FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 18, 2003
2:04 PM
CONTACT: Center for Constitutional Rights 
 David Lerner 212/260-5000
Nancy Chang 212/614-6420
DOJ Inspector General Report Confirms Abuses of Arab and Muslims Detained by INS after 9-11 - Center for Constitutional Rights Applauds DOJ Office of Inspector General Report for Exposing Abuse of