The Death of Human Rights

It seems as though human rights are slowly becoming a thing of the past as governments such as that of the United States and Britain continue to implement strict repressive laws in the name of “fighting terrorism”. It is obvious now that many victims of post 9/11anti-terrorist legislation are those from ethnic minority communities and especially those in the Muslim community. Central the “war on terror” and Bush and Blair’s imperialist project is the need to have an internal enemy. Muslims are now the new bogeymen, the new communists; creating division and someone to scapegoat, someone to blame for the both national and international ills.

I was one such unfortunate victim recently when I was passing through the United States from Mexico on a transit flight back to London on February 9th. I was supposed to get my connecting flight in Atlanta airport back to London, and I was looking forward to seeing my family and friends after over a month of travelling. However when I arrived in the airport I was detained by police and subjected to a 7 hour interrogation. They gave no reason for detaining me but said that I needed a visa which was a lie as I have a British passport and a visa only applies to someone who is staying in the US for more then 3 months, it was merely an excuse to detain me. My interrogator was an inspector Jordon, he had what I would call a Superman/Captain America mentality, telling me how he didn’t like people threatening his country. He and his colleagues denied me a phone call more the once, which caused much stress to my parents who were waiting at the airport and were worried when I did not arrive on my flight.

I was asked many offensive and disturbing questions such as whether I had any connections to Al Qaeda and whether I had been to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Somalia. They were unconvinced when I replied no, and they also believed that I was born in Pakistan and that my British passport was fake even though I was born in the UK and have lived here all my life. They asked about my political convictions, whether I believed in having an Islamic state in America and they even had the audacity to ask if Bin Laden was my uncle. I was treated like a criminal and they made the judgement immediately that I was a terrorist simply because of my ethnic origin, my Muslim background and the fact that I had a Quran in my bag. I was kept confined in a room the whole time and one officer even suggested that I was dangerous and a threat to him, he asked for backup when he was searching me as he claimed that, “I might know Karate”. How an unarmed 5ft 8 individual such as myself was a threat to a group of very large, very armed cops is a revelation to me, he had clearly been watching too many Matrix movies. This blatant racist profiling ended with me being deported back to the UK and as a result I have been subsequently banned from US for 6 years and for no reason whatsoever. In fact the authorities in Atlanta airport gave me no explanation for there actions. They found no proof what so ever to support their ridiculous assumptions of me being a terrorist.

However such illegal practices in both the US and the UK are commonplace, and in effect this means that the American authorities simply want to restrict ethnic minorities from outside the US travelling into their country. When I returned home I learnt that 2 Asian friends of mine on a separate trip to the US were stripped searched. A Muslim friend of my father also was interrogated recently even though he has a house in the US and has been travelling back and forth for the past 10 years. Nevertheless these are the mild manifestations of state repression against Muslim and ethnic minority communities. Under current prevention terrorism laws, the British authorities can hold suspects for up to 9 hours without charge. In fact since September 11th 544 Muslims in Britain have been arrested of which 98 have been charged and even less convicted. Many have been held at Belmarsh prison, Britain’s own Guantanamo Bay. The result of this unnecessary erosion of human liberties is the harassment of hundreds of innocent people often involving racial and physical abuse from police officers causing much trauma, loss of jobs and no compensation or apologies from the authorities or the Home Secretary. One such victim was a Muslim from South London, in December 2003 he was arrested, handcuffed, beaten to his knees and punched repeatedly by the anti-terrorist police officers which was followed by mocking remarks of one officer, “where is your God now?” He was released without charge after 7 days but his beatings were so bad that he had passed blood in his urine and had blood in his ear canals; altogether he received 50 injuries. There have been many other cases of gross abuses of the human rights of British Muslims. It is clear now that under the anti-terrorist act 2000 the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is completely ignored.

However it is important that people do not suffer in silence, anyone affected should write to their MP, the Foreign Office (if it concerns the authorities in the US) and the Home Office and get the press interested. Furthermore they should contact the stop police terror campaign, which has been documenting such cases of police harassment. For further details and information log onto www.stoppoliceterror.com or contact the Islamic Human Rights Commission 02089044222  info@ihrc.org and Arani and Co. Solicitors 02088935000  arani@btinternet.com who are involved in the campaign against human rights abuses under anti-terrorist legislation.

Adam Riaz Khan