THE HERETIK JOE IVORY MATTINGLY WANTS TO BELIEVE HE WILL WAKE UP FROM A BAD DREAM!
But this story of two illegal immigrant teenage Muslim girls with suicidal thoughts who talk in a chat room and are labelled threats to not themselves, but the United States is a continuing nightmare.
Think about the number of non Muslim girls who have suicidal thoughts and talk in chat rooms that haven't been rounded up yet! Such teenage girls pose an incredible threat to us all. Or maybe it is the people who are rounding up such girls and keeping them away from their families that are the theat.
FROM JEANNE@ BODY AND SOUL: Teenage Wasteland
Chris has a good post
up on the latest case of immigrants abused in the name of security. Two
Muslim teenage girls are in custody based on an extremely vague charge
that they "plan to be suicide bombers."
Officials have offered no evidence, and the girls' families and friends
say there is none. An investigation apparently began when the
Bangladeshi family of one of the girls went to the police over a family
problem -- the girl staying out overnight. The police searched the
girl's belongings, including her computer, and found a school essay on
suicide. According to her family, the essay argued that suicide is
against Islamic law. Apparently being too pious is also now reason for suspicion
>>>>>FROM CHRIS @ BOOK OF DAYS:
It's been some time since the rights of immigrants, like those so famously swept up in the post-9/11 roundups and held for months without charges, claimed the public's attention. Perhaps it's time for a new wave of outrage --- this time on behalf of a pair of teenage girls, whose only crime may have been to talk to one another.
I'm actually a little astonished at
how little I've seen in the blogosphere about Nina Bernstein's
excellent series this week on two Muslim teenagers held by Homeland
Security -- for , it appears, a chat room conversation. Neighbors, friends and teachers are outraged:
FROM THE NY TIMES:
According to a government document
provided to The New York Times by a federal official earlier this week,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation has asserted that both girls are
"an imminent threat to the security of the United States based on
evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers." No evidence was cited,
and federal officials will not comment on the case.
. . . .The Guinean girl entered the United States with her family in 1990 on a visitor visa, according to the document, and lives with her parents along with four siblings who are United States citizens. She and her parents have overstayed their original visas, it said, and her father has been arrested on immigration charges.
The Bangladeshi girl entered the country in 1994, according to the document, and her mother unsuccessfully applied for asylum. Two of her three siblings were born here.
According to Mr. Carroll, the parents of the Bangladeshi girl, who live in Queens Village, went to the local police station house several weeks ago, seeking a complaint against their teenage daughter, who had defied their authority. The family dispute was soon resolved, and they then tried to withdraw the complaint, which they believe set off the investigation.
Police detectives, and then federal immigration agents, searched her belongings and confiscated her computer and the essays that she had written as part of a home schooling program, according to the family. One essay concerned suicide. The family maintained that the essay asserted that suicide is against Islamic law, but it led investigators to question her sharply about her political beliefs.
Detectives from the precinct went to the girl's home to question her about two weeks before her arrest, Mr. Carroll said, asking about her absence from a public high school since September. The mother said her daughter would be schooled at home and was seeking a high school equivalency degree because of conflicts between her Islamic dress code - a full veil - and the school's dress code.
According to the family, the detectives, who had no warrant, searched the house and the teenager's belongings. The next day, the mother received a phone call from one of the detectives, a woman, saying that her daughter had extremist beliefs and promoted concepts like suicide bombing. Both mother and daughter denied the allegation, saying that she was against such ideas.
Last night, a 20-year-old woman friend of the Bangladeshi teenager said she had known the young woman for three years and was close to her. Told of the allegations, she responded in disbelief, "That's crazy."
THE HERETIK NOTES: In these mad times, "That's crazy" may be an understatement.
Suicide is against the tenets of Islam (not that most people bother with those parts of their faith which are inconvinient). However, I was given to understand searching a home without a warrent was against the tennets of your constitution, so the door swings both ways.
Posted by: The Alchemist | April 18, 2005 at 07:25 AM
OMG, that's . . . horrible.
Posted by: bitchphd | April 18, 2005 at 07:25 PM