NLG Week Panel Explores Racial Profiling of Muslim Communities
Writer Wajahat Ali '07, attorney Wazhma Mojaddidi, and Zahra Billoo, Executive Director of the San Francisco/Bay Area Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), gathered in King Hall on January 25 for "Racial Profiling of America's Muslin Communities in the Post-9/11 World." The event, presented as part of National Lawyers Guild Week, drew an enthusiastic audience to the Kalmanovitz Appellate Courtroom for an insightful discussion of civil rights issues facing Muslim Americans in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Despite having been a part of American culture from the beginning, Muslims remain a mystery to many Americans, said Ali, a Pakistani-American who has enjoyed a successful career as a writer, authoring an acclaimed play, Domestic Crusaders, and contributing to publications including The Guardian of London and The Wall Street Journal.
"Sixty percent of Americans say they do not know any Muslims," Ali said. "When that happens, a fundamental part of society becomes suspect and alien."
Mojaddidi talked about her experiences representing clients including Hamid Hayat, a Pakistani American from Lodi who in 2006 was convicted of supporting terrorists by training with them in Pakistan. The conviction was based on statements defense attorneys claim were manipulated by FBI agents during lengthy, aggressive interrogation sessions. "A lot of the things that happened in that case continue to happen in the Muslim community today," said Mojaddidi.
Billoo discussed a number of the civil rights cases CAIR is involved with, such as that of Yasir Afifi, a California college student who found a tracking device belonging to the FBI attached to his car and was subjected to a "coercive" interview with FBI agents when he publicized his finding. Billoo said CAIR is representing "over three dozen" Arab American men who were interrogated by the FBI in "coercive situations."
The panel took place as part of National Lawyers Guild Week, January 24-28. Among the week's many events were a presentation on the NLG by Professor Holly Cooper, a screening of filmmaker Abby Ginzberg's Cruz Reynoso: Sowing the Seeds of Justice, a panel on "Community Lawyering: A Hands-On Strategy to Address Racial Disparities" with Gillian Sonnad and Kyanna Williams of the Race Equity Project, "From Guantánamo to the Hague: One Lawyer's Search for Justice," featuring Attorney Candace Gorman, Visiting Professional at the International Criminal Court, and "The Death Penalty: A Global Crisis," featuring attorney Robert Bryan and Professor Craig Haney of UC Santa Cruz.