Federal Court Urged to Allow Post 9/11 Religious Profiling Suit to Proceed

[Puregonzo1188]

Today the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) urged a federal court judge to reject the government’s efforts to halt a class action civil rights lawsuit on behalf of eight Muslim, South Asian and Arab non-citizens swept up by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and FBI in a religious profiling dragnet following 9/11. The lawsuit, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, challenges their placement in supermaximum security detention and abuse by prison guards and high level Bush administration officials.

“Our pleadings make crystal clear that John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller and other high level officials were intimately engaged in directing the religious and racial profiling that led to the abuse of our clients,” said CCR staff attorney Rachel Meeropol, who argued the case. “For almost ten years now, former 9/11 detainees have been fighting for acknowledgment that government officials, no matter what exalted position they hold, cannot get away with ordering abuse and profiling,” she explained. “This battle is far from over.”

Among other documented abuses in detention, many of the 9/11 detainees had their faces smashed into a wall where guards had pinned a t-shirt with a picture of an American flag and the words, “These colors don’t run.” The men were slammed against the t-shirt upon their entrance to MDC and told “welcome to America.” The t-shirt was smeared with blood, yet it stayed up on the wall at MDC for months.

More at http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/federal-court-urged-allow-post-9/11-religious-profiling-suit-proceed