Post-9/11 dragnet snares class action lawsuit

Four Muslim men who were detained without charge for months in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, eventually cleared of any connection to terrorism but then deported to Egypt, have been allowed to return to the US to pursue their class action civil lawsuit against the US government. They are charging unlawful imprisonment and abuse on behalf of 1,200 Muslim and South Asian men rounded up and jailed following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Yasser Ebrahim, the first of the men allowed to return from Egypt gave his deposition in New York on Jan. 23. The men, who charge they suffered inhumane and degrading treatment in a Brooklyn detention center, are being allowed to participate in the case under strict conditions, including confinement to their hotel rooms and a ban on speaking to anybody outside of the case for the duration of their stay. The three other plaintiffs are expected to arrive in the US over the next two weeks. Four other deportees are parties to the suit but are not expected to return to the US for depositions. The plaintiffs charge that they were placed in solitary confinement and suffered severe beatings, incessant verbal abuse and a total blackout on communications with their families and attorneys. The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a civil rights advocacy group handling the case, said the conditions for their return to the US are highly unusual in a civil case and a sign of what they called government "paranoia over Muslim and Middle Eastern men." The case names former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller, immigration officials and prison officers among the defendants. The suit, originally filed in 2002, seeks compensation and punitive damages. CCR legal director Bill Goodman said: "Shortly after 9/11, the Department of Justice detained approximately 2,000 Muslim men, primarily from the Middle East and South Asia. Not one of these men was ever found to have been guilty of any form of terrorism, or even linked to terrorism." "These men were held for many months longer than necessary, in solitary confinement, often physically abused and under degrading conditions. The government fought tooth and nail against any judicial oversight of what was going on.This was the beginning of what has been shown to be the US policy of indefinite detention without due process, often involving torture," he said. "This lawsuit seeks to challenge and to rectify the illegal actions of the government." The plaintiffs' claims will be bolstered by a 2003 report by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General (IG), which found that some prison officers slammed prisoners against the wall, twisted their arms and hands in painful ways, stepped on their leg restraint chains and punished them by keeping them restrained for long periods of time. The IG's report also cited videotapes showing that some detention center staff "misused strip searches and restraints to punish detainees and that officers improperly and illegally recorded detainees' meetings with their attorneys." The Federal Bureau of Prisons said it had fired two people and demoted two more, and six had been suspended for periods from two days to 30 days. "It means a lot to our clients that finally someone is being held accountable for the brutality they experienced," said CCR attorney Matthew Strugar. "But we believe the responsibility for these abuses goes further up the chain of command at the Bureau of Prisons and we are disappointed more individuals have not yet been held accountable." A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment on the case. The New York Times, which interviewed Yasser Ebrahim and his brother Hany in Egypt recently, reported that the two had lived in New York for several years before Sept. 11. Yasser ran a website design business and Hany worked in a delicatessen. The two were arrested on Sept. 30, 2001, and held for around eight months, even after an FBI memo dated Dec. 7 stated they were cleared of links to terrorist groups, the lawsuit claims. "I'm seeking justice," Yasser Ebrahim told the New York Times. "It's from the same system that did us injustice before. But I have faith in this system. I know what happened before was a mistake."