A desi site for desis living in pardes as pardesis  

Home

FEEDBACK

India

Pakistan

Bangladesh

Afghanistan

Advertise

Contact us

NewsDetails

Pakistani-American convicted of plotting to blow up subway

MAY 24 - A Pakistani immigrant accused of plotting to blow up one of New York city's busiest subway stations in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was convicted Wednesday by a federal jury after two days of deliberation. He faces up to life in prison. Shahawar Matin Siraj, 23, was arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention on charges that he wanted to attack a subway station in Herald Square, a dense Manhattan shopping district that includes Macy's flagship department store. New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly issued a statement praising the conviction as "an important milestone in safeguarding New York against terrorist plotters whether homegrown or foreign." Siraj's attorney, Martin Stolar, called such claims misleading. Testifying in his own defense last week, Siraj said he never had a violent thought before he met a paid police informant . He said Eldawoody, the informant _ a naturalized U.S. citizen from Egypt _ ignited his rage toward the United States and lured him into a phony plot by showing him photos of inmates being abused at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. His attorney accused the informant of brainwashing and entrapping his impressionable client by taking him under his wing and convincing him it was his duty as a Muslim to wage a holy war against American oppressors. Eldawoody and a Bangladesh-born undercover officer both testified for the government. Eldawoody had been assigned by the New York Police Department to identify and monitor Islamic extremists in the city's Muslim neighborhoods following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Bangladesh-born undercover officer, who testified using an alias, described being plucked straight out of the police academy in 2003 and given orders to become a "walking camera" among Muslims. He recalled a conversation on the second anniversary of the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center in which Siraj reportedly  "complimented" Osama bin Laden. (DesPardes News Monitor)

Beards, Breakfast and Bridges

NEW JERSEY, MAY 10 - Post 9/11, beards, bridges and breakfast meetings are red herrings specially if they all appear within the same span of time and the point of origin is a mosque. This is exactly what happened on April 9. At around 7 in the morning, six South Asian American Muslim men were on their way to have breakfast at Jackson Heights in Queens, New York, when their van was stopped past the toll booth of the Triborough Bridge which connects Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. These men are reportedly officials of the Dar Ul Islah Mosque, in Teaneck, N.J. Every other Sunday, they have breakfast together, the mosque spokesman Waheed Khalid told DesPardes.com. These men said they were made to line up along the roadway and handcuffed behind their backs while passing motorists gawked. "Being handcuffed and driven to the precinct in separate cars was not only humiliating but it is a clear-cut case of "profiling" and there should be accountability," said Nadia Mohammad, Director for Civil Rights of CAIR NY to DesPardes.com. The driver, Syed Hazari, an Indian-American of Teaneck, New Jersey, said he gave the police officer his license and registration and the officer returned to his police cruiser. Within minutes, he said, five other police cars arrived and officers ordered the vans' occupants out. Hazari and the other men are U.S. citizens and longtime residents of the United States. Dr. Feroze Padela, a Pakistani-American, is the President of the Teaneck Mosque Board. Dr Shakil Khan, also a Pakistani-American, is its Vice President. The handcuffed men were taken in separate police cars to a police precinct  in Manhattan, and forced to wait while the driver was questioned in another room. They said one of the officers told the men they were detained because Hazari's name was on a list of names that demanded further inquiry. "If Hazari's name showed up on a suspect list why were the rest handcuffed then, " told Nadia Mohammad, Director for Civil Rights at CAIR, NY to DesPardes.com. CAIR - Council on American-Islamic Relations, is a lead community advocate through out the United States, and works to protect the Civil Liberties of Muslims, to ensure an accurate picture of Islam in the media and to promote positive relations with the government. We were made a spectacle," said Igbal Khan, of Paramus, N.J. "We had caps and beards. I am sure people were thinking, 'They finally got those terrorists."' Iqbal Khan, an Indian American Muslim is the Secretary of the Mosque's board. The men said  at a news conference Wednesday that they planned to file a civil rights lawsuit for what their attorney Devereauz Cannick called "Muslim profiling." "There is no explanation for this except for religion," Khan said. "It was humiliating." CAIR-NY and CAIR-NJ are supporting these men in their lawsuit against "profiling of Muslim men", said Nadia. The men also demanded that the agency that runs the bridge, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Bridges and Tunnels division, provide religious sensitivity training to its police officers. A spokeswoman for the MTA's Bridges and Tunnels, Catherine Sweeney, said the men's van was stopped after police radar picked it up traveling 70 mph in a 40 mph zone. She said the agency was looking into the discrimination charges, reported Associated Press. Hazari, who was driving the van was handed speeding ticket. He is also a member of the mosque board and lives in New Jersey. -DesPardes News

NSEERS waiver granted to Pakistani

Updated: Saturday, February 24, 2007 08:50 AM NEW JERSEY, MAY 11 - Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S. Gen (Retd) Jehangir Karamat has congratulated a Pakistani-Canadian Naeem Rabbani, for having received the waiver to register with the US immigration authorities daily at the US/Canada border. In an email sent to Rabbani, Mr Karamat wrote, "This happened because of your consistent effort and refusal to give up. Well done--this is a great achievement and we are proud of you." An impact of post-Sept. 11, homeland security programs like NSEERS -- the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System mandate immigrants and visitors from certain countries, mostly Muslim and Middle Eastern, to register upon arrival and departure with local immigration authorities. Pakistan tops the list. Naeem Rabbani, like several hundred Pakistani-Canadians, who cross the northern border daily to work in Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan, have to register twice daily with the US immigration authorities. Once on arrival and once on departure. Special registration procedures made Pakistanis like Naeem Rabbani entering the U.S. daily from Canada to go to an area where they were fingerprinted, photographed, asked to show documents, and interviewed as to the length and purpose of their stay in the United States, before allowed across the border. Mr Rabbani, a year back, launched a campaign to have this stringent requirement, specially for Pakistanis and Pakistani-born Canadians, waived. The task for which the Canadian and Pakistani Governments failed to do was finally done by him single handedly. Rabbani approached U.S. Senator Debbie Stebnow (D-Mich) in January through Mr Mohammad Ashraf Qazi, a Pakistani-American businessman and social worker and convinced her to take the issue up with relevant authorities which she did. Today the waiver is one of the great achievements by Pakistanis in USA and Canada post 9/11. According to Rabbani, every Pakistani living in Canada and traveling daily to USA for employment  "should apply for a waiver of NSEERS - and hopefully they gonna get it," he added. (DesPardes News)

 

Top