Many of the victims of the Bush Administration’s civil liberties violations are of Arab-descent – but our Constitution is color-blind. An assault on one person’s rights is an assault on this nation’s fabric and on all our rights. The Americans threatened when basic rights become treated as disposable are not just those from the Mid East. They’re Americans from the Midwest and all over our country.
Many of this Administration’s abuses of civil liberties have nothing to do with the Patriot Act. That’s especially true of the hundreds of people that have been detained without explanation and without real cause. John Ashcroft’s Justice Department has been so arrogant and reckless in detaining people that even the Department’s Inspector General has cried foul. 762 people – Arabs and Muslims – were detained, sometimes for many months, regardless of the evidence. Most were never charged with a real crime. Not one was charged in relation to the terrorism probe. But the average wait for the FBI to clear a detainee for deportation was 80 days, with some waiting as long as eight months. In numerous cases, people not accused of any crime were locked down 23 hours a day, sometimes in solitary confinement, and shackled when outside their cells.
Nacer Fathi Mustafa and his father, American citizens of Palestinian descent, were stopped by immigration agents in Houston on their way back home from a business trip to Mexico. They were arrested and charged with altering their passports. The authorities finally decided that there, in fact, was nothing wrong with their passports. After they had been held in a Texas jail for 67 days. John Ashcroft calls the policy “hold until cleared.” That’s just a fancy way of saying “guilty until proven innocent.” It is at odds with everything America’s justice system should be about – and it is wrong.
The story of America is the story of people like Fawaz Ismail. His Palestinian parents came to America from Jordan when he was nine years old. Twenty-five years ago, he began selling American flags from the back of his Volkswagen bus because he loved what the flag stood for. Today, he is the largest retailer of flags in America.
After September 11th, people lined up for half a mile outside his stores. He sold half a million flags in a week and donated a portion of the earnings to the families of the victims.
But a few days after the attack, he was leaving a restaurant on a Saturday afternoon when sirens began to scream. The police officer told him it was just a routine check. But he knew that the only reason he was pulled over was because of his ethnicity. When law enforcement wastes resources on those who have done nothing wrong – it makes it harder to track down those who are truly dangerous.
America deserves leaders that are more concerned with prosecuting the War on Terror, than persecuting those who disagree with them or those of a certain ethnic background. No one will be stronger in defending this nation than I, but we are better than secret and indefinite detentions. We are better than the physical abuse of prisoners who don’t have the slightest connection to terrorism. And there is a better way to security than racial or religious or ethnic profiling.
America deserves more from its leaders. They deserve leadership equal to the courage Americans show everyday. That courage can change this country and transform the world. It can give us a government that values democracy and preserves our rights. It can protect our country and our liberties. It can end the era of John Ashcroft and renew our faith in the Constitution. Fawaz Ismail’s flags fly on posts all over America. Let’s join together to make sure that flag represents the best of us – and that it represents all of us. Thank you.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2003_1201.html 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
