my country tis of thee...
sing along, you know the words!
U.S.-Deported Pakistanis: Outcasts in Two Lands
By DAVID ROHDE
ARACHI, Pakistan - For weeks, his only source of information was the shouts of men in the cells around him. There were about 60 of them, according to the prisoners' own count. All were Muslims, he remembers. Many of them, like himself, have since been quietly deported from the United States.
At his home in Pakistan, the former detainee, Anser Mehmood, a 42-year-old truck driver and father of four who lived in Bayonne, N.J., described "that hell": a windowless solitary confinement cell where he spent four months last year at a federal detention center in Brooklyn.
There was no day and night, he said, only two overhead florescent lights switched on 24 hours a day. There was no outside world, only two closed-circuit cameras that relayed his every move to an unseen guard. There was also no interrogation that might explain why he was arrested after the Sept. 11 attacks and treated as a dangerous terrorist.
"In that time, no official from the F.B.I. and I.N.S. came to interview me," he said, referring to his four months in the cell. "They never came to ask me any questions."
....
While whatever ordeal they faced after Sept. 11 in America is over, life in Pakistan has offered hardships all its own. American in attitude and manner, they are regarded by some Pakistanis as traitors. Four of them are separated from wives or children who remain in the United States.
Unlike the families of some of the others, Mr. Mehmood's family has come with him. He said his three older boys were failing classes taught in Urdu, which they do not speak. They are harassed and threatened.
"Over there, they call us terrorists," said his 12-year-old, Haris. "Over here, they say they are going to kill us."
....
"We have the presumption of innocence turned on its head," said Martin R. Stoller, Mr. Mehmood's lawyer. "Muslim males are presumed to be involved in terrorism and are held there until they are cleared."
continued
U.S.-Deported Pakistanis: Outcasts in Two Lands
By DAVID ROHDE
ARACHI, Pakistan - For weeks, his only source of information was the shouts of men in the cells around him. There were about 60 of them, according to the prisoners' own count. All were Muslims, he remembers. Many of them, like himself, have since been quietly deported from the United States.
At his home in Pakistan, the former detainee, Anser Mehmood, a 42-year-old truck driver and father of four who lived in Bayonne, N.J., described "that hell": a windowless solitary confinement cell where he spent four months last year at a federal detention center in Brooklyn.
There was no day and night, he said, only two overhead florescent lights switched on 24 hours a day. There was no outside world, only two closed-circuit cameras that relayed his every move to an unseen guard. There was also no interrogation that might explain why he was arrested after the Sept. 11 attacks and treated as a dangerous terrorist.
"In that time, no official from the F.B.I. and I.N.S. came to interview me," he said, referring to his four months in the cell. "They never came to ask me any questions."
....
While whatever ordeal they faced after Sept. 11 in America is over, life in Pakistan has offered hardships all its own. American in attitude and manner, they are regarded by some Pakistanis as traitors. Four of them are separated from wives or children who remain in the United States.
Unlike the families of some of the others, Mr. Mehmood's family has come with him. He said his three older boys were failing classes taught in Urdu, which they do not speak. They are harassed and threatened.
"Over there, they call us terrorists," said his 12-year-old, Haris. "Over here, they say they are going to kill us."
....
"We have the presumption of innocence turned on its head," said Martin R. Stoller, Mr. Mehmood's lawyer. "Muslim males are presumed to be involved in terrorism and are held there until they are cleared."
continued