Life as a South Asian teenager can really be a bitch. Often what you experience is the clash of culture and values as you try to break out of the strongly paternal bonds and rules that your parents hold onto. I think almost every teen experience is driven by the desire to fit in, especially since your differences are often rudely pointed out. My own experience was one of constant conflict between my parents and I over my grades, my extracurricular activities, dating, and going out.
While this is probably par for the course for most teenagers, the part that was the hardest was the stuff I couldn't control. I got called "Ay-Rab" and "Sand Nigger" so much, you'd have thought it was my name. That was part of my daily experience and there were times when it got really wearisome. I felt isolated from my family and from everyone else since there were so few who shared my experience. I hated school, the people in it, and sometimes indulged in fantasies of suicide as a means to escape my daily suffering. Of course, it wasn't real - I didn't actually have the guts to go through with it - I was just really depressed about my life on some days, probably much as many other teenagers.
I thought my experience was pretty bad. Mine has no comparison with what Muslim teenagers are now subject to.
The parents of the Bangladeshi girl went to the police several weeks ago to file a complaint about their daughter's defying their authority. When the dispute was resolved, they tried to withdraw the complaint, but the police proceeded with an investigation.The police and federal immigration officials searched her belongings and are reported to have found an essay on suicide. According to the family, the essay says suicide is against Islamic law. But detectives went on to question the girl about her political beliefs before arresting her.
So maybe you're feeling a little depressed and write something in your journal about how you're feeling a little suicidal. Suicidal Muslims apparently cannot be anything other than suicidal Muslim bombers.
Wait, it gets better. Law enforcement is claiming that this girl had a suicide bombing pact with another teenaged Muslim girl. The basis of this claim?
Little is known about the second 16-year-old. The mother of the Bangladeshi girl, conveying her daughter's account, said the two girls met for the first time at 26 Federal Plaza after her daughter's arrest. But when the other girl, a Guinean who was facing deportation with her family, noticed her daughter's veil, she gave her a traditional Muslim greeting, and federal agents seemed to think they were friends. The second girl ended up in the Pennsylvania detention center, too.
I would have thought that the FBI would by now have figured out that when Muslims greet one another, even with ones whom are total strangers, they often say "As sala'amu alaikum" (peace be upon you) and the generally expected reply is "walaikum as sala'am" (and unto you also, peace). This is no different, from a familiarity perspective, than saying 'hello' to someone you see on the street.
With two would-be terrorist suicide bombers in their custody, you would expect the government to be aggressively pursuing criminal charges against the two, right?
A bond hearing in the Bangladeshi girl's case is to be held this morning in York, Pa., but the government has asked that it be closed, based on an affidavit filed by a counterterrorism supervisor in the F.B.I.'s New York office. The case underscores the difficulties faced by anyone who is charged only with civil immigration violations, but is in fact being held in a counterterrorism investigation, lawyers said.
There are no firm time limits on immigration detention, so the burden is on the girls to prove that they are not potential suicide bombers, rather than on the government to prove they are.
Indeed, the evidence is withheld from the girls and anyone who represents them under a "protective order" that F.B.I. investigators obtained from the immigration court, according to an April 1 motion to continue the secrecy, signed by Jeffrey T. Bubier, assistant chief counsel for the Department of Homeland Security in Philadelphia.
..The girls have no right to a court-appointed lawyer, and according to the government document that described the Guinean girl, her family had not retained one.
This is how our government, under the auspices of the Bush Administration, spits on the Constitution of the United States. It does everything it can to prevent people from exercising the constitutional protections created specifically to prevent the government abuse of its power.
In the end, there will be no terror prosecution. Instead, a girl and her family, who have no connection at all to terrorism, will be deported to their homeland all because the girl had a bad day at school. Tell me you've got a bad teenager experience that even comes close. Yeah, that's what I thought.
This incident should be looked at as a sign of proof showing that them motherfuckers in law enforcement are some true bitches.... Maybe you and I could be a victim of them bitches............ Maybe you are a victim of them bitches......... Or maybe you are one of them bitches.....If you are, raise a middle finger up in a mirror for me you coward motherfucker.
Posted by: -KYS | April 18, 2005 at 04:02 AM