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Please spread the message where ever you will be during the next weeks!
Thank you so much,
Annette in Heidelberg - Germany
German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia
Dear co-strugglers for Mumia,
this is our call for action - sign the online-petition to the Justices of the US Supreme Court.
We launched it at the beginning of March in Germany and Austria - and it is growing fast now.
It was already signed by Noam Chomsky, Frances Goldin, Robert Meeropol, Harold Wilson, Colin Firth, Anthony Arnove, Marc Taylor, Julia Wright, Pam Africa, Veronica Jones and so many others.
The updated letter with the 3500th signature was sent to the Justices this Easter Monday, April 13.
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/supreme/petition.html
Support Mumia in this most dangerous state of his life.
Please spread it as far as you can! Post it, send it around, use all your powerful means of creating news and attention.
German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.inprisonmywholelife.com
www.mumia-hoerbuch.de
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Celebrate the release of the new book by Mumia Abu-Jamal:
"Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners vs. the USA"
Friday, April 24th (Mumia's birthday!), 6:30 P.M.
Humanist Hall
411 - 28th Street, Oakland
$25.00 donation or what you can afford.
Featuring:
Angely Y. Davis
Mistah F.A.B.
Lynne Stewart
Tory Serra
Avotcja
Kiilu Nyasha
JR Minister of Information POCC
Ed Mead
Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia
Molotov Mouths
Prison Radio, 415-648-4505
www.prisonradio.org
www.mumia.org
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4/26/2009 SF Speak-out and Video With UE Chicago Republic Workers And Screening
Sunday April 26, 2006 2:00 PM
ILWU Local 34
2nd St and Embarcadero on the left side of AT&T Park
The UE Republic workers of Chicago who occupied their factory to demand their pay and compensation as a result of their factories closure will be speaking and screening a labor film of their occupation on Sunday April 26, 2009 at 2:00 PM in San Francisco at ILWU Local 34 next to AT&T at 2nd St & Embarcadero St. in San Francisco.
The meeting which is being hosted by ILWU Local 34 and also sponsored by Laborfest.net, UPWA.info, Transport Workers Solidarity Committee and other unions and organizations will be the first eye witness report of this important event which electrified the US labor movement. As a result of protests throughout the country including San Francisco at the Bank Of America, the workers won their demands. Bay area workers who are in struggle will also speak at this forum.
To endorse, support or to get more information about this labor solidarity event contact
(415)282-1908 or lvpsf@labornet.org
YouTube - Angry Laid-off Workers Occupy Factory in Chicago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNIQ1-ghsPs
http://www.ueunion.org/uerepublic.html
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Write a letter to Congress today!
'Right to Travel to Cuba' bills introduced in Congress
Thousands of people are writing to tell Congress: End the travel ban to Cuba. A "Right to Travel to Cuba" bill has been introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The bill is simple and self-explanatory: it would end all restrictions on travel from the United States to Cuba. The bill has received bipartisan support, and already has 123 co-sponsors in the House, and 20 in the Senate.
President Obama has proposed lifting travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans. These bills call for the lifting of travel restrictions for all people in the United States. The travel restrictions are part of the larger economic blockade of Cuba. The blockade, which uses food and medicine as a weapon against the Cuban people, must be brought to an end as well.
Please take a moment right now to write members and Congress and tell them you support these important bills. We suggest the following letter, but by clicking this link, you can customize it however you like.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=239
I fully support the Right to Travel to Cuba bills, H.R.874 and S.428, that were introduced in Congress, Feb. 2009. Polls show a strong majority of Americans support a lifting of the travel ban.
It is time that this policy--which harms those in Cuba as well as those in the United States--come to an end.
It is a welcome development that President Obama is lifting restrictions on travel to Cuba for Cuban-Americans, as well as the right to send remittances to their loved ones in Cuba.
Now Congress has the opportunity, and responsibility, to extend that right to all citizens and residents of the United States.
