KeJia Sista
May 5th, 2005, 01:44 PM
Then they came for the children
/By Ted Rall, Yahoo
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050427/cm_ucru/thentheycameforthechildren/nc:742>/
They've vanished into the netherworld of a Homeland Security gulag and
their story has already disappeared from the headlines, but the shocking
case of two 16-year-old girls from New York City arrested a month ago
ought to inspire outrage among every American worthy of the name. Since
the government's reasons for the girls' imprisonment could apply to
virtually any teenager, it should also spark fear.
Like many rebellious teens, I fought with my mother. Local police,
called to my home during at least one particularly impressive clash of
wills and voices, talked us back into the land of the calmly reasonable.
Then they left.
Like many young people, I was fascinated by morbid, violent subjects.
After I turned in an essay depicting a political assassination from the
killer's viewpoint, my creative writing teacher sent me to talk to my
guidance counselor. After I assured him that I had no desire to knock
off any politicians, he returned me to class.
A quarter century later, my mom and I are best friends and I haven't
done anything the Secret Service ought to worry about. Right now,
however, two girls from New York City are rotting in a HomeSec prison in
Pennsylvania for doing nothing more than I did--one for fighting with
her parents and writing an essay, the other accused of being her friend.
In early March, the New York Times reported on April 7, one girl's
parents "went to the local police station house" in the Queens Village
neighborhood because "their daughter...had defied their authority."
Things calmed down and the parents, believing their daughter had been
scared straight, asked the NYPD to forget the whole thing.
It was too late for that.
Without a warrant, NYPD detectives and federal agents burst into the
girl's home--no wonder they don't have time to look for Osama!--where
they "searched her belongings and confiscated her computer and the
essays that she had written as part of a home schooling program," say
her family. "One essay concerned suicide...[that] asserted that suicide
is against Islamic law." The family is Bangladeshi. They are Muslim.
That, coupled with the mere mention of suicide bombing in her essay, was
enough to put the fuzz on high alert.
Although she is conservative and devout, the girl and her parents
vigorously deny that she is an Islamist extremist (not that such
opinions are illegal), but this is post-9/11 America and post-9/11
America is out of its mind.
Based solely on an essay written by one of the two, the FBI says both
girls are "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based
upon evidence that they plan to become suicide bombers." But the feds
admit that they have no evidence to back their suspicions. Nothing.
"There are doubts about these claims, and no evidence has been found
that such a plot was in the works," one Bush Administration official
admitted to the Times. "The arrests took place after authorities decided
it would be better to lock up the girls than wait and see if they
decided to become terrorists," another told the New York Post. The same
logic could be used to justify locking up any Muslim, or anyone at all.
Heck, maybe that's the idea.
The Bangladeshi girl, who was homeschooled and wears a veil, says she
never even met her outgoing and more Americanized "co-conspirator" from
Guinea before the cops accused them of plotting to do...something. Maybe.
She says FBI agents threatened to deport her parents and place her
American-born siblings, a four-month-old baby and an 11-year-old, in
foster care unless she confessed.
Even in PATRIOT Act-era America, alleged fantasies of martyrdom aren't a
crime. So HomeSec's ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is holding
both two girls as illegal immigrants--one for entering the U.S. without
an inspection, the other for overstaying her visa. And even that charge
rests on razor-thin ice: "This is a girl who's been in this country
since she was two years old," the Guinean girl's teacher says. Ditto for
the one from Bangladesh. Holding kids accountable for the actions of
their parents is crazy, which is why immigration authorities don't
usually do it. Two-year-old babies don't wade across the Rio Grande or
overstay their visas. Deporting American teenagers--American in every
way that matters--to countries they've never even visited is equally insane.
I would be the first to applaud the FBI if they had arrested two proven
would-be suicide bombers before they had the chance to strike. If they
have evidence to that effect, they should make it public and bring
charges in open court. But that's clearly not the case here.
When this story first broke I didn't write about it because I assumed
that a public outcry would soon lead to its reasonable resolution.
Sadly, this has not happened.
Homes searched without a warrant, kids thrown in prison for thoughts
real and imagined, people's lives destroyed by an out-of-control federal
government--will Americans speak up for what's right? Please call and
write your congressman and senator to demand the release of the two
girls from Queens.
