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[Nettime-bold] Fwdfyi: Stories from the Urdu Press in New York] |
>From theSarai Reader List. Long but worthwhile (immo). ----- Forwarded message from rehan ansari <rehanhasanansari@yahoo.com> ----- To: reader-list@sarai.net Subject: [Reader-list] The Urdu Press in New York Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 09:03:08 -0800 (PST) Dear friends, Since September 11th, 2001 I have been reading the Urdu press in the New York area (would you believe that there are seven weeklies!), pitch stories and translate them for Voices That Must Be Heard, a web publication of the Independent Press Association. (www.indypressny.org). Independent Press Association is interested in issues of social justice in the ethnic press on New York. Below are some of the stories. I think you would be surprised by what is carried in the Urdu press. We never thought we would flee America By M. R Farrukh, Pakistan Post, 8 January 2003. Translated from Urdu by Rehan Ansari. Plattsburgh, New York, a small town on the border of Canada, was until recently unknown to Pakistanis living in New York. Now it has become a familiar stop along the route that many Pakistanis are taking as they flee the United States for Canada. According to immigration and refugee authorities in Montreal, 70 refugee claims were filed there this year. Last year, only six claims were filed. The claimants are overwhelmingly Pakistanis. Many of these Pakistanis are business and homeowners in New York who are leaving with only the belongings they can carry. Pakistan Post spoke with a number of families seeking asylum in Canada. One, the head of a family of 7, said that he had left Pakistan 30 years ago and simply does not have the heart to go back, which is what he will be made to do since he is staying in the United States illegally. In another family, the husband is undocumented but his wife and kids are not. They feel their choice is to run or risk the husband being indefinitely detained if he complies with the new requirement and registers at the INS. A single mother with two children, afraid because of her undocumented status, is fleeing New York. Several other people were issued deportation orders and attempted to enter Canada as refugees, rather than face the prospect of deportation to Pakistan. They said their deportation orders were issued prior to September 11th, but that they had no fears until the recent change in American official attitudes. It was obvious that Canadian immigration officers were startled and concerned to see so many Pakistanis. However, according to Canadian refugee law, one is allowed immediate entry into Canada if one claims refugee status. They will later have to prove their status before a judge. This reporter spoke with legal experts who said that too many Pakistanis are filling identical claims for refugee status and they must be prepared to recount their individual circumstances for fleeing the United States before a Canadian judge. They must do so calmly and with confidence. The new registration requirements for Pakistanis are giving people sleepless nights, and it seems that for many the journey to Montreal by way of Plattsburgh, is the solution for peace of mind. These days, the modest immigration office at Plattsburgh, with its few benches, is seeing a lot of activity. Entire families of Pakistanis can be seen milling around as the head of the household busies himself with registering a refugee claim. This reporter met people who were from Long Island, Westchester, Rochester and towns in Connecticut and New Jersey. All these families fear that things will get worse in the United States if they stay. This article appeared in Edition 47 of Voices That Must Be Heard. Translation ? 2002, IPA, all rights reserved. Included by permisson of Pakistan Post. Speakers at Brooklyn?s largest mosque consider registration law Sada-e-Pakistan NY, 30 January 2003. Translated from Urdu by Rehan Ansari. At Makki Masjid, Brooklyn`s largest and most prominent mosque, located on Coney Island Avenue, many people turned out to hear speakers discuss the registration law. This event was unique in that it was the first time that a non-religious meeting was held at the mosque. The speakers included two Pakistani American lawyers?Saleem Rizvi and Sajid Jafri. The event was organized by the Pakistani Community Center. Rizvi said that if the registration process continues, then many thousands of Pakistanis will be in danger of deportation. He said people who are afraid of registering are not afraid of arrest, they are afraid deportation. This includes people who came here illegally and those who are out-of-status. Politicians, community leaders and the Pakistani government should impress upon the Bush Administration that those who register should risk deportation. In Rizvi?s opinion, those who register and receive a Notice To Appear will eventually face deportation when they see a judge. Rizvi went on to say that there are administration officials sympathetic to the Pakistani community. There are also legal activists who we should all support in the long legal battle that lies ahead. Imam Hafiz Sabir, in his sermon, said that previously, people used to overflow the space and stand in the street during Friday prayers. Now, people are afraid of being seen at the mosque, and the entire first floor of the mosque is empty during Friday prayers. "It is sad that General Musharref has given the United States the run of the place in Pakistan to pursue its war on terrorism; but over here, it is the Pakistani community that is suffering." He said that Mexican President Vincente Fox demanded that Bush offer amnesty to the estimated three million Mexicans living in the United States. "Why can?t Musharref, given Pakistan`s services to the United States, ask for amnesty for Pakistanis living in the United States?" asked Sabir. He also thanked Rana Saeed, Malik Jameel and Aziz Butt for their presence at the INS office at the Federal Building, and for giving moral support to the Pakistanis registering there, as well as for providing people standing in long lines in the cold with food and tea. Translation ? 