Please act today and become a co-sponsor of H.R.874 or S.428. If you have already done so, I appreciate your positive and just action on behalf of my right to travel to Cuba.
Please take a moment right now and forward this email to your friends and family members and on social networking sites. Thank you!
In Solidarity,
ANSWER Coalition
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) You Are Being Lied to About Pirates
By Johann Hari
The Independent
January 5, 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html
2) Civilians Died in Airstrike by NATO, Afghan Says
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
April 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/world/asia/14afghan.html?ref=world
3) Cuba Will Continue to Resist
Not a Word About the Blockade
By Fidel Castro Ruz
April 14, 2009
Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.com/castro04142009.html
4) Guantánamo Detainee Calls Al Jazeera
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:55 p.m. ET
April 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/14/us/AP-CB-Guantanamo-FirstI.html?ref=world
5) Study Sees More Young Citizens With Parents in the U.S. Illegally
By JULIA PRESTON
April 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/us/15immig.html?ref=us
6) California: Proposed Layoff of Some Teachers Is Halted
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 15, 2009
National Briefing | West
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/us/15brfs-PROPOSEDLAYO_BRF.html?ref=us
7) Study Says Police Misuse Immigration-Inquiry Rule
By NINA BERNSTEIN
April 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/nyregion/15immigration.html?ref=nyregion
8) California: A.C.L.U. Criticizes Jail
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | West
April 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16brfs-ACLUCRITICIZ_BRF.html?ref=us
9) Florida: Jurors Denounce Arrest
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
April 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16brfs-JURORSDENOUN_BRF.html?ref=us
10) Interpreter for F.B.I. Thinks Interrogators Beat Terror Suspect
By BENJAMIN WEISER
April 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/nyregion/16embassy.html?ref=us
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1) You Are Being Lied to About Pirates
By Johann Hari
The Independent
January 5, 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-you-are-being-lied-to-about-pirates-1225817.html
Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy-backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the U.S. to China-is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as "one of the great menace of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell-and some justice on their side.
Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy"-from 1650 to 1730-the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage thief that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda-heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often rescued from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains of All Nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence to find out. If you became a merchant or navy sailor then-plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry-you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off for a second, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked consistently, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.
Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied against their tyrannical captains-and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly-and subversively-that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.
The words of one pirate from that lost age-a young British man called William Scott-should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirating to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia-in the Horn of Africa-collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since-and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury-you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, which seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation-and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300 million worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia's unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100 kilometers south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
This is the context in which the men we are calling "pirates" have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia-and it's not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters... We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas." William Scott would understand those words.
No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters-especially those who have held up World Food Program supplies. But the "pirates" have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking-and it found 70 percent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defense of the country's territorial waters." During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America's founding fathers paid pirates to protect America's territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?
Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn't act on those crimes-but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world's oil supply, we begin to shriek about "evil." If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause-our crimes-before we send in the gunboats to root out Somalia's criminals.
The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarized by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today-but who is the robber?
POSTSCRIPT: Some commentators seem bemused by the fact that both toxic dumping and the theft of fish are happening in the same place-wouldn't this make the fish contaminated? In fact, Somalia's coastline is vast, stretching to 3300km. Imagine how easy it would be-without any coastguard or army-to steal fish from Florida and dump nuclear waste on California, and you get the idea. These events are happening in different places-but with the same horrible effect: death for the locals, and stirred-up piracy. There's no contradiction.
Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent newspaper
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2) Civilians Died in Airstrike by NATO, Afghan Says
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA
April 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/world/asia/14afghan.html?ref=world
KABUL, Afghanistan - An airstrike by NATO forces early Monday in mountainous eastern Afghanistan killed six civilians, including two children, a local Afghan official said, the latest accusation of civilian casualties leveled against NATO and American forces.
