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<h2 class="entry-title"><a
href="http://lawatthemargins.com/perspectives-shifa-from-prayers-to-plexiglass/"
title="Permalink to Perspectives: Shifa, from Prayers to Plexiglass"
rel="bookmark">Perspectives: Shifa, from Prayers to Plexiglass</a></h2>
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<p>April 5, 2014</p>
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<p>By <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuQAmAQnGQ0#t=32">S.
Sadequee</a><br>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lawatthemargins.com/perspectives-shifa-from-prayers-to-plexiglass/">http://lawatthemargins.com/perspectives-shifa-from-prayers-to-plexiglass/</a></small></small></b><br>
</p>
<p>My family’s connection with my brother dates back to the time when
my parents, grandmother, two siblings and I were stationed among the
masses of people dressed in two-piece seamless white linen. We were
meditating in the Arabian desert of Arafat under the scorching heat at
the holy pilgrimage in 1985. We joined thousands of pilgrims sweltering
in the blazing sand under white tents thirsty for cool breeze but all
raised their hands up in prayers. My parents wanted a child, and they
prayed that day for a son. Melting in supplication with the
worshipers, we implored God to bestow upon us a little brother. We were
all ecstatic when my little brother was born in Northern Virginia in
1986.</p>
<p>He became the jewel of our family because he was the manifestation
of our prayers, my mother’s prayers, grandmother’s prayers, delivered
to my family, humbling my parents to their relationship as human beings
to the sacred universe.</p>
<p>Shifa’s wellbeing behind bars is always confining our minds,
especially my parents as they are unable to be there for him. This is a
punishment for us that began with his illegal kidnapping and
incarceration. The horrid Bureau of Prison in Atlanta made us visit him
through a video monitor and headphones when he was in solitary
confinement for over three years before his trial had even begun. When
we were allowed contact visits once or twice a year for holidays after
many requests, the prison forced us to see him in orange jump-suit
shackled with chains in his feet and hands. The iron manacles did not
allow him to open a soda can or eat anything we bought him from the
vending machine.</p>
<p>As a teenager Shifa was an avid reader delving into books of poetry,
religion and spirituality, and history. He attended a Muslim high
school in Canada, taking classes in religious and classical Arabic
studies. Soon after, in 2001, he returned to Bangladesh to live with my
parents and finish high school. He fell ill from environmental
pollution in Dhaka so my parents decided to keep him at home where they
home-schooled him. When he returned to the US in 2004, Shifa was active
in social justice activism and the anti-war movement. He worked with
our sister Sonali in a women’s rights organization to end violence
against women and children. Community members in Atlanta also knew him
for his gentleness and warmth. He volunteered in conferences about
ending violence and sexism sponsored by Atlanta men’s organization. My
brother also volunteered with organizations like WAND—a national
organization whose mission is to <i>empower women</i> to act
politically, <i>reduce militarism and violence</i> and redirect
excessive military spending towards unmet human and environmental needs.</p>
<p>A year before Shifa was arrested, law-enforcement agents harassed my
immediate and extended families and friends in US, Canada and
Bangladesh. In late December 2005, ICE agents marched into our Roswell
home in Georgia, flaunting their guns at my mother and sister-in-law to
find out whether we had any guns or weapons in our home. The women
became confused and terrified unable to understand their reasons for
such behavior and questions. My mother held a legally obtained
permanent residency in the US at the time. But, the agents arrested my
mother that day for violating some immigration regulations and placed
her in removal proceedings. Not knowing what would happen with her
deportation case, we were living with uncertainty and feared she might
be deported and not allowed to see her son again. The government later
withdrew her deportation case in 2011, two years after my brother’s
trial ended.</p>
<p>However, the most shocking and numbing moment for my family was when
my brother went missing. Shifa went to Bangladesh in the summer of
2005 to get married. On his way at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New
York City, FBI agents interrogated him but let go. In April 17, 2006,
he was kidnapped and went missing for days. We later learned that the
FBI picked him up and brought him to Brooklyn, NY, aboard a “secret”
CIA rendition aircraft through Alaska. He was stripped off his clothes
and wrapped in a plastic-like material on the flight.</p>
<p>At a press conference in Bangladesh, my father requested the help of
journalists and the public in finding his son. The Bangladesh
government at the time kept silent. In New York, Shifa was charged with
making a “false statement” to the FBI but the case was later dropped.