2002, IPA, all rights reserved. Included by permisson of Sada-e-Pakistan NY. Public, political, religious and cultural life in Pakistani Brooklyn By Hamad Khan, News Pakistan, 25 December 2002. Translated from Urdu by Rehan Ansari. Brooklyn and Queens, but particularly Brooklyn, has a flourishing Pakistani public, political, and religious culture, but to describe it, one may very well have to come up with a new sense of the public, the political, the religious and the cultural. Organizations mushroom, all headed by "leaders" of the Pakistani community who claim the goal of "uniting the community." What most of these organizations seem to do is run advertisements. The advertisements praise to the skies this or that Pakistani politician. Within hours of the appointment of a new civilian prime minister in Pakistan, his image was plastered all over several local Urdu-language newspapers. I can only assume that this practice, by the myriad organizations and their sponsors, is to curry favor from politicians and other patrons near and far. Such publicity goes hand in hand with public meetings organized to pray for the success of the politician, and such meetings engender further publicity for those who attend and pray, as is painfully clear from the subsequent editions of the Urdu papers. None of these public meetings are possible without clergy, who lead the prayers. I wish this were otherwise. I would hope that the Imam of Makki Masjid in Brooklyn would realize that such practices make a mockery of religion, and that he would consider establishing a different tradition. While he?s considering things, he might also choose not to participate when people, particularly the wealthy, make an ostentatious show of having public prayers for their deceased. A short mention of the deceased at the end of Friday prayers in the mosque should suffice. What is happening is that as these political organizations flourish, many mosques are also being established. The mosque administration committees serve as immigration sponsors for the clergy. These clerics, often from small towns in Pakistan, are becoming indispensable for leading prayers, presiding at circumcisions, and teaching the Quran to children. These clerics, though physically present in the United States, retain the habits of leading small and struggling congregations in Pakistan. So, the clerics are quite adept at fighting turf battles with the clerics of other mosques. For example, no two of them will agree on when the new moon of Ramzan is sighted. They remain in their own worlds, not learning English, not adapting to their new environment. No matter how many years they stay here, they prefer to give their sermons in Urdu and Punjabi. Perhaps they enjoy the language as much as a Punjabi friend of mine, who says that even when he is arguing with an English speaker in English, he loves to curse in Punjabi because it?s just more pleasurable! I wish that the clergy who reach these shores would use the change in their environment to reflect on themselves and not make fools of themselves and the religion. They could begin by learning the language of the land and not indulge in the old world habits of fighting petty turf wars. This article appeared in Edition 48 of Voices That Must Be Heard. Translation ? 2002, IPA, all rights reserved. Included by permisson of News Pakistan. Nirma, the courtesan, in New York By Ifti Nasim, News Pakistan, 6 November 2002. Translated from Urdu by Rehan Ansari. Recently Nirma, a movie star from the Pakistani film industry, performed a dance in New York that has provoked the Pakistani community in all sorts of interesting ways. Pakistani papers are carrying headlines about the brazen nature of the dance, and male columnists are falling over each other in disapproval. It is the sexual aggressiveness of Nirma?s dance that has the Pakistani community chattering excitedly and the columnists muttering negatively. Regardless of the response, is a pleasure to see the community?s lively response to a public event; since September 11th there has been so much fear and anxiety. Some of the columnists? remarks reminds me of the legend of the cleric who, while lecturing against "brazen" women, described a scantily clad female form in such great detail than an audience member wondered when disapproval ended and approval began. As for the disapproval of Nirma?s "aggressiveness," I am afraid they must realize that Nirma?s dance is nothing unusual, for New York or traditional South Asian art. In New York there are many performers who play with gender roles, and ideas of domination and submissiveness. So what if Nirma, from Pakistan, has crossed sexual boundaries? The Persian roots of the name "Nirma" mean one who has the qualities of both man and woman. Perhaps for the males in the audience, Nirma appealed to their feminine side?thus, the outrage. But why be upset with a performance so steeped in tradition? In the epic love story from Punjab, "Heer and Ranjha", still popular today, there is the couplet in which Heer sings she has desired Ranjha for so long that she has become him. I feel that Nirma has turned the tables on her male audience. For a while now, we have been content to see the woman be the dancer in films and on stage. She is the spectacle. Nirma?s supremely confident dance in New York made a spectacle of the men who are dancing around in outrage. This article appeared in Edition 42 of Voices That Must Be Heard. Translation ? 