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Jaffer also reminded attendees that in the weeks following 9/11, the U.S. government rounded up hundreds of immigrants, mostly Arabs or South Asians, almost all Muslims, falsely suggesting to the public that they were related in one way or another to the attacks. In the months and years that followed, the courts granted the government new authorities, creating national security exceptions to important human rights protections. “We should all have recognized more quickly that these were not exceptions related to national security, that they were in fact Muslim exceptions” he said.
Part of the challenge at the time, suggested Elisa Massimino, former president and CEO of Human Rights First, was that following the attacks, the government had deliberately hidden its real agenda. She recalled a visit to the Justice Department shortly after September 11 to talk to officials of those arrested: “We were looking for a sign that there was a national security strategy behind it. We said, “You are certainly not randomly rounding up Muslim people or [who] sounding muslim to someone and hoping you will catch terrorists. And that is precisely what they were doing.
But, as Massimino added, “I think my naivety was really that there was a certain level of competence within government on these issues. And that first meeting completely stripped it off. … There was no strategy behind it. It was just prejudice driven by fear.
Executive Director of the ACLU Antoine Romero expressed the same bitterness at the government’s development of national security policies as part of the fight against terrorism in order to circumvent international conventions relating to human rights and the application of national laws. “The war on terror paradigm is one that we have fought against. But I wish we had never fallen prey to its use, ”he said. “Once [we had] full evidence of the commission of torture and that [the government] had acted so illegally… we should have removed them.
Roth added: “The only point where I think we went wrong is that we allowed the discussion to focus exclusively on torture, rather than… cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. [We should have] got people to think about humane treatment, you know, do you want the cop in your local constituency to ask you about these techniques? “
The panelists’ link between national security and law enforcement suggested that amid burgeoning social justice movements and intersectional awareness, a more effective response may be possible.
“The context [after 9/11] was really around monitoring Muslim communities, ”said panelist Linda Sarsour, co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March and former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York. “[There were] many times the movement could have initially engaged in solidarity and examined the links between national security and the police apparatus in the United States, and how that affects people of color. We could have had a whole great conversation that really could have created a lot of power. “
Sarsour concluded: “What I hope we have now is this idea that we can’t have these silo fights anymore. … We are not going to talk about criminal justice reform without also talking about national security reform.
A. Adam Glenn is a writer / editor at the Knight First Amendment Institute.
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