Abstract
The six narratives included in the book reflect the experiences of the 1,000-plus individuals who were initially arrested after 9/11 on suspicion of terrorism and quietly deported months later on minor immigration or criminal charges. The 9/11 detainees labeled as “High Interest” were incarcerated for prolonged periods on the ninth floor of the MDC and were subject to severe physical and psychological abuse, which involved sleep deprivation, sensory torture, communication blackout, and daily humiliation. Other 9/11 detainees who were not kept in very high-security jails—such as Mohamed E****** and Ansar Mahmood—experienced other hardships caused by suspicion of terrorism, such as inadequate legal access, coercive questioning, and sharing of erroneous intelligence. As a result of the detentions, Ansar lost his permanent residency and Mohamed suffered torture after his return to Egypt. If they had not been Muslims, they would not have been caught in the sweeps after the 9/11 attacks, and law enforcement officers would not have tried to find every possible means to keep them in custody.
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Notes
Steven Brill, After: The Rebuilding and Defending of America in the September 12 Era (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003); Office of the Inspector General, The September 11 Detainees: A Review of Aliens Held on Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks (U.S. Department of Justice, April 2003).
Office of the Inspector General, The September 11 Detainees: A Review of Aliens Held on Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks (U.S. Department of Justice, April 2003).
Center for Constitutional Rights, “Description for Turkmen v. Ashcroft,” http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/turkmen-v.-ashcroft/ourcases/current-cases/turkmen-v.-ashcroft (accessed June 2, 2010). In November 2009, five of the seven named Turkmen plaintiffs have settled their claims for $1.26 million from the United States. Currently, CCR is seeking permission from the district court to amend the complaint to add six new MDC plaintiffs, which would allow them to hold the former attorney general John Ashcroft, the former FBI director Robert Mueller, and the former INS director James Ziglar responsible for the illegal roundups and abuse.
Nina Bernstein, “In FBI, Innocent Detainee Found Unlikely Ally,” New York Times, June 30, 2004.
See Center for Constitutional Rights, “Appeals Court Rules in Case Challenging Racial Profiling of Muslim, Arab, South Asian Men in Post-9/11 Sweeps: Leaves Open Possibility for Holding High Level Officials Accountable,” Press Release, December 18, 2009, New York, NY, http://www.ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/appeals-court-rules-case-challenging-racialprofiling-muslim%2C-arab%2C-south-as/newsroom/press-releases/appeals-court-rules-case-challenging-racialprofiling-muslim%2C-arab%2C-south-as (accessed June 14, 2010).
U.S. Department of Justice, Testimony of Attorney General John Ashcroft: Senate Committee on the Judiciary [Prepared remarks] (December 6, 2001), http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/testimony/2001/1206transcriptsenatejudiciarycommittee.htm. (accessed May 2, 2003).
Committee on the Judiciary U.S. Senate, Testimony of Michael Chertoff, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Preserving Our Freedom While Defending Against Terrorism, November 28, 2001.
Viet Dinh, “Freedom and Security after September 11,” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 399 (2002): 399.
Coleen Rowley, “Letter to FBI Director, Mr. Robert Muller,” New York Times, March 6, 2003.
Matthew Purdy and Lowell Bergman, “Where the Trail Led: Between Evidence and Suspicion: Unclear Danger: Inside the Lackawanna Terror Case,” New York Times, October 12, 2003.
James Bamford, “Television Review: Looking Beneath the Surface of a Terrorism Case,” New York Times, October 10, 2006.
The Center on Law and Security, Terrorist Trial Report Card: September 11, 2001–September 11, 2009 (New York: New York University, School of Law, January 2010), 46.
Project Salam, Support and Legal Advocacy for Muslims, http://www.project-salam.org/index.html (accessed June 10, 2010).
Jeff Stein, “Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite?” New York Times, October 17, 2006.
Allan Lengel, “Secret Service Suspends Agent for Islam Slur Words Scrawled on Calendar at Muslim Suspect’s Home,” Washington Post, July 26, 2002. From a separate source, I learned that the Jordanian guy was the brother of a congressman in the Jordan parliament, who used his resources to put the Secret Service agent under investigation; otherwise, his actions could have gone unnoticed.