2002, IPA, all rights reserved. Included by permisson of News Pakistan. A Pakistani writes from an American jail By Azeem M. Mian, Pakistan Post, 9 October 2002. Translated from Urdu by Rehan Ansari. A friend of the editors of Pakistan Post received a letter from Zubair Hanafi, which has been forwarded to me and I am including in this column. Zubair?s address is the Brooklyn Detention Center. His prisoner number is 67898053. The letter bears an Aug. 15 postmark, meaning the letter has taken almost two months to get to me. Let us hope that Zubair is safe, either released in the United States or deported to Pakistan. Zubair writes to Afaq, a man he doesn?t know: Dear Sir, I know you are well connected in the community and have contacts with the media. Perhaps you will be able to get me help. I am from the Memon community of Karachi and living legally in the US. I have a green card. At 7:00am on 29th May the authorities raided my apartment. They did not produce a warrant. They arrested my brother Sajjad Ahmed, my roommate Ali Reza, and myself. As they were leaving with us, my neighbour Salahuddin Qureshi, unfortunately opened his apartment door in response to the activity in the corridor and they arrested him as well. Two of the men have been already deported, I am still in detention. I can be freed on bail. I have made phone calls to people I know but nobody is stepping forward to help me. Please tell my story in the media and to the many organizations and please write to me to let me know if you can help. I have written back to him but have not received a phone call. I find myself upset with our community leaders, who have their photographs taken with the Pakistani ambassabor and visiting politicians from Pakistan but make no moves to help those who are in suffering terrible ordeals. I also possess the legal papers of another case involving a Pakistani-American. Ahsan ul Haq is in danger of having his American citizenship revoked. Due to his arrest after September 11th, his files have been opened and combed for misstatements he made in his application for naturalization. There are millions of cases of naturalized citizens who, knowingly or unknowingly, made false statements in their application of citizenship. Since September 11th, it is Pakistani-Americans and other Muslim-Americans who are targeted. In the case of Ahsan ul Haq, he made his way to California from Pakistan without a visa in 1984. He then applied for political asylum and was denied in November 1985. His appeal was rejected in 1988. He received a letter demanding that he "surrender" himself to the authorities. He did not and applied for legal status under the agricultural workers? program. It was accepted. He received his green card and applied for citizenship in 1997, and received it in 2000. His wife and children are also American citizens. His arduous but not untypical journey to American citizenship seemed to have ended. He had a successful construction business and things looked good. After September 11th, he was arrested for false statements he made in his application for naturalization. He had not revealed that he had been rejected for legal status previously. Ahsan is now out on bail but very worried. Ahsan?s case shows that even Pakistanis who are naturalized Americans cannot be secure. Their American citizenship can always be investigated and revoked given the current political circumstances. These circumstances are not affecting any other community besides Pakistanis and other Muslims. I am not arguing that Pakistanis and Muslims should be allowed to get away with breaking the law, just that the law be applied equally. Racial profiling is also against the law. There are any number of people of Mexican and Latin American origin, and from India and Southern Europe who are not targeted, whose naturalization files are not reopened. This is unfair, particularly when not one Pakistani has been charged with terrorism. I still hear of raids and arrests in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Houston, California and Florida. Our Pakistani community leaders are not organizing, and people are too afraid to speak up. There is still no credible forum in the community, where we can address the difficulties that Pakistanis face now and will face in the future. This is a time that tests our inner strength and conscience. This article appeared in Edition 37 of Voices That Must Be Heard. Translation ? 2002, IPA, all rights reserved. Included by permisson of Pakistan Post. The special relationship between America and Pakistan By Ifti Nasim, News Pakistan, 25 September 2002. Translated from Urdu by Rehan Ansari. In one of her poems, Sylvia Plath talks of a foot that was trapped in a black shoe for "thirty years, poor and white, barely daring to breathe." That foot is Pakistan, which has suffered for thirty years in the black shoe of American-sponsored military dictatorships. Similar American-bought black shoes have tramped over civilians in Latin America as well. Ever since the era of the Vietnam War American administrations have comfortably supported military dictators around the world. Such a policy allows them to wield influence in a country through one client instead of dealing with a multifarious public. Accordingly the current Administration is rolling out the red carpet for General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. The red carpet can be extravagant; Kitty Kelley in her biography of Jackie Kennedy claims that Field Marshal Ayub Khan (the famously handsome American supported martial leader of Pakistan from 1958-68) had intimate relations with the First Lady. But Musharraf be