Civil
Liberties for American Muslims
Over the last few months people have been arrested
and held incommunicado. Over 1200 people of the Islamic faith have been
held, interrogated, and excluded from participating in a healthy community
life. While well known Islamic charities that had previously never been
implicated in any crimes were suddenly labeled as "terrorist organizations".
The primary reason again being not their actual business but that they where
"Muslim" charities.
In the last month we have seen in the DC area
the home invasion of Muslims by federal authorities who again appear to
be guilty only of the crime of being Muslim. Businesses have been searched,
American citizens humiliated in an environment of guilt by belief rather
than
The recent passage and signing of the Patriot
Act has effectively nullified at least six amendments of the Bill of Rights.
This Patriot Bill is a massive violation of the Constitution it purports
to uphold. Among other things, it
mandates that judges give police search warrants when they ask for them,
for any reason. Judges can't deny these warrants to police, because police
don't need a stated reason to ask for them.
The Patriot Act rushed through Congress and signed by George W. Bush
is a major step toward a totalitarian state in which individual liberty
is crushed by the whim of police and corporate demagogues masquerading as
patriots. This unconstitutional destruction of civil liberties concerns all
people in the United States; Muslims have been disproportionately targeted
by it.
Position Statement:
The PMN denounces these attempts at undermining
our pluralistic