NATO officials confirmed the raid but said that only insurgents suspected of planning attacks on the alliance's outposts had been killed.
The Afghan official, Zalmay Yousufzai, the governor of Watapor district in Kunar Province, said that NATO helicopters destroyed one house and damaged several others. In addition to the 6 civilians killed, he said, 14 were wounded. Four of the wounded were hospitalized, he said.
The airstrike followed an attack in Khost Province last week by American-led forces that left at least four civilians dead.
Afghan and American military officials agreed this year to better coordinate airstrikes and raids in hopes of reducing civilian casualties. Mr. Yousufzai said there had been "no coordination with us" before Monday's raid.
A reporter for Agence France-Presse said the wounded at a nearby hospital included two men, a woman and a 14-year-old boy who said he had been told that four members of his family had been killed.
"We were asleep, and all of a sudden the roof collapsed," the boy, who gave his name only as Zakirullah, told the news agency. "I don't remember anything. I got to know here that my father, my mother, my brother and my younger sister have all been killed, and I am wounded."
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said that "multiple intelligence sources" identified the dead as "four to eight enemy fighters" and that the attack came after "intelligence intercepts indicated the hostile intent of the enemy" to attack outposts.
A force spokesman said it would investigate whether there were civilian casualties. "We deeply regret any possible civilian injuries caused by our operations against the enemy," said the spokesman, Capt. Mark Durkin.
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3) Cuba Will Continue to Resist
Not a Word About the Blockade
By Fidel Castro Ruz
April 14, 2009
Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.com/castro04142009.html
The U.S. administration announced through CNN that Obama would be visiting Mexico this week, in the first part of a trip that will take him to Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, where he will be within four days taking part in the Summit of the Americas. He has announced the relief of some hateful restrictions imposed by Bush to Cubans living in the United States regarding their visits to relatives in Cuba. When questions were raised on whether such prerogatives extended to other American citizens the response was that the latter were not authorized.
But not a word was said about the harshest of measures: the blockade. This is the way a truly genocidal measure is piously called, one whose damage cannot be calculated only on the basis of its economic effects, for it constantly takes human lives and brings painful suffering to our people.
Numerous diagnostic equipment and crucial medicines-made in Europe, Japan or any other country-are not available to our patients if they carry U.S. components or software.
The U.S. companies producing goods or offering services anywhere in the world should apply these restrictions to Cuba, since they are extraterritorial measures.
An influential Republican Senator, Richard Lugar, and some others from his same party in Congress, as well as a significant number of his Democratic peers, favor the removal of the blockade. The conditions exist for Obama to use his talents in a constructive policy that could put an end to the one that has failed for almost half a century.
On the other hand, our country, which has resisted and is willing to resist whatever it takes, neither blames Obama for the atrocities of other U.S. administrations nor doubts his sincerity and his wishes to change the United States policy and image. We understand that he waged a very difficult battle to be elected, despite centuries-old prejudices.
Taking note of this reality, the President of the State Council of Cuba has expressed his willingness to have a dialogue with Obama and to normalize relations with the United States, on the basis of the strictest respect for the sovereignty of our country.
At 2:30 p.m., the head of the Interests Section of Cuba in Washington, Jorge Bolaños, was summoned to the State Department by Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Shannon. He did not say anything different from what had been indicated by the CNN.
At 3:15 p.m. a lengthy press conference started. The substance of what was said there is reflected in the words of Dan Restrepo, Presidential Adviser for Latin America.
He said that today President Obama had instructed to take certain measures, certain steps, to reach out to the Cuban people in support of their wishes to live with respect for human rights and to determine their own destiny and that of the country.
He added that the President had instructed the secretaries of State, Commerce and Treasury to undertake the necessary actions to remove all restrictions preventing persons to visit their relatives in the Island and sending remittances. He also said that the President had issued instructions for steps to be taken allowing the free flow of information in Cuba, and between those living in Cuba and the rest of the world, and to facilitate delivering humanitarian resources directly to the Cuban people.