warned: that carpet is red with the blood of Pakistani demagogues, who become irrelevant to American foreign policy. General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq supported the American sponsored war in Afghanistan against the Russians. That was when Osama and the Taliban were designated freedom fighters by the U.S. government. When the Soviet Union withdrew, the Geneva Accords were signed, and General Zia seemed to be pursuing an independent policy in the region, he was assassinated. Afghanistan was a country abandoned by the United States. Wealthy Osama and the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Now a decade later, Osama and the Taliban pursue objectives no longer in accordance with American interests and are men with an American death warrant. And Musharraf, who was a usurper and called so by U.S. State Department officials when he staged a coup, is now a key ally. As for the Pakistani public, they see their constitution mangled by a dictator, a state whose coffers are full of dollars, (the Pakistani rupee is doing very well against the dollar). But they, the public, continue to face chronic inflation and unemployment. They also face war-like conditions with India, something else that happens whenever a military dictator comes to power in Pakistan. Iti Nasim is a well-known humorist, Urdu poet and literary critic. This article appeared in Edition 35 of Voices That Must Be Heard. Translation ? 2002, IPA, all rights reserved. Included by permisson of News Pakistan. Pakistani Detainees Speak Out Special to IPA - New York, 3 January 2002. English Language. "We are not criminals, but we are treated as such. We do not even know what the future holds for us. We are not certain whether we will ever be freed, deported or remained jailed." The man being treated like a "criminal" is one of about 200 Pakistanis being held on immigration violations in the Passaic County Jail in Paterson, New Jersey. For the first time, civil liberties and immigration lawyers say, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is selectively enforcing its laws, not to control immigration but to pursue a criminal investigation. Nor are the laws enforced always so clear. "The judges are not judges anymore," basing decisions on their judgment of the law, says Sarah Hogarth, director of the National Lawyers Guild?s 9/11 project. "They are just taking instructions from the INS." Judges who do make their own decisions, reports the New Jersey Law Journal, may find their decisions overturned by the INS or Justice Department. "We?re seeing the strictist?overly strict?application of INS laws to keep people detained," said Claudia Slovinsky, Esq., an immigration lawyer who is representing several detainees. "Immigration statutes are the mechanism used to hold people while [the US government] performs terrorism investigations," said Manny Vargas, Esq. Vargas is a lawyer with the Immigrant Defense Project, New York State Defenders Association. He explained that this development is particularly dangerous because, while the criminal justice system guarantees rights to those accused of crimes?"especially the right to counsel," those rights "are not particularly attached to immigration proceedings," he said. Detainees are brought into closed hearings in full leg irons with hands shackled to their waist, report their lawyers. Guards unshackle a hand only to allow a prisoner to take an oath. Conditions in the cells are even worse, report detainees. A man held in the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn told his paralegal they suffer from 23 hour lockdown, lights blaring at all hours, no toilet paper, full strip searches, verbal abuse from guards?The Paterson detainee asks, "Why me?" "There are around 2 million Mexicans and others who can be arrested on the same grounds." he said. "It must be because I am a Muslim." Some immigration lawyers agree. Many of those detained have been picked up on the authority of anonymous FBI tips, Claudia Slovinsky said. She called the detentions "racial profiling." The detained man also feels abandoned by his own country, charging that the Pakistani consul neglects his countrymen who languish in American prisons. [In an interview with the New York Times on December 20, the Pakistani vice consul reports visiting detainees but admits being "in the dark" on about 100 cases.] Consulates have enormous power to defend the rights of their nationals, working with U.S. lawyers. With the help of a paralegal, the Canadian consulate in December pressured the INS to act on the case of a Pakistani-Canadian doctor arrested for illegally reentering the United States. Without consular support, Pakistani nationals may face even more trouble resolving their cases. As many as half of those in detention are in Pakistan, according to U.S. Justice Department data analyzed by Mae Cheng in Newsday on Dec. 17th. Of the 563 cases on which the Justice Department released information, Cheng counted 204 Pakistanis. "When I?m visiting, it does seem the largest country is Pakistan," confirms Subhash Kateel of DRUM, a South Asian advocacy group working with about 20 detainees and their families. "The second seems to be Egypt and the third seems to be India." Even three months after September 11th, the INS continues to sweep largely South Asian neighborhoods for immigration violations, says Kateel. South Asian students here on H-1 visas are being visited and interviewed by the FBI. "Neighborhoods like Midwood (in Brooklyn) have been hit really hard, with the INS just picking people up. Elmhurst and Flushing, Astoria, Paterson and Jersey City too," says Kateel. Even little-known, or previously unenforced, laws are now being cited as INS officials work more closely with law enforcement