US Human Rights Network
Press release
14
April 2004
US-based rights groups to address UN Human Rights Commission on US
government "anti-terror" violations
(Geneva) -- As hundreds continue to languish in a US Naval Base
in Guantánamo Bay and in prisons around the US -with no idea of when they may
be tried or released -members of the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) planned
today to urge members of the UN Commission on Human Rights, currently meeting
in Geneva, to focus their attention on human rights violations conducted by the
US in the name of "security" and the "war on terror" and to
establish a special mechanism to monitor such violations.
"In an overzealous attempt to strike at 'terror', the US
government has actually succeeded in terrorizing hundreds of families in the US
and around the world - families whose relatives have become victims of
this war being conducted in the name of national security," said Ahmad
Tansheet, of the USHRN and the Muslim Civil Rights Center. "Security and
human rights are two sides of the same coin - you cannot have one
without the other. And at the moment, Arab and Muslim Americans are confident
of neither."
"Military-style policing and criminalization of migrant and
other minority communities in the US through wide-scale detentions and
deportations are tearing apart families and communities," said Colin
Rajah, of the USHRN and the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
"Furthermore, stepped up militarization at US borders under the guise of
'defending the homeland against potential terrorists' has caused more rights
violations and migrant deaths."
"It is therefore imperative that this Commission establishes a new
mechanism to monitor the impact of counter-terror measures undertaken by states
like the US on human rights generally and migrant rights specifically,"
said Rajah.
"Overall, more than 200,000 Muslims and Arabs have been affected by US
government actions carried out on the basis of race, religion and national
origin - leaving many American Muslims wondering whether they enjoy the
right to live in the US as equal citizens," said Tansheet. "People
like Imran Qadir, a 22-year old student from Pakistan, who only two weeks ago
was stopped by police on a Pennsylvania highway on the basis of his appearance.
He now faces deportation without a hearing all because he was 'rude to the
police' three years ago while being fined for speeding.
"Or people like Ansar Mahmood, a 25-year old
Pakistani-American arrested after security guards in a park thought he looked
'suspicious.' Although not charged with any crime, he has remained in detention
for over two years and now faces deportation on the grounds that he had once
helped a friend who did not have a valid visa to find an apartment."
"The escalating acceptance - and even
institutionalization -of human rights violations by the US government against
detainees in Guantánamo Bay and migrant and minority communities in the
US -- under the pretext of combating terrorism -- must be exposed and
stopped," said Rajah. "We are calling on the UN Commission on Human
Rights to do its part to ensure the enjoyment of all human rights by all people
in the US."
/ENDS
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