed to help these girls called Detain This! and we urgently need people to help send letters that will be presented at a bond hearing for T set for this Thursday.
To make it easier, Tas at Loaded Mouth has made an e-mail generator, if you put your name and e-mail address on this form and click send the letters will go straight to DRUM who will then get it to the lawyers.
In late March, two 16 year-old girls, A and T -- were taken into immigration custody and accused of "terrorism" by the FBI. They are now being held in a detention facility under secret evidence to which they have no access, are being questioned repeatedly and threatened, and will be subjected to closed hearings.
A new blog has been formed to help these girls called Detain This! and we urgently need people to help send letters that will be presented at a bond hearing for T set for this Thursday.
To make it easier, Tas at Loaded Mouth has made an e-mail generator, if you put your name and e-mail address on this form and click send the letters will go straight to DRUM who will then get it to the lawyers.
On Tuesday, April 12, 2005 the following powerful account appeared as the lead editorial in The New York Times:
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
"The post-9/11 world involves two competing nightmares. One imagines another terrorist attack that occurs because authorities fail to respond to signs of danger. The other is about innocent people who are arrested by mistake and held indefinitely because authorities are too frightened, or embarrassed, to admit their errors."
"We have to be equally vigilant against both.
Right now, two New York City girls, both 16, have been detained and accused of plotting to become suicide bombers. If there is a real reason to believe that charge, officials are obviously right to have acted. But so far, they have said little about the evidence against the girls, and the girls' friends and families have offered accounts that suggest the charges could be completely false."
"At this point, it's impossible not to worry about a potential miscarriage of justice, given the number of previous incidents in which the government has rushed to make a terrorism arrest that turned out to be baseless."
"Details of the cases against the two girls - one from Bangladesh and the other from Guinea, and both in the country illegally - are sketchy. According to reporting by Nina Bernstein in The Times, the parents of the Bangladeshi girl went to the police several weeks ago to file a complaint about their daughter's defying their authority. When the dispute was resolved, they tried to withdraw the complaint, but the police proceeded with an investigation."
"The police and federal immigration officials searched her belongings and are reported to have found an essay on suicide. According to the family, the essay says suicide is against Islamic law. But detectives went on to question the girl about her political beliefs before arresting her. Even less is known about the investigation of the girl from Guinea. Teachers and students at the high school she attended expressed outrage at the arrest and at the idea that she could be plotting terrorism."
"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."
"No 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."
"More information about the two girls will no doubt surface over time. If the evidence isn't there, the arrests are very disturbing. The government will have taken 16-year-olds from their families, branded them as would-be terrorists and put them into a frightening legal limbo for no good reason."
Here's what you letter will look like:
April 13, 2005
Dear Judge Sease,
We write to you today as a community organization/individual to urge the Court to release and uphold the civil and human rights of two sixteen year old young women, Tashnuba and Adama (last names withheld to protect privacy). Both of these women belong with the community and families that love them. They do not belong in detention being held on secret evidence and being tried in a secret hearing.
Our organization has been committed to advocating for the rights of immigrants for five years and is particularly concerned with governmental targeting of South Asians, Muslims and Arabs since the September 11th tragedy. We believe this case highlights the unique and manipulative use of a fear of "terrorism" to detain and deport immigrants across the United States without regard to due process or civil and human rights, as documented by the report of the Office of Inspector General released in 2004.
In particular, we write today because we are alarmed by several violations of the rights of Tashnuba and Adama. Namely, we are severely troubled by:
· the government's discriminatory and systematic targeting of these two young girls based on their faith;
· the government's use of "secret evidence," which is inherently unreliable, unfair, and unconstitutional, because it denies the young women a meaningful opportunity to challenge the evidence against them;
· the use of detention to isolate and punish the girls;
· the reporting of young people by high school administrations based on their political views, exacerbating a culture of widespread fear and false accusations within the United States;
· the FBI's continued, illegal questioning of at least one of the girls, Tashnuba, without the presence of legal counsel;
· the FBI's threats to at least one of the girls, Tashnuba, to deport her parents and send her siblings to foster care if she does not admit to their allegations which would cast serious doubt as to the validity of any admission of guilt if it were to occur;
· the closing of the hearings to the press and public, which is unwarranted by the current evidence and runs counter to the spirit of a democratic society;
· the seeming absence of any purpose for the continued detention of the girls, who do not pose a flight risk or a danger to the public.
In the interests of justice, we ask that Your Honor release Tashnuba and Adama to their families as soon as possible, make public the evidence against them, open the hearings, and exercise all possible discretion to interrupt the discriminatory, outrageous assault on the basic human rights and dignity of two young women.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Your Organization
Please help us help these two 16 year old girls!