officials to detain non-citizens, say immigration lawyers. "For example, it?s little known that non-citizens must report any change of address within 10 days," said Vargas. With hundreds of people being detained, many without legal counsel, overworked human rights and civil liberties organizations recently met to better coordinate their legal support for the detainees. In mid-December, civil liberties groups held two meetings, one in New Jersey and one in New York City to plan their efforts. In attendance were lawyers and others from The American Civil Liberties Union, Legal Aid Society, Center for Constitutional Rights, American Immigrant Lawyers Association, Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants, National Lawyers Guild, and Human Rights Education & Law Project (HELP), a New Jersey group formed after September 11th to provide legal support and advocacy for detainees. "Regionally we?re attempting to divvy up tasks amongst the different legal organizations," says Hogarth of NLG, who planned the New York meeting. "We want to identify who?s in detention, see who doesn?t have lawyers and refer them to one. We don?t have enough lawyers so we also want to identify and train them, and mentor them with more experienced lawyers." Detainees have the right to a lawyer, but they do not have the right to a free lawyer, says Hogarth. That?s why the organizations are referring detainees to lawyers who will work for free. Because a detainee?s access to a phone is severely limited, immigrants should carry a lawyer?s phone number at all times so they easily call for help. Two important hotlines are now in operation. Those visited and questioned by the FBI can now call the ACLU to secure a lawyer in the (212-344-3005 x226, x224 or x240). At its hotline, HELP is accepting collect calls from detention centers and connecting detainees up with lawyers (973-676-5660). The lawyers? work is cut out for them, not the least because the federal government is keeping two lists, a public list and a secret one. MacDonald Scott, a legal worker with the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants, encountered the list while representing Shakir Ali Baloch, the Pakistani-Canadian doctor. Scott found Dr. Baloch on the MDC prison roster one day, and told his wife in Canada to fly down, only to discover once she?d arrived that her husband had been removed from the list. Dr. Baloch had not yet been released, only made invisible by the secret list. "Families should know that when they call that they might not be told," says Hogarth. "Also, if people are looking for people, chances are they are in New Jersey. HELP is maintaining lists of detainees in New Jersey. They are a good place to call." The INS also moves detainees without warning, making it difficult for lawyers and supporters to find them again. "The legal community is running around," says Hogarth of NLG. "We can?t even find our clients!" Subhash Kateel of DRUM says their volunteers have lost track of about 5 of the 20 detainees they have been working with. Even minor violations of immigration law by those in the country legally can lead to a prolonged detention in the new post-September 11th world ? detentions lasting two to three months. Abdul Sattar was taken into custody with two roommates from his home on Webster Venue in Brooklyn. Although his 1993 application for political asylum is under review, he was nabbed because his work permit expired a few months ago. He was held 48 days in the Passaic County Jail before being released on bail on Nov. 19. "The majority of the Pakistanis detained in the Paterson Prison are willing to be deported and return to Pakistan. Yet they cannot because of the slow pace of INS," says Sattar. After September 11, the INS extended the period of time non-citizens can be held for questioning, and permitted indefinite detention in "emergency" situations. The INS also adopted a rule allowing it to detain non-citizens even after an immigration judge orders their release for lack of evidence. Moreover, all non-citizen detainees questioned in connection with Sept. 11 must pass now an FBI security clearance to be deported, even if they choose to return to their native countries. This process is delaying some people?s release from prison, immigration lawyers say. And the federal government took on the power to monitor the communication between a federal detainee and his or her lawyer if the government believes their discussion may support terrorism. The ACLU, NLG, Human Rights Watch, Council of American-Islamic Relations and others have denounced the new rules as subverting civil liberties and called for the release of information on those in detention. To date, the U.S. Attorney General has released only the country of origin of certain detainees, not their names, nor their location, nor the charges against them, as these groups requested in court. In late October, Human Rights Watch requested that the INS release information on any medical screening or support given Muhammad Butt, the Pakistani national who died while in detention in a New Jersey jail. The agency refused without a signature from the deceased man on the grounds of protecting his privacy. Additional reporting by Huma Ali. This article appeared in Edition 3 of Voices That Must Be Heard. Included by permission of Special to IPA - New York. Voices ? 2002, IPA, all rights reserved. ??Previously published at Voices That Must Be Heard (www.indypressny.org) _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. Critiques & Collaborations To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request@sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/> ----- End forwarded message ----- _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold