“NYC Muslim Leaders Encourage Residents to Know Their Rights”

Taken from:  http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/11/nyc_muslims_less_like_to_collaborate_with_police_after_one_too_many_undercover_stings.html 

November 15, 2011

Leaders in New York City’s Muslim community are warning people to be watchful of potential undercover NYPD and FBI informants. So they’re holding teach-in’s to help members of the community diagnose the problem and understand their rights.

Insiders say the government’s surveillance efforts are certain to further strain relations between NYPD and the Muslims in the city. The Associated Press is reporting that Muslim community leaders are openly teaching people how to identify police informants, encouraging them to always talk to a lawyer before speaking with the authorities, and reminding people already working with law enforcement that they have the right to change their minds.

The news comes after the AP released an investigation that revealed the NYPD dispatched plainclothes officers to eavesdrop in Muslim communities. The report found hundreds of mosques and restaurants were infiltrated to build a database on what the department later called “daily life inside Muslim neighborhoods.”

In a story published Monday, the AP describes some methods being used in the teach-in’s:

At a recent “Know Your Rights” session for Brooklyn College students, someone asked why Muslims who don’t have anything to hide should avoid talking to police.“Most of the time it’s a fishing expedition,” answered Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York. “So the safest thing you can do for yourself, your family and for your community, is not to answer.”

…

A recently distributed brochure from the City University of New York Law School warns people to be wary when confronted by someone who advocates violence against the U.S., discusses terror organizations, is overly generous or is aggressive in their interactions. The brochure said that person could be a police informant.“Be very careful about involving the police,” the brochure said. “If the individual is an informant, the police may not do anything … If the individual is not an informant and you report them, the unintended consequences could be devastating.”

Muslim communities nationwide have faced a increased amounts of surveillance since 9/11. In a Colorlines.com story published in September, Asraa Mustufa wrote about Muslims in Irvine, California whose communities were being infiltrated by FBI and CIA informants. The policies that allow the agencies to conduct undercover surveillance in Muslim neighborhoods are sanctioned by the Obama administration. To make matters even worse, the administration strengthened a national security provision that makes it nearly impossible for communities and individuals to protect their rights through lawsuits after they’ve been infiltrated.Mustufa explained on Colorlines:

The provision, known as the state secrets privilege, permits the government to block discovery in a lawsuit of any information that, if disclosed, could adversely affect national security or foreign relations.

During his first presidential campaign, Barack Obama vowed to end the type of undercover surveillance that Muslim communities around the country are now dealing with. Of course, that didn’t happen. But not only did it not happen, government surveillance and the legal mechanisms to protect is has reached nearly unprecedented levels.

“Regents Plan Push for Aid to Illegal Immigrants”

Taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/nyregion/new-york-regents-plan-a-push-for-the-dream-act.html?_r=1&hpw

October 14, 2011

When they vote on their legislative agenda on Tuesday, New York State’s top education officials will focus for the first time on the contentious topic of illegal immigration.

The agenda, proposed by the state education commissioner, John B. King Jr., to the Board of Regents, has as a top priority a proposal to push Congress to pass legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who go to college. Included in that legislation, known as the Dream Act, is a provision that would give students who are in the country illegally access to tuition assistance at city and state universities. The agenda is expected to be approved.

The lobbying effort would thrust the State Education Department into the heart of a highly politicized debate that has divided communities for years and spawned a hodgepodge of state regulations in response to the federal government’s inaction on reforming the country’s immigration laws. New York already allows illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at state universities. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas signed a similar measure into law in 2001; controversy surrounding it has threatened to derail his effort to gain the Republican presidential nomination.

