Support bolsters detainee

Held since 2001, Pakistani says he's confident release will come.

By Maeleeke J. Lavan
Staff Writer

DANESE KENON staff photographer

Ream Kidane, 23, of Rochester and others rally at the Batavia detention center in support of Ansar Mahmood. [Day in Photos]

(March 14, 2004) — BATAVIA — Ansar Mahmood is confident that whatever happens to him was meant to happen.

As about 50 protesters demonstrated outside the Federal Detention Facility on Saturday in support of Mahmood, the 26-year-old Pakistani detainee spoke softly into a telephone, across a glass barrier, about the outpouring of support he has received during more than two years of incarceration.

“It is a wonderful feeling now,” he said.

Mahmood has been held since an October 2001 incident in Hudson, Columbia County. With only weeks having passed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he was picked up for taking a photograph outside the gate of a water treatment plant.

Authorities cleared Mahmood of any suspected terrorist activity. However, a closer look at his past revealed that he had given financial aid to a Pakistani couple in the United States on expired visas, which is a felony.

Although ordered to be deported, Mahmood has been held in Batavia since February 2002. He wants to remain in the United States, but as a free person. The federal government is expected to soon begin reviewing his appeal.

About 17 months before he was detained, Mahmood legally came to the United States to help provide financial support to his family in Pakistan. Five brothers, three sisters and his parents remain there and do not fully understand the circumstances of his detainment, he said.

“It’s hard to explain. They know I’m all right and I know they’re all right.”

Before his incarceration, Mahmood said he was able to send home enough money for one of his sisters to attend a private school.

“They’ve got a good education,” he said of his younger siblings. “There are a lot of things to encourage me.”

The cost of international calls allows him to contact his family for about only five minutes every couple of weeks, he said.

He said there was a time when he had lost hope, but his outlook has changed. More than 30 letters, some of which are several pages long, help him to keep a positive outlook. And occasional visits and phone calls from supporters who have become friends have provided sustenance.

“Dear, dear friend and brother,” Mahmood read, smiling at the greeting of one letter he received.

He looked up and said, “I’m not saying this (detainment) is a good thing. But I think if I was outside, I wouldn’t have gotten so much love.”

His strong sense of faith in people and in God has also kept him going.

“Everything happens for a reason,” Mahmood said. “I say I’m going to be released, but I don’t know when or how. If God wants it, it will happen.”

Outside the Federal Detention Facility, members of the Ansar Mahmood Defense Committee and other supporters marched and waved signs to show their continued support for a man they say is being held for no good reason.

Aarti Shahani, a member of the New York City-based Families for Freedom, drove to Batavia from Manhattan to join the rally.

“If the community is saying give him back to us, what’s the problem?” she asked. “The whole irony behind this is that a whole group of U.S. citizens is saying ‘Give him back to us, we want him.’”

Inside, Mahmood said he doesn’t harbor resentment against the government, although he said he doesn’t know why all of this happened to him.

“This country has a lot of rules and regulations,” he said. “I believe that 95 percent of people are good, and if I stick with them I’ll be OK.”