He also said that with these measures, aimed at closing the gap between divided Cuban families and promoting the free flow of information and humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people, President Obama was making an effort to fulfill the objectives he set out during his campaign and after taking on his position.
Finally, he indicated that all those who believe in the basic democratic values hope for a Cuba where the human, political, economic and basic rights of the entire people are respected. And he added that President Obama feels that these measures will help to make this objective a reality. The President, he said, encourages everyone who shares these wishes to continue to decidedly support the Cuban people.
At the end of the press conference, the adviser candidly confessed that "all of this is for Cuba's freedom."
Cuba does not applaud the ill-named Summits of the Americas, where our nations do not debate on equal footing. If they were of any use, it would be to make critical analyses of policies that divide our peoples, plunder our resources and hinder our development.
Now, the only thing left is for Obama to try to persuade all of the Latin American Presidents attending the conference that the blockade is harmless.
Cuba has resisted and it will continue to resist; it will never beg for alms. It will go on forward holding its head up high and cooperating with the fraternal peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean; with or without Summits of the Americas; whether or not the president of the United States is Obama, a man or a woman, a black or a white citizen.
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4) Guantánamo Detainee Calls Al Jazeera
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:55 p.m. ET
April 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/04/14/us/AP-CB-Guantanamo-FirstI.html?ref=world
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A Guantanamo detainee phoned a Middle Eastern TV network to say he was severely beaten for refusing to leave his cell, giving the first media interview with someone held at the U.S. prison in Cuba.
Mohammed el Gharani, a 21-year-old from Chad, told Al-Jazeera that guards beat him with batons and sprayed him with tear gas, according to the network. The comments were published on its Web site Tuesday.
The U.S. has never allowed journalists to interview Guantanamo prisoners and Al-Jazeera did not say how it managed to speak with el Gharani.
A spokesman for the prison, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brook DeWalt, told The Miami Herald that el Gharani apparently used one of his weekly phone calls to his family to speak to the reporter. The spokesman also said there was no evidence to substantiate the abuse claims.
DeWalt and lawyers for el Gharani did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
El Gharani did not give the date of the alleged abuse but said it occurred after the election of President Barack Obama, who has ordered Guantanamo closed by the end of the year.
The prisoner says he refused to leave his cell because he was not being permitted to interact with other detainees and was denied "normal food." He said a group of six soldiers in protective gear removed him from the cell and beat him, breaking one of his front teeth.
"I could hardly see or breathe," el Gharani said.
A U.S. judge ordered el Gharani released in January, dismissing as unreliable the military's allegations that he was part of al-Qaida and had worked for the Taliban in Afghanistan. He is held in a section of Guantanamo where prisoners are permitted more privileges while he awaits release.
El Gharani was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 at a mosque by local police and turned over to U.S. forces in 2002. He was one of the first Guantanamo Bay detainees and one of the youngest.
The U.S. holds about 240 men at the U.S. base in Cuba, most on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.
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5) Study Sees More Young Citizens With Parents in the U.S. Illegally
By JULIA PRESTON
April 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/us/15immig.html?ref=us
The number of American citizen children who have at least one parent who is an illegal immigrant has increased rapidly since 2003, according to a report published on Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.
About four million American children have at least one parent who lacks legal immigration status, the group found. And 73 percent of all children of illegal immigrants are American citizens. In 2003, 2.7 million American children had parents without legal status. The increase stems from the relatively young age of the immigrants, who have children soon after they settle in the United States, the report said.
Children of illegal immigrants are more than twice as likely to live with two parents than children of United States citizens, according to the report. In all, about 8.8 million people in the United States are in families that include parents who are illegal immigrants and children who are American citizens.
About three-quarters of the nation's illegal immigrants are Hispanic.
The findings are likely to be another point of contention between advocates for immigrants and groups that favor more aggressive immigration enforcement.