See Susan Schmidt, “Help Still Wanted: Arabic Linguists, Agencies Rushed to Fill Void, but Found Screening New Hires Takes Times,” New York Times, December 27, 2002.
Council on American-Islamic Relations, “The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States: Stereotypes and Civil Liberties,” Washington D.C. 2002, 26.
Steve Fainaru, “Detainees Offer Glimpse of Life in N.Y. Facility, 3 in Sept. 11 Probe Say They Were Abused in Top Security,” Washington Post, April 17, 2002.
Office of the Inspector General, Supplemental Report on September 11 Detainees’ Allegations of Abuse at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York (Department of Justice, December 2003), 4.
National Immigration Forum, Immigrants and the Economy, http://www.immigrationforum.org/pubs/articles/economy2002.htm (accessed April 13, 2004).
Gretchen Peters, “Pakistan Takes Hunt for Al-Qaeda to Cities: The FBI is Working with Local Officials to Root Out Terrorists in Urban Areas Such as Karachi,” Christian Science Monitor, October 29, 2002. The Human Rights Watch report listed in the following note provides a list of several Pakistanis nationals arrested by the joint efforts of Pakistani and American intelligence. I heard about the presence of FBI officials several times from other sources and local and national Urdu newspapers.
Human Rights Watch, “List of ‘Ghost Prisoners’ Possibly in CIA Custody” (List of Detainees published by Human Rights Watch, updated December 1, 2005), http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/30/usdom12109_txt.htm (accessed March 27, 2008).
Dana Priest, “CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons: Debate is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System after 9/11,” Washington Post, November 5, 2005
Stephen Grey, Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006).
Scott Shane, “Obama Orders Secret Prisons and Detention Camps Closed,” New York Times, January 22, 2009.
David Johnston, “U.S. Says Rendition to Continue, but With More Oversight,” New York Times, August 25, 2009.
Beth Duff-Brown, “Deported Man Gets Apology: Canadian Tortured in Syria Compensated $8.9 Million,” January 27, 2007, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/301439_canada27.html (accessed March 27, 2008). Several media articles document the case, including Arar’s website, which provides a detailed description and timeline for the case: http://www.maherarar.ca/.
Dana Priest, “Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake: German Citizen Released after Months in ‘Rendition,’” Washington Post, December 4, 2005.
Moazzam Begg and Victoria Brittain, Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar (New York: New Press, 2006). Many other scholars have criticized the U.S. government for its operation of Guantanamo. I don’t discuss Guantanamo detainees in this book since most of them were arrested outside U.S. borders and their cases come under international laws.
Amnesty International, Denying the Undeniable Enforced Disappearances in Pakistan (London: Amnesty International, 2008), http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA33/018/2008/en/0de43038-57dd-11dd-be62-3f7ba2157024/asa330182008eng.pdf/en/library/asset/ASA33/018/2008/en/0de43038-57dd-11dd-be62-3f7ba2157024/asa330182008eng.pdf (accessed June 11, 2010).
Center for Constitutional Rights, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/legal/september_11th/sept11Article.asp?ObjID=35KQUuFROg&Content=96/v2/legal/september_11th/sept11Article.asp?ObjID=35KQUuFROg&Content=96 (accessed June 2, 2010).
Nina Bernstein, “2 Men Charge Abuse in Arrests after 9/11 Terror Attack,” New York Times, May 3, 2004.
Nina Bernstein, “U.S. Is Settling Detainee’s Suit in 9/11 Sweep,” New York Times, February 28, 2006.
See Center for Constitutional Rights, “CCR Statement on Supreme Court Ruling Against Holding High-Level Officials Accountable for Post-9/11 Domestic Sweeps,” http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/ccr-statement-supremecourt-ruling-against-holding-high-level-officials-acco/newsroom/press-releases/ccr-statement-supremecourt-ruling-against-holding-high-level-officials-acco (accessed September 9, 2009); also see Adam Liptak, “Justices Void Ex-Detainee’s Suit Against 2 Officials,” New York Times, May 19, 2009.
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© 2011 Irum Shiekh
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Shiekh, I. (2011). Conclusion. In: Detained without Cause. Palgrave Studies in Oral History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118096_8
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