Last week, the Center for Constitutional Rights went to court to fight the Bush administration's post-9/11 racial profiling and round-ups of hundreds of immigrant Muslim, Arab, and South Asian men in the New York area.
First please watch and listen to plaintiff Ibrahim Turkmen talking about the case.
Then please watch and listen to CCR attorney Rachel Meeropol's comments.
We argued the appeal in our case, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, which is an important legal challenge to the government's abuse of power in fighting the so-called "war on terror."
In actions reminiscent of the internment of thousands of Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, in the months after 9/11 our government rounded up and detained hundreds of Muslim, Arab, and South Asian immigrants to determine whether they had any ties to terrorism.
Held on the pretext of minor immigration violations, these men were kept in super-maximum security confinement and abused for months as their deportation was delayed so that the FBI could investigate them.
Often the men were picked up on evidence no more specific than a phone call to the authorities in which someone said, "my neighbor is an Arab and keeps strange hours."
Click here to read more about the abuse they suffered while detained and other details of the case.
The men weren't detained because there was evidence connecting them to terrorism—they were swept up and detained because of their race, religion, and ethnicity. Because they were Arab and Muslim men of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent, they were presumed guilty of terrorism until proven innocent.
In 2002, we filed Turkmen v. Ashcroft, a class action suit on behalf of the men held in New York and New Jersey, against the United States and 31 government officials and employees, including then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and former INS Commissioner James Ziglar.
A lower court judge ruled in our favor on many of the charges, including keeping the high-level officials on the hook for what happened, so last Thursday's arguments were a cross appeal by both sides.
More than five years after the case was filed, and long after all the men have been deported to their home countries, CCR continues to demand accountability for the racial profiling and indiscriminate detentions that followed in the wake of 9/11.
We await a ruling from the panel of judges and hope that it will bring our clients one step closer to justice. Please go here to watch a video and learn more about this important case.
Sincerely,
Vincent Warren
CCR Executive Director
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