PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Pittsburgh to protest profiling in INS special registration, Fri. Feb. 21!!
by FoD Friday, Feb. 21, 2003 at 9:28 AM
Spain

The Jamat for Justice with many local groups are having a protest on Friday, February 21st, 2003 at 12:30 PM in front of the Federal building on Grant street, 1000 Liberty ave. Speakers from ACLU, American Muslim Council, Thomas Merton Center, and other groups will be demanding an end to the Racial profiling of Muslims and Arabs

Jamaat For Justice Protest
Friday, 12:30 p.m.
Federal Building, Liberty and Grant (downtown)

Contact: Saleh Waziruddin For Immediate Release

(412) 654-6047 Tuesday, February 18, 2003


Pittsburgh to protest profiling in INS special registration



Pittsburgh, PA: The Jamat for Justice with many local groups are having a protest on Friday, February 21st, 2003 at 12:30 PM in front of the Federal building on Grant street, 1000 Liberty ave. Speakers from ACLU, American Muslim Council, Thomas Merton Center, and other groups will be demanding an end to the Racial profiling of Muslims and Arabs appearing in a series of laws passed by the government singling out individuals based on their birth place and national origin rather than on suspicious behavior. At the same time, the government is insisting on secrecy of information, refusing to release information on charges, locations of hundreds of people detained due to the INS special registration and other hundreds detained after 9/11.


Since November 2002, the INS has been singling out males from over 16 years of age from 25 countries (the list is growing) to be finger printed, photographed and questioned under oath. This process is being called "special registration". "Laws need to be applied on all, not selectively based on origin. The INS special registration comes after a series of laws and rules singling out people based on their national origin. This is pure profiling and violates the stated founding principles of this country, it also terrorizes thousands of innocent people" said Saleh, one of the organizers of the protest.


This is part of a campaign for singling out people of Middle Eastern or Muslim descent. First the department of Justice asked 8,000 men who were either American Muslims or primarily from Muslim countries to submit to "voluntary" interviews. Then the doj issued a series of laws that target individuals by national origin and faith they practice. Currently, FBI officers are ordered to count and profile mosques in cities all over the United States of America. Although Muslims have been in USA for 400 years, these actions are indications that Muslims and Arabs are a target for the government and this jeopardizes our relationship with key allies around the Muslim world.


During WWII tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans were held in concentration camps just because they were of Japanese national origin.



Protest the INS: Stop Profiling

Friday, February 21st , 2003

Federal Building, 1000 Liberty Ave( Liberty & Grant)


Endorsed by: Jamaat for Justice, American Muslim Council, ACLU, English Graduate Student Organization, Pittsburgh Professors for Peace and Justice, Islamic Council of Pittsburgh, Palestine Solidarity Committee, Zi, Thomas Merton Center, Arab Cultural Organization.


For more info contact Saleh 412 654-6047



Jamaat for Justice is an activist group of Muslims working with activists, lawyers, and the general community to solve social problems as Muslims in the United States. Current projects center around the INS's waves of "alien registration" where people in the United States are photographed, fingerprinted, and questioned under oath based on their national origin, but we don't restrict our activism to any single community whose rights are being taken away.

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