thebullet
Rebel without applause
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2003
- Posts
- 1,247
Did anyone hear the NPR report today (All Things Considered) about the Passaic County Jail and the imprisonment of resident aliens?
Those of you who have pooh poohed the warnings of some of us who fear a Facist America should take note. It's already happening. Any alien who has any infraction whatsoever - as little as a traffic violation - is liable for imprisonment and eventual deportation. But that isn't the worst of it. While in prison (those arrested in the New York area are being sent to Passaic County Jail) these poor people are being terrorized and tortured.
One of the aliens in question (Hemnauth Mohabir) had been issued a misdemeanor citation for having $5 (that's five dollars!) worth of drugs on him. He was a teenager at the time and paid a $250 fine. Six years later he went home to Guyana to visit his mother who was ill. Upon returning to this country, he was arrested entering JFK airport and placed in Passaic County Jail. He spent the next TWO YEARS in jail without being charged, without access to a lawyer, without any rights whatsoever. While there he was repeatedly beaten by guards and terrorized by attack dogs.
NPR documented many many people from around the world who had been tortured in Passaic County Prison. Their stories were told individually but the facts were consistent throughout.
Forget ABU GHRAIB, you don't have to go to Iraq to find human rights violations being committed and condoned by the Bush administration. The Department of Homeland Security claims that no one has ever complained about Passaic County Prison, but NPR has shown that to be a total fabrication. A spokesman claimed that no prisoner has ever been intimitated or attacked by a guard dog in Passaic County Prison. The NPR reporter immediately produced the Prison's own Incident Report which detailed a prisoner who had to be taken to a hospital after being beaten by guards who then sicked a dog on him. That prisoner's crime? He asked a guard why the TV was being turned off. For that infraction he was beaten by NINE guards then bitten by a dog. The spokesman then reluctently acknowledged that he knew of that particular attack but it was certainly an exception rather than the rule. The SOB lied, was caught in his lie immediately, and never broke stride in telling another lie.
Remember it is our new Attorney General of the United States who established the rules of interrogation and confinement that are being used at Gitmo Bay and in Iraq. Are those same rules being applied in American prisons as well?
My wife has been an active participant in the peace movement - marched in Washington and New York as well as other places. She fears that if she marches again she will be arrested for terrorist activities (not a far fetched notion) and thrown in jail with no rights and no recourse.
Our nation is in trouble people. Wake the fuck up!
Those of you who have pooh poohed the warnings of some of us who fear a Facist America should take note. It's already happening. Any alien who has any infraction whatsoever - as little as a traffic violation - is liable for imprisonment and eventual deportation. But that isn't the worst of it. While in prison (those arrested in the New York area are being sent to Passaic County Jail) these poor people are being terrorized and tortured.
One of the aliens in question (Hemnauth Mohabir) had been issued a misdemeanor citation for having $5 (that's five dollars!) worth of drugs on him. He was a teenager at the time and paid a $250 fine. Six years later he went home to Guyana to visit his mother who was ill. Upon returning to this country, he was arrested entering JFK airport and placed in Passaic County Jail. He spent the next TWO YEARS in jail without being charged, without access to a lawyer, without any rights whatsoever. While there he was repeatedly beaten by guards and terrorized by attack dogs.
NPR documented many many people from around the world who had been tortured in Passaic County Prison. Their stories were told individually but the facts were consistent throughout.
Forget ABU GHRAIB, you don't have to go to Iraq to find human rights violations being committed and condoned by the Bush administration. The Department of Homeland Security claims that no one has ever complained about Passaic County Prison, but NPR has shown that to be a total fabrication. A spokesman claimed that no prisoner has ever been intimitated or attacked by a guard dog in Passaic County Prison. The NPR reporter immediately produced the Prison's own Incident Report which detailed a prisoner who had to be taken to a hospital after being beaten by guards who then sicked a dog on him. That prisoner's crime? He asked a guard why the TV was being turned off. For that infraction he was beaten by NINE guards then bitten by a dog. The spokesman then reluctently acknowledged that he knew of that particular attack but it was certainly an exception rather than the rule. The SOB lied, was caught in his lie immediately, and never broke stride in telling another lie.
Remember it is our new Attorney General of the United States who established the rules of interrogation and confinement that are being used at Gitmo Bay and in Iraq. Are those same rules being applied in American prisons as well?
My wife has been an active participant in the peace movement - marched in Washington and New York as well as other places. She fears that if she marches again she will be arrested for terrorist activities (not a far fetched notion) and thrown in jail with no rights and no recourse.
Our nation is in trouble people. Wake the fuck up!