In August 2006 the US government transferred Shifa to Atlanta on
“terrorism” related charges. No government agencies communicated about
his arrest to my father and his wife in Bangladesh or to my family in
Atlanta. The case stemmed from “evidence” from 2004 and 2005 when Shifa
was 18 and 19. Shifa was not permitted to see the evidence against him
until a few months of before his trial. The “secret” evidence against
Shifa included online chats between teenagers and religious literature
that he had translated from ancient Arabic texts to English for Tibyan
Publication.</p>
<p>While Shifa was awaiting trial, he was staying in a solitary
confinement cell that was approximately 8 feet by 12 feet for over
three years. He was in that cell for at least 23 hours per day. Many
days he remained in the cell for 24 hours. He could not have normal
pens or pencils. He could not make phone calls to his family, except on
rare occasions. He had never been charged with even a minor offence,
yet he had served three years in the most onerous prison conditions
that this country had to offer. During this time, an inmate assaulted
and attacked him, which left my brother traumatized and his health
markedly deteriorated.</p>
<p>The official charges against Shifa included “supporting” a foreign
terrorist organization (Laskar-e-taiba, LET) in Pakistan by sharing
videos of tourist sites in Washington, DC with his online friends.
However, LET was not listed and designated as a foreign terrorist
organization by the US State Department at the time Shifa was
apprehended but added to the list two weeks after his arrest. There
were <i>no acts </i>of “terrorism” charges against Shifa. There were <i>no
</i>“plotting”<i> </i>of terrorist activities charges against him.</p>
<p>Shifa is one of the first young Muslim men to represent himself at
his own trial in the federal court. He addressed the court throughout
his four year legal proceeding and challenged the court directly. The
prosecution took advantage of Shifa’s lack of knowledge of the law, and
submitted evidence that had no connection to him at all. The majority
of government witnesses were FBI agents who did not participate in the
online chats between teenagers but were allowed to present and
“interpret” evidence. No actual participants from the chats were
brought to testify. Jurors prejudicial towards Islam and Muslims were
chosen for the trial with some jurors, according to media reports as
well, caught sleeping as evidence was being presented.</p>
<p>Shifa was sentenced to 17 years. The results of the devastating and
oppressive events that this violent legal ordeal communicates to us are
that the court presiding over my brother’s case had its own imagination
of what is a Muslim and who belongs to the Muslim faith. In sentencing
him, the court pronounced itself an “expert” of Muslim religion. It had
its own definition of “Muslim” and felt the need to judge religious
expression and practice of my brother and declare and differentiate
between “true” and “good” Muslim from a “bad” Muslim.</p>
<p>I remember when we first went to visit my brother in the <a
href="http://ccrjustice.org/cmu-factsheet">Communication Management
Unit</a>-CMU in Marion, IL. Driving to this prison make us feel as if
we are approaching a serene and colorful quaint terrain. We pass by
still lakes, watching people fishing quietly in the water. Wild birds
with open wings are soaring in the velvet blue sky. We are in the
middle of a resting area for migratory birds and a home for hundreds of
plants and animals. It makes me feel that this prison must be more
beautiful and humane than the horrendous ones in other places. Passing
through the abandoned checkpoint and crossing over the intersection of
Justice and Prison Road, the massive ghoulish compound emerges with its
two huge towers, looming over the calm green space. The thorny prison
fences threaten the wandering birds. Visitors are instantly under the
microscope of guards from the shadowy towers, in addition to
surveillance cameras all over the facility. Upon viewing the scenic
landscape, one wouldn’t know that industrial and manufacturing
activities take place on the refuge near the prison. During WW II, our
government used this national safe haven to make explosives and even
today still produces “military ordinance production.” The ominous walls
of Marion CMU hide in the middle of a national wild life sanctuary in
Southern Illinois.</p>
<p>This prison is like a portal to some unknown land. We have to follow
the ritual of security check and cross many iron borders before we can
see my brother. Showing our identification cards, filling out forms,
taking off our shoes and jackets, and walking through the metal
detectors are routine procedures that we have to endure. We always
worry whether our bodies will set off an alarm. We are always thrilled
when we pass the security test but inhibit our emotions, because
visitation regulations can change arbitrarily and without prior notice.