In the last two years of the Bush administration, immigration authorities stepped up raids in factories and immigrant communities, and a record 349,000 immigrants were deported in 2008.
Civil rights and advocacy groups protested that the raids were dividing families and leading to de facto deportations of children with American citizenship who went to live in their parents' home countries. Groups that advocate stricter enforcement say that illegal immigrants who have been deported have the choice of taking their American children with them or leaving them in the United States.
In the first months of the Obama administration, the raids have slowed to a near halt. After an operation by immigration agents in February at an engine plant in Bellingham, Wash., Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ordered a review to produce a new enforcement strategy, which she said would focus primarily on abusive employers instead of immigrant workers.
The Pew report, by Jeffrey S. Passel and D'Vera Cohn, analyzed census data from March 2008. It is the first time in five years that Pew has closely examined family situations of illegal immigrants. It used a method for estimating the number of illegal immigrants that is widely accepted, including by government researchers and groups favoring reduced immigration.
In all, 5.5 million children living in the United States have parents who are illegal immigrants, an increase of 1.2 million children since 2003, the report found. Nearly 7 percent of students in public elementary and secondary schools are children of illegal immigrants, the report said.
About one-third of children of illegal immigrants live in poverty, nearly double the 18 percent poverty rate for children of United States citizens, the report found. In 2007, the median household income for illegal immigrants was $36,000, substantially below the $50,000 median for citizens.
The report found signs that the rapid upward mobility long associated with new immigrants had stalled for the current generation of illegal immigrants.
"In contrast to other immigrants," the report said, "undocumented immigrants do not attain markedly higher incomes the longer they live in the United States."
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6) California: Proposed Layoff of Some Teachers Is Halted
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 15, 2009
National Briefing | West
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/us/15brfs-PROPOSEDLAYO_BRF.html?ref=us
The Los Angeles Board of Education has rescinded a proposed layoff of nearly 2,000 elementary school teachers, but the jobs of almost 6,000 teachers and support personnel are still slated to be cut. The board voted to use federal stimulus money to save 1,996 elementary school jobs in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The district, the nation's second-largest school system, faces a $596 million budget shortfall for the 2009-10 school year. The teachers' union, United Teachers Los Angeles, is calling on the school board to use all the federal stimulus money and cut other costs to eliminate all layoffs.
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7) Study Says Police Misuse Immigration-Inquiry Rule
By NINA BERNSTEIN
April 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/nyregion/15immigration.html?ref=nyregion
Many police officers in New Jersey are misusing a 2007 directive by the state's attorney general by questioning the immigration status of Latino drivers, passengers, pedestrians and even crime victims, reporting them to federal immigration authorities and jailing some for days without criminal charges, according to a Seton Hall Law School study.
"The data suggests a disturbing trend towards racial profiling by the New Jersey police," said Bassina Farbenblum, a lawyer with the law school's Center for Social Justice, which gathered details of 68 cases over the past nine months in which people were questioned about their immigration status for no apparent reason, or after minor infractions, like rolling through a stop sign. None involved drunken driving or the use of false documents.
David Wald, a spokesman for the attorney general, Anne Milgram, said on Tuesday that she would look into the cases cited, after asking the center - which did not provide names in its report - to identify the individuals involved. "We welcome the center's input, but we question their conclusions," Mr. Wald said. "We don't believe that New Jersey police are arresting individuals just to enforce federal immigration laws."
As the Obama administration pushes for a legislative path to legal status for millions now vulnerable to deportation, the report underscores a disconnect between the changed tone on immigration in Washington and what is happening on the ground.
In one case it cited, police officers questioned a man at the Camden train station after asking to see his ticket. Unable to show one, he was arrested and held for seven days before being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (The Camden police did not return calls for comment.)
Elsewhere, another man was transferred to immigration agents after being held for four months, cited only for driving without a license. And a woman who showed her Argentine license at a "car checkpoint" was detained, then turned over to federal immigration agents even though a judge told her there were no charges against her.
