wait till these guys show, then we will all be friends.

http://jusinkase.blogspot.com/2005/04/mysterious-signals-from-light-years.html


"Dr. Marid P. Cathmor" <mpc@nomail.org> wrote in message
news:0hG9e.9794$An2.7305@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...

Being a Muslim is not Kosher in America.

---MPC

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

--

-----------------------------------


Homeland Security Violates Civil Rights of Muslim American Citizens

April 20, 2005




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:

Liberties

Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations in simultaneous news
conferences in Buffalo and Brooklyn today announced a lawsuit charging

that

the Department of Homeland Security singled out and violated the rights
of
American citizens who were returning from a religious conference in

Toronto.

The lawsuit was filed to challenge the DHS's policy of detaining,
interrogating, fingerprinting and photographing American citizens who are
Muslim, solely because they attended an Islamic conference.
"None of the citizens who were detained had done anything unlawful, nor

were

they charged with any unlawful act," said Donna Lieberman, Executive
Director of the NYCLU. "It is very troubling that citizens who were
exercising their First Amendment rights were singled out because of their
faith and attending the conference."
On their way back from Reviving the Islamic Spirit (RIS) conference in
Toronto in December 2004, American citizens who are Muslim were detained,
frisked, photographed and fingerprinted. The DHS's new policy resulted in
the citizens being subjected to unlawful detention and treatment near
Buffalo, New York simply because they attended the conference. Among
those
detained by border agents were several families with their children,
including an infant and a pregnant woman.
The RIS conference has been held annually in Toronto since 2003. Each

year,

it has included a strong message of building friendships with and

alliances

between Muslim and non-Muslim communities. As in previous years, the

Premier

of Ottawa, the Mayor of Toronto, and a Commissioner of the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police had welcomed conference participants on behalf of the
Canadian government.
"The government cannot criminalize American citizens for their religious
beliefs," said Catherine Kim, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "Americans
need to know that they can practice their religion and attend religious
conferences without fear of government reprisals."
As attendees arrived at the Canada/U.S. border, they were singled out as
having participated in the conference, and directed to a nearby building

for

additional questioning. Several participants wore traditional Muslim
dress
and were asked about attending the conference before being asked any
other
questions about their trip to Canada. As more RIS attendees began to
amass
in the secondary detention area, it became clear that they were victims
of
profiling. Some were held for as long as six-and-a-half hours overnight.
Said Dr. Sawsan Tabbaa, a Buffalo an orthodontist who attended RIS: "I
was
treated like a criminal for no other reason than because I was Muslim."
Said Arsalan Iftikhar, National Legal Director for CAIR: "When American
citizens are targeted by their own government and detained, searched,
fingerprinted and photographed with threat of arrest for committing no
crime, this is not only unacceptable and unlawful, but also

unconstitutional

and un-American."
The conference attendees were isolated from the outside world while being
detained. They were prevented from contacting attorneys, their family
members or the news media to tell them about their detention. Several of
them had their cellular phones seized by border agents.
Said Christopher Dunn, NYCLU Associate Legal Director: "American citizens

of

all faiths have a right to attend religious conferences without having
the
government detaining and interrogating them and without the government
putting their fingerprints and photographs in a database. What the
government is doing is wrong and unconstitutional, and our lawsuit aims
to
stop this practice."
The lawsuit charges that the Department of Homeland Security violated the
plaintiffs' rights under the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S.
Constitution, and under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It was

filed

today in federal court for the Eastern district of New York on behalf of
five American citizens.
Attorneys working on the lawsuit include NYCLU Associate Legal Director
Christopher Dunn and staff attorney Udi Ofer; ACLU staff attorneys

Catherine

Kim and Corey Stoughton; CAIR's Legal Director Arsalan Iftikha and legal
advisor Khurrum Wahid; and New York University School of Law Professor
Michael Wishnie.
The complaint for the Buffalo Border Detention case is online at
http://nyclu.org/pdfs/tabbaa_v_chertoff_complaint.pdf