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Daily Embassy - June 27, 2007
Canadian MP wants apology from U.S. for border delay
By Brian Adeba
As a respected scholar on Islamic matters, Munir El-Kassem travels frequently to the United States to give lectures to fellow Muslims. For years after Sept. 11, 2001, he did so without any hitches. But early last month, things took a turn.
Flying from Quebec City, he made a stop in Detroit, Michigan to change planes for his flight to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the site of an interfaith conference he had been invited to attend.
As he stood before U.S. immigration officials to be cleared for boarding, he was asked the usual question regarding the purpose of his visit. Then the immigration official asked him what faith he was. On replying that he was a Muslim, Mr. El-Kassem said he was asked, in a commanding voice, to follow the officer to another room. There, he was asked to sit down on a chair. After about 10 minutes, another official, whom he says was a supervisor, entered the room.
"The first question was: 'Have you ever met Osama Bin Laden?'" Mr. Kassem recalled in an interview earlier this month.
Mr. Kassem said he couldn't believe his ears and ventured to ask, "Are you serious?" upon which he was commanded to answer the question. When he replied that he hadn't, he was asked whether he had ever met Saddam Hussein. The officer also wanted to know what he thought of Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, and also what he thought of the United States. He was also asked whether he worshipped God or Allah. The officer then left the room, but came back later and asked why Mr. El-Kassem had travelled to Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria, destinations that Mr. El-Kasseem had visited either for pilgrimage–in the case of Saudi Arabia–or family visits. He was also asked whether he had visited Iran and Iraq recently, countries that he hadn't been to.
"All through this interview, I felt so uncomfortable," said Mr. El-Kassem, who is also a professor of dentistry at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont. He immigrated to Canada from Lebanon in 1976.
"The officer seemed amused by the suggestion that a professor of dentistry will engage in such activities [lecturing on Islamic affairs]."
As his luggage was searched, Mr. El-Kassem was taken to another room where he was fingerprinted and photographed. He said throughout the process, he felt like a criminal. The whole ordeal lasted from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., before he was told he was free to go. He missed his plane and his blood pressure was rising.
MPs Brought Incident to MacKay
Meanwhile, back in Milwaukee, conference organizers were becoming anxious. They called Mr. El-Kassem's wife, but were told that he should be in the Wisconsin city.
By the time he arrived in Milwaukee, Mr. El-Kassem said he was frustrated and exhausted, but he managed to deliver his lecture and a seminar for youth at the conference.
On arriving home in London, he contacted his MP, Irene Mathyssen of the NDP, who brought the issue to the party's caucus. Later, Liberal MP Glen Pearson, who is well-acquainted with Mr. El-Kassem, raised the issue during Question Period in the House of Commons on June 8. Mr. Pearson asked Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay to investigate the issue and seek an apology from the U.S.
"We will take this matter up with the U.S. authorities," Mr. MacKay said in Parliament, adding that he would like to hear directly from Mr. El-Kassem.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Pearson and Mr. El-Kassem met with Mr. MacKay, who told them he had expressed his concerns to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Mr. Pearson said he was encouraged by Mr. MacKay's suggestion that a database of cases such as Mr. El-Kassem's be established. But the Liberal MP cautioned that despite the steps being taken, there is no guarantee that the Americans will respond. Mr. Pearson, who has a seven-year-old adopted daughter from Darfur, said when he and his wife travel to the U.S., they are often stopped and searched because their daughter is from Sudan. "Sometimes they will take us aside for two hours because Sudan is on the terrorist list," said Mr. Pearson.
The harassment of Muslims at the U.S. border occurs regularly and no clear reason is given, said Sameer Zuberi, a spokesman for the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations. While he welcomed Mr. MacKay's efforts, Mr. Zuberi said the issue has to be treated broadly…..
http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2007/june/27/borderdelay/
The Star - June 28, 2007
US border guards deport Canadian Muslims
Routine border check or racial profiling? TheStar.com - GTA - Routine border check or racial profiling?