The New Jersey directive ordered the police to inquire about immigration status when arresting someone for an indictable crime or for driving while intoxicated. The directive is silent on lesser offenses, but forbids the authorities from questioning the victims or witnesses of crime about their immigration status.
Issued in the aftermath of the murders of three young people in a Newark schoolyard in August 2007, it was spurred by TV and radio talk-show outrage that one of the suspects was an illegal immigrant who had been released on bail for an earlier offense. Critics, including some police chiefs and many immigrant advocates, called the directive a recipe for racial profiling - a public issue with an ugly history in the state, and one state law enforcers had worked for years to overcome with the help of a federal monitor.
Last year, as complaints accumulated about immigrants unfairly detained, advocates called for modification of the order. But the attorney general, saying that the directive helps keep dangerous criminals in custody, dismissed the criticism as speculation based on anecdote. She called for the advocates of modification to supply "real evidence that the directive is being abused."
The Seton Hall report was an effort to answer that challenge, Ms. Farbenblum said. Of the 68 cases, collected from immigration lawyers across the state, 65 involved Latinos; the others were from Spain, Haiti and Kazakhstan, according to the report.
It also listed seven incidents in which Latinos who sought police help were questioned about their immigration status, in direct violation of the directive.
One woman told the center that she had called the police to her Plainfield home to protect her from domestic violence, but that they threatened to call the federal enforcement agency.
A man told of going to the Mount Holly police station to report that his passport had been lost, only to be detained for 16 days after police found some unpaid parking tickets, and turned over to immigration agents. The police in Mount Holly did not respond to questions about cases involving the directive.
Ms. Farbenblum said the cases in the report are "the tip of the iceberg," since many noncitizens are reluctant to come forward or never see a lawyer, and the police are not required to report their questioning of immigrants in such cases. Police resources are being diverted from serious crime prevention, breaking down the trust necessary for effective policing in a state with the nation's third highest immigrant population, the report contends.
In the first six months after the directive was issued, the police referred 10,000 people to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but only 1,417 of them were charged with immigration violations, government data shows. Many others were legal residents or United States citizens.
A current case identified by Maria Juega, a board member of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, is the April 2 arrest of Eber Gonzalez Mazariegos, who made a U-turn in Mount Holly. Stopped by the police, he showed his Guatemalan license.
Though he has neither a deportation order nor any criminal record, and though his family paid a $300 fine, Ms. Juega said, Mr. Gonzalez was held over the weekend, then transferred to immigration custody in the Middlesex County Jail. He is still waiting to see an immigration judge.
A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Harold A. Ort, said the agency had not yet seen the report. He noted that the agency prohibited racial profiling, and that Secretary Janet Napolitano had ordered a review of all recent immigration enforcement initiatives.
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8) California: A.C.L.U. Criticizes Jail
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | West
April 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16brfs-ACLUCRITICIZ_BRF.html?ref=us
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California is calling for the closing of the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail, saying it is so overcrowded and brutal that it threatens the mental health of inmates. The conditions are "medieval and drive men mad," Melinda Bird, a senior counsel for the group, said at a news conference on Tuesday. Mary Tiedeman, the group's jail project coordinator, said she routinely saw inmates with "black eyes and bruised bodies" who contend that other prisoners or guards beat them. Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for Sheriff Lee Baca, said that any accusations of violence by guards were reviewed by the county's Office of Independent Review.
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9) Florida: Jurors Denounce Arrest
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
April 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16brfs-JURORSDENOUN_BRF.html?ref=us
Four jurors who acquitted an Egyptian college student of federal explosives charges criticized immigration authorities for trying to deport him, saying it was a "blatant disregard" of their verdict. The jurors were among 12 who found the student, Youssef Samir Megahed, 23, not guilty on April 3. Three days after Mr. Megahed walked free, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him. A document ordering Mr. Megahed to appear in immigration court said he was being deported based on the circumstances that resulted in the federal charges, said his lawyer, Adam Allen. "This sure looks and feels like some sort of 'double jeopardy' even if it doesn't precisely fit the legal definition of that prohibited practice," the jurors said in a statement. Mr. Megahed is a legal permanent resident who moved to the United States with his family when he was 11.
