|
Mercury News - August 3, 2005
Government targeting Iranians Americans,
rights coalition says
BY NATHANIEL HOFFMAN
SAN FRANCISCO - (KRT) - About seven months ago an Iranian American called the American Civil Liberties Union to report that an FBI agent had phoned for an interview.
The agent mentioned she was part of the "Iran desk," said ACLU Arab, Muslim and South Asian advocate Dalia Hashad.
That tip and, since October, an increasing number of calls for legal advice from Iranian Americans sent up red flags for a coalition of civil rights organizations monitoring the treatment of Muslims and natives of two dozen countries in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
Iranians are increasingly seeking aid after being questioned by the FBI, put on government watch lists and losing their jobs or security clearances.
"Over the past year or so there are increasing numbers of Iranian Americans who are being discriminated against across the board," Hashad said Wednesday at a news conference at the offices of the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement.
California and national FBI officials said Wednesday they had not heard of an "Iran desk" or a special effort to question Iranians in the United States.
"Certainly we have squads that look at a number of countries," Los Angeles FBI spokeswoman Cathy Viray said. "Everything that's being done, at least in our territory, is case driven," she said, adding that there are no broad sweeps targeting people of a certain background.
But after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, the FBI did question large numbers of Arabs and Muslims in the United States. And before the war in Iraq agents targeted thousands of Iraqis for questioning.
Civil rights advocates opposed interviews targeting people from specific countries and said they fear the same type of campaign is targeting Iranians now.
"I think the public perception is that post-September 11 backlash is largely a thing of the past," said Shirin Sinnar, an attorney with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco.
Sinnar said she still hears from Middle Easterners who are harassed at work and while shopping, snubbed by financial institutions and confused for people with similar names on government watch lists like the "no-fly" list.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has documented 978 cases of post-Sept. 11 workplace harassment and more than 2,000 cases of religious discrimination against Muslim workers since 2001, said San Francisco District director Joan Ehrlich.
The ACLU has requested information and sued to find out the number of people the FBI has questioned since 2000.
The ACLU and other organizations have reached out to Middle Easterners and Muslims in the United States to ensure they know their rights if contacted by the FBI, but many Iranians have missed the word, Sinnar said.
The groups urge people to contact an attorney before speaking with the FBI and ask that Iranians to report any discrimination or harassment.
An attorney, herself a first-generation Iranian American, said that Iranians have been eyed suspiciously by the U.S. government for some time. But many have not acknowledged that they are among those being scrutinized.
"We don't want to talk about the FBI knocking on our door," said Banafsheh Akhlaghi, president of the National Legal Sanctuary, a law firm dedicated to the civil rights of Middle Easterners and South Asians in America…..
http://www.mcrcnet.org/Iran1.htm
|
