Pakistanis on the Run in US

09/10/2003| IslamWeb

Pakistanis staying in the US allege that they are being tormented and subjected to severe physical abuse on the pretext of being terrorists. According to a Daily Times report, several Pakistani citizens have been kept in solitary confinement and made to live without food and water for weeks together. Quoting an unnamed American journalist who had filed a report on the issue, the paper claimed that such treatment of Muslims continues unabated in the US. It further went on to say that despite clarifications being issued on several occasions, Muslims are being "profiled" because of America's obsession with security. Citing the case of a Pakistani Muslim who heads the technology department at the London legal firm of Willoughby and Partners, the report said he was detained in Los Angeles and interrogated on the suspicion of being a terrorist. For the first 12 hours, he was refused access to a telephone. After going hungry for 16 hours when he asked for food he was given ham sandwiches, which he could not eat as pork consumption is prohibited under Islamic laws. The authorities, however, refused to entertain him on this count as well. He was eventually escorted back to the airport in handcuffs and deported. The report further said that the executive's computer was confiscated and all the data was deleted. A letter written to US authorities by his firm's solicitors seeking an explanation produced a throwaway answer. In another case, a Pakistani was evidently picked out, treated with contempt and denied entry to the country because of his religion and possibly his ethnic antecedents. His family came to Britain decades ago from Pakistan. But in a sense he was lucky because he was not detained or beaten by prison guards. All those things have happened to a number of non-American's swept off the streets at the order of Attorney General John Ashcroft. The inmates have not been allowed to consult lawyers and habeas corpus efforts made on their behalf on American mainland have been turned down by the courts on the ground that Camp Delta, Guantanamo in Cuba where the terror suspects are detained, is not US territory. Another case is that of Anser Mehmood, a Pakistani who had overstayed his visa. Mehmood was shackled in handcuffs, leg irons and a belly chain and taken to a detention centre in Brooklyn. Guards there put two more sets of handcuffs on him and another set of leg irons. One threw Mehmood against a wall. The guards forced him to run down a long ramp, the irons cutting into his wrists and ankles. The physical abuse was mixed with verbal insinuations. It was only after two weeks that Mehmood was allowed to make a phone call to his wife. She was not at home and he was told that he would have to wait six weeks for his next call. All the time, he was kept in a windowless cell in solitary confinement with two overhead fluorescent lights on all the time. In the end, he was charged with using an invalid social security card. He was deported in May 2002, nearly eight months after his arrest. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Pakistan-US flags.