Iain Marlow
Milgo Noor had an appointment at 3:30 p.m. this past Sunday (June 22, 2007) to look at bridesmaid dresses in a Buffalo bridal shop. She never arrived.
When the young bride-to-be tried crossing the border with her three bridesmaids – two sisters and a cousin – the women were detained for more than eight hours and two of them were escorted back into Canada in handcuffs.
Shortly after Noor, 26, showed her citizenship to a U.S. border guard at the Peace Bridge, more than a dozen customs officers "charged" at her vehicle, starting an ordeal that she said stripped her of her dignity.
All four women are Canadian citizens. The family arrived in Alberta from Somalia 17 years ago and Noor has lived in Toronto for the past five years. The women have all crossed the border before without incident. This time they drove a rented vehicle. All the women are practising Muslims, but none wear the hijab.
For three of the eight hours, Noor and her eldest sister Rukia, 32, were held in solitary holding cells. After asking repeatedly why they had been detained, they were laughed at by U.S. border officials. "You have no rights here," they were told. "You came to us."
Their rooms had a chair bolted to the floor, a wall-mounted surveillance camera and an alarm that sounded every 30 minutes. They were searched by border officials wearing gloves, the women said, as well as being fingerprinted and photographed.
"It's one of those bizarre things that you never think is going to happen to you," Noor said.
They were told it was a random inspection, she said.
Noor said they were held without food or water. Only when Rukia, who is anemic, asked for something to raise her blood-sugar level was she given a Kit-Kat chocolate bar. They sat while border officials ate pizza in front of them. "We asked for water and no one would even look at us. They told us to `Shut up and sit down,'" Noor said.
After eight hours, the four women were told they were being "denied access to U.S. soil." Noor and Rukia were then handcuffed and driven to the Canadian side of the border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Kevin Corsaro confirmed that Noor was stopped and turned back at the border. But he said he couldn't discuss details of specific cases.
Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, said the incident does not surprise him. He says his organization receives about five complaints per week from Canadian Muslims who feel they have been treated unfairly at a U.S. entry point.
"They're brown and they have a Muslim name. There's two strikes against them," Elmasry said, adding that had the women been wearing the hijab it would have been three.
His organization advises Canadian Muslims to avoid travelling to the United States, and issues alerts before the annual Hajj pilgrimage urging Muslims to ensure their flights do not have U.S. stopovers……
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/230318
Progressive – June 25, 2007
Muslim American detained at border for fifth time
By Matthew Rothschild
Zakariya Muhammad Reed was coming back from Canada on June 17 when he was detained again for a couple of hours. This marks the fifth time in the last seven months that he has encountered difficulty.
On May 9, I reported on his troubles at www.progressive.org, “Muslim American Grilled at Border over Religion, Letter to the Editor”.
This time, Reed was asked about that article. On a previous occasion, he was grilled about a letter to the editor he'd written to the Toledo Blade. In that letter, he criticized U.S. support for Israeli policies, as well as Bush's Iraq War.
Expecting to be hassled by now, Reed decided to cross over from Windsor, Ontario, by way of the Detroit-Windsor tunnel. “The detention area is bigger,” he tells me, “so if I’m going to be there for several hours, I’d rather be in the bigger place.”
Sure enough, when he got to the booth, he was not allowed to go through. “There’s something coming up on your license plate,” the guard said, according to Reed. “It’s a no read.” The guard took his ID and scanned it.
“Three other guys come out and surround the car and escort me to the detention center,” Reed says. “After I got into main reception area, I talked to an immigration officer. And a guy comes around and says, ‘You’re the firefighter? From Ohio?’ ”
Still, they took him back into a detention area. “I was put up against the wall and thoroughly frisked, any more thoroughly and I would have asked for flowers,” Reed says. They asked him some of the usual questions, like where was he in Canada and how long had he been there, he says. “Then an agent came in asked me about the article on progressive.org,” Reed says. “He was shaking his head like it was ridiculous to speak with progressive.org.” …….
Ron Smith, spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection in Detroit, says he does not have information on why Reed was stopped the fifth time…..
http://www.progressive.org/mag_mc062507
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