We have to restrain our emotions and behave politely. It’s like an
exercise in humility but it’s forced on us, constraining us from being
our real selves. Then they brand our wrists with an invisible ink and
we are processed by a blue laser beam. It makes us feel as if we have
been turned into cattle–we have somehow become the property of the
prison, a prisoner.</p>
<p>A supervisor always escorts us, like the guards escort inmates, when
we enter the passage with the white hall lined with panel windows as
guards watch our every move. Going through one steel door after
another, we approach an interior that gets darker and darker when we
arrive at the general population room where convicted murderers, drug
dealers, and other offenders are allowed to visit their families with
physical contact. A booth where guards watch us on television screens
is stationed here in this room, but we don’t visit my brother here. We
have to cross another heavy door. Our visit and conversations with my
brother occur over phones, while prison officials watch us on a video
and document our speech and behavior. Federal agents simultaneously
monitor us and eavesdrop on our conversations remotely from Washington,
DC.</p>
<p>We enter the visitation room through the steel gate where the
pernicious glass-wall separates us from my brother. As we walk into the
room, the guard in blue uniform closes the menacing iron door and locks
us in. This room is eerie, dingy, and small. There are no windows or
doors to see or go outside. There are no bathrooms here. There are no
vending machines to buy water or soda. However, two cameras always
watch us— study our bodies and movements. It feels like the dark walls
are closing in, and there is no way out. Shifa always waits on the
other side of the Plexiglas. He welcomes us—me, my mother, and my
sister who flew in from Atlanta—with the biggest smile stretched across
his cheeks and the longest Muslim greeting in Arabic. His smiles chase
the darkness away. His hair is falling down to his ears and a full
bushy beard covering his face. He is in khaki uniform, wearing a white
skull cap and glasses. My brother brightens up the morose room with his
poised grin and graceful warmth. We are very thrilled to see him, but
especially my mother. She is filled with joy to see her son and very
anxious to talk to him, to hear his voice. She takes her seat between
my sister and me, picks up the new white phone placed between three
broken, useless black wall phones.</p>
<p>The CMU prison guards watch and document every move, word, and
action of my brother and all inmates around the clock. Unlike other
prisons where the Warden is in charge of daily operations, CMUs are
under the Director of Federal Bureau of Prison in Washington, DC. They
are “secret” prisons in our beautiful mid-western prairies of Indiana
and Illinois, established during the second term of George W. Bush.
They are “self-contained general population” units used to punish,
monitor inmates, and restrict their spiritual and religious life twenty
four hours a day. My brother’s emails, phone calls, personal letters,
and family visitations are all monitored. His interaction and all
communications of other inmates with the outside world are limited and
restricted. Family members cannot embrace their loved ones inside these
prisons. These units have been cleverly labeled by the government as
“general population” however, inmates in these sections do not actually
have the same privileges as those inmates in the regular general
population. Supposedly a see-through wall barring family members from
hugging each other can help protect American citizens and national
security. It is very puzzling to me how banning my mother and other
families of prisoners from natural human contact and fulfilling the
need for familial closeness and physical human connection with our
loved-ones can protect our nation. Unless of course, the intention
isn’t to protect national security but use that language to fashion
something else.</p>
<p>The government is not only punishing my brother and our family; they
are also punishing all citizens and extracting money from the public. A
<a
href="http://www.justice.gov/jmd/2010justification/pdf/fy10-bop-se.pdf">2010
Congressional Report on CMUs</a> indicated that our government spent
some $14 million in tax dollars of American citizens to ensure that
these few inmates in CMUs and their families are punished and do not
have familial communication or physical contact with their loved ones.
How is it possible that so many Americans revolted at the news of
Guantanamo Bay but continue to sponsor and pay for these CMU internment
camps known as the “<a
href="http://www.npr.org/2011/03/03/134168714/guantanamo-north-inside-u-s-secretive-prisons">Guantanamo
North</a>” that constitutes the American prison-industrial complex? The
level of security and inhumane restrictions on the interactions at
these prisons seem absurd considering how the Muslim prisoners in these
units committed <i>no acts of violence</i>. I wonder whether the only
purpose for housing peaceful Muslims in CMUs is to create an image to
make the world believe that “terrorists” exist, when these few men have
not committed such acts as proven by courts. Why are so many tax
dollars spent to make sure Muslim women and children suffer and can
never hug their loved-ones, kiss their forehead, when many Americans
are suffering from hunger and homelessness every day.</p>
<p>See Letter from <a
href="http://ccrjustice.org/files/Congress_Ltr_BOP_CMUs.pdf">Congress
on CMUs</a></p>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
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