In an interview, Dr. King said that the Regents’ strategy on the Dream Act would address one of the most significant roadblocks faced by an estimated 345,000 illegal immigrants who attend public schools in New York. By providing help with tuition and with residency documents, the federal law would allow those who graduate from college to strive for more than the menial jobs they must often accept because of their status. “It’s about making sure that students are able to fulfill their aspirations after they graduate from high school, which is something that’s currently not available to those who happen to be undocumented,” Dr. King said. In addition, he said, “it aligns perfectly with our college-and-career readiness goals.” Dr. King said that lobbying Congress would be the “first step” in a campaign that could progress to asking the State Legislature to do what California did just a few days ago: offer state-financed scholarships and aid to illegal immigrants attending state universities.

For now, the plan is to write to and visit the members of Congress from New York, as well as legislators from other states who could play decisive roles in the Dream Act’s passage. The bill, first introduced in 2000, has yet to gain enough support for passage. It would create a path to citizenship for certain young illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children, completed two years of college or military service and met other requirements, like passing a criminal background check.

For the past several months, Dr. King and the Board of Regents’ chancellor, Merryl H. Tisch, have taken an interest in addressing the needs of the state’s immigrant students, most of whom go to school in New York City. “These people are going to be citizens of this country some day, and we need to prepare them for a life of independence,” Dr. Tisch said.

On Wednesday, Dr. King announced an agreement to improve the services offered in city schools to students who are still learning English, like more access to certified teachers and to the language lessons to which they are legally entitled.

Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an advocacy group, said the Regents’ agenda was a natural evolution of a process begun years ago to refine the state’s policies regarding students who are not proficient in English. “It really brings the focus back to what the issue is about,” she said. “It’s about education, and it’s about our children.”

Some critics of immigration reform criticized the Regents’ plan as going too far. “This amounts to a much broader amnesty than the New York State Board of Regents wants to portray it,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation of American Immigration Reform, which has called for reducing the levels of illegal immigration.

But Daniela Alulema, a board member of the New York State Youth Leadership Council, a supporter of access to higher education for illegal immigrants, said she hoped the Regents would eventually throw their support behind a version of the Dream Act introduced in the State Legislature in March. Among other things, the bill would give illegal immigrants access to tuition assistance and driver’s licenses, a provision that crumbled under intense criticism in 2007, after it was proposed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Ms. Alulema has pinned her hopes on state action. “The truth is, it’s very hard for something to happen in Congress because of the climate there now,” she said.

Occupy Wall Street

Here is a movement that has been happening in New York City and in various other cities in the US. Whether you support it or not, realize that the list of grievances in its official statement are issues that cannot be ignored; if we want a better tomorrow, we have to fix the problems today.

Taken from: http://occupywallst.org/

On October 05, 2011, at 3:00 in the afternoon the residents of Liberty Square will gather to join their union brothers and sisters in solidarity and march. At 4:30 in the afternoon the 99% will march in solidarity with #occupywallstreet from Foley Square to the Financial District, where their pensions have disappeared to, where their health has disappeared to. Together we will protest this great injustice. We stand in solidarity with the honest workers of:

• AFL-CIO (AFSCME)
• United NY
• Strong Economy for All Coalition
• Working Families Party
• TWU Local 100
• SEIU 1199
• CWA 1109
• RWDSU
• Communications Workers of America
• CWA Local 1180
• United Auto Workers
• United Federation of Teachers
• Professional Staff Congress – CUNY
• National Nurses United
• Writers Guild East

And:

• VOCAL-NY
• Community Voices Heard
• Alliance for Quality Education
• New York Communities for Change
• Coalition for the Homeless
• Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project (NEDAP)
• The Job Party
• NYC Coalition for Educational Justice
• The Mirabal Sisters Cultural and Community Center
• The New Deal for New York Campaign
• National People’s Action
• ALIGN
• Human Services Council
• Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State
• Citizen Action of NY
• MoveOn.org
• Common Cause NY
• New Bottom Line
• 350.org
• Tenants & Neighbors
• Democracy for NYC
• Resource Generation
• Tenants PAC
• Teachers Unite

Together we will voice our belief that the American dream will live again, that the American way is to help one another succeed. Our voice, our values, will be heard.

***

Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street –  voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square: Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!