------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Oct. 17, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
TODAY'S PALMER RAIDS: FBI SPIES ON HUNDREDS OF MUSLIMS By Leslie Feinberg Many people belatedly recognized that the sweeping roundup of immigrants in the anti-communist Palmer Raids in the United States after World War I, or the internment of Japanese people during World War II, was racist and xenophobic. But how many can see the racist, anti-immigrant character of state repression while it is taking place--like right now? That's the time when clear thinking and instinctive solidarity with communities under siege must kick in. "Seeking Terrorist Plots, the FBI Is Tracking Hundreds of Muslims" blared a front-age article in the Oct. 6 New York Times. The article explained that "senior law enforcement officials say the surveillance campaign is being carried out by every major FBI office in the country and involves 24- hour monitoring of the suspects' telephone calls, e-mail messages and Internet use, as well as scrutiny of their credit-card charges, their travel and their visits to neighborhood gathering places, including mosques. "The campaign, which has also involved efforts to recruit the suspects' friends and family members as government informers, has raised alarm from civil liberties groups and some Arab-American and Muslim leaders." An unnamed senior law enforcement official said, "The terrorists don't know it, but we're listening in all the time." Terrorists? None of the people monitored has been convicted of any crime. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? On Oct. 4, for example, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the arrests of four U.S. citizens in Portland, Ore., accusing them of "plotting after the Sept. 11 attacks to join with Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in a 'jihad' against the United States." Two other people named as suspects were reportedly being hunted overseas. (New York Times, Oct. 5) Prosecutors claim that the six tried to travel to Afghanistan, supposedly to join Al Qaeda after 9/11, but were unable to complete their trip. That's it. Yet from this allegedly aborted trip spring these charges: conspiracy to wage war against the United States, conspiracy to provide material support and resources to Al Qaeda, conspiracy to contribute services to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and possessing firearms to further crimes of violence. (New York Post, Oct. 5) If convicted, they could spend the rest of their lives in prison cells. How did the investigation of the six begin? On Sept. 29, 2001, a sheriff's deputy in Washington state said he was responding to a noise complaint and discovered some people in "Middle Eastern attire" firing weapons at a gravel pit. They were breaking no laws. But, reported the New York Post, "the clothing and foreign accent" of one of the men, a Jordanian citizen, "stuck in his mind," so the deputy notified the FBI. In recent weeks, arrests of 11 people in separate cases in Lackawanna, N.Y., Detroit and Seattle have been widely heralded in headlines as blows against "terrorism." But buried in the Oct. 5 Times report are more understated caveats like this: "Defense lawyers, civil libertarians and Muslim leaders have questioned the strength of the evidence in cases like the one brought today. "Privately, even some law enforcement officials expressed skepticism that the people arrested recently represented as serious a threat as the Justice Department maintains." Future generations will be horrified at the state repression of the Bush/Ashcroft gang. But it's what present generations of activists do that matters most. That's why the demand to stop the racist mass roundups of Arab, South Asian and Muslim people in the United States will be voiced in full throat at the Oct. 26 protest in Washington, D.C. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