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10) Interpreter for F.B.I. Thinks Interrogators Beat Terror Suspect
By BENJAMIN WEISER
April 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/nyregion/16embassy.html?ref=us
An interpreter for the F.B.I. during an interrogation of a suspect in the terrorist bombing of the American Embassy in Kenya in 1998 now says that she heard sounds and pleading that led her to believe that the suspect was being beaten, and that she was so traumatized by the incident that she fled from the room, newly filed court documents show.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who wrote that the interpreter made the claim only recently, have provided a summary of her statement to a lawyer for the suspect, Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali who was convicted in 2001 in the attack, which killed more than 200 people, and was sentenced to life in prison.
The interpreter's account is vivid and detailed, the summary showed. During the interrogation, in Kenya, she said, she was separated from Mr. al-'Owhali, a Saudi, by a partition, which prevented him from seeing her face. But she was able to hear him, she said, and "from sounds emanating from the interrogation room," she concluded that he was being beaten.
At one point, he shouted to her, "Sister, please make them stop beating me," the document said.
The summary said that American and Kenyan officials were present during the questioning, although it does not identify them further. The document also did not explain why she waited so long to report her observations, whom she finally told, and under what circumstances.
The document reported that she said that "this incident is the reason she does not wish to ever participate in another interrogation."
The interpreter's account is unusual in that it goes beyond what Mr. al-'Owhali and his lawyers have claimed about the conditions of his interrogation. Prosecutors have said that the questioning was carried out properly, and that Mr. al-'Owhali confessed to his role in the attack, which al Qaeda carried out simultaneously with a bombing of the American Embassy in Tanzania.
Mr. al-'Owhali's lawyers unsuccessfully sought to have his confession suppressed before his trial in 2001, partly on grounds that it had been coerced. In an affidavit at the time, Mr. al-'Owhali said that during many days of interrogation, American and Kenyan officials berated him with insults about his religion and threats of violence against him and his family.
He said that one F.B.I. agent told him: "You will be hanged from your neck like a dog." But Mr. al-'Owhali did not say that he had been beaten.
Mr. al-'Owhali's conviction was upheld by a federal appeals court last November. His lawyer, Frederick H. Cohn, said in court papers filed on Wednesday that he interviewed his client this week in the federal prison known as the supermax, in Florence, Colo., and that although Mr. al-'Owhali again said he had not been beaten, he said an agent squeezed his wrist, which had been injured earlier.
Mr. Cohn said the pain did not, in his client's view, "amount to torture," but "was what he was referring to when he cried out to the interpreter."
Mr. Cohn said that his client did not ask the interpreter to "make them stop beating me," but rather had "begged her to make them stop hurting him."
Mr. Cohn argued that the discrepancy was "a distinction without a difference." He said that beyond the issue of whether abuse had occurred was the matter of how the translator's version conflicted with the testimony of an F.B.I. agent who, in a pretrial suppression hearing, had "characterized the interrogation of al-'Owhali as civilized to the point that it resembled a Victorian tea," as Mr. Cohn put it.
A federal judge found that American agents made no threats, and allowed Mr. al-'Owhali's statement to be used at his trial. Had he been aware of the interpreter's account, he might have ruled differently, Mr. Cohn suggested.
The United States attorney's office and the F.B.I. in New York declined to comment. Mr. Cohn is seeking a hearing to investigate the incident.
The document does not identify the interpreter, but it says that she was "terrified and ran from the room." It added that an American official convinced her to return. A few days later, she was replaced by another interpreter, it says.
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