Reprinted from Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050427/
cm_ucru/thentheycameforthechildren/nc:742
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050427/cm_ucru/thentheycameforthechildren/nc:742>
Ke Jia
/By Ted Rall, Yahoo
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050427/cm_ucru/thentheycameforthechildren/nc:742>/
They've vanished into the netherworld of a Homeland Security gulag and
their story has already disappeared from the headlines, but the shocking
case of two 16-year-old girls from New York City arrested a month ago
ought to inspire outrage among every American worthy of the name. Since
the government's reasons for the girls' imprisonment could apply to
virtually any teenager, it should also spark fear.
Like many rebellious teens, I fought with my mother. Local police,
called to my home during at least one particularly impressive clash of
wills and voices, talked us back into the land of the calmly reasonable.
Then they left.
Like many young people, I was fascinated by morbid, violent subjects.
After I turned in an essay depicting a political assassination from the
killer's viewpoint, my creative writing teacher sent me to talk to my
guidance counselor. After I assured him that I had no desire to knock
off any politicians, he returned me to class.
A quarter century later, my mom and I are best friends and I haven't
done anything the Secret Service ought to worry about. Right now,
however, two girls from New York City are rotting in a HomeSec prison in
Pennsylvania for doing nothing more than I did--one for fighting with
her parents and writing an essay, the other accused of being her friend.
In early March, the New York Times reported on April 7, one girl's
parents "went to the local police station house" in the Queens Village
neighborhood because "their daughter...had defied their authority."
Things calmed down and the parents, believing their daughter had been
scared straight, asked the NYPD to forget the whole thing.
It was too late for that.
Without a warrant, NYPD detectives and federal agents burst into the
girl's home--no wonder they don't have time to look for Osama!--where
they "searched her belongings and confiscated her computer and the
essays that she had written as part of a home schooling program," say
her family. "One essay concerned suicide...[that] asserted that suicide
is against Islamic law." The family is Bangladeshi. They are Muslim.
That, coupled with the mere mention of suicide bombing in her essay, was
enough to put the fuzz on high alert.
Although she is conservative and devout, the girl and her parents
vigorously deny that she is an Islamist extremist (not that such
opinions are illegal), but this is post-9/11 America and post-9/11
America is out of its mind.
Based solely on an essay written by one of the two, the FBI says both
girls are "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based
upon evidence that they plan to become suicide bombers." But the feds
admit that they have no evidence to back their suspicions. Nothing.
"There are doubts about these claims, and no evidence has been found
that such a plot was in the works," one Bush Administration official
admitted to the Times. "The arrests took place after authorities decided
it would be better to lock up the girls than wait and see if they
decided to become terrorists," another told the New York Post. The same
logic could be used to justify locking up any Muslim, or anyone at all.
Heck, maybe that's the idea.
The Bangladeshi girl, who was homeschooled and wears a veil, says she
never even met her outgoing and more Americanized "co-conspirator" from
Guinea before the cops accused them of plotting to do...something. Maybe.
She says FBI agents threatened to deport her parents and place her
American-born siblings, a four-month-old baby and an 11-year-old, in
foster care unless she confessed.
Even in PATRIOT Act-era America, alleged fantasies of martyrdom aren't a
crime. So HomeSec's ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is holding
both two girls as illegal immigrants--one for entering the U.S. without
an inspection, the other for overstaying her visa. And even that charge
rests on razor-thin ice: "This is a girl who's been in this country
since she was two years old," the Guinean girl's teacher says. Ditto for
the one from Bangladesh. Holding kids accountable for the actions of
their parents is crazy, which is why immigration authorities don't
usually do it. Two-year-old babies don't wade across the Rio Grande or
overstay their visas. Deporting American teenagers--American in every
way that matters--to countries they've never even visited is equally insane.
I would be the first to applaud the FBI if they had arrested two proven
would-be suicide bombers before they had the chance to strike. If they
have evidence to that effect, they should make it public and bring
charges in open court. But that's clearly not the case here.
When this story first broke I didn't write about it because I assumed
that a public outcry would soon lead to its reasonable resolution.
Sadly, this has not happened.
Homes searched without a warrant, kids thrown in prison for thoughts
real and imagined, people's lives destroyed by an out-of-control federal
government--will Americans speak up for what's right? Please call and
write your congressman and senator to demand the release of the two
girls from Queens.
Reprinted from Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050427/
cm_ucru/thentheycameforthechildren/nc:742
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20050427/cm_ucru/thentheycameforthechildren/nc:742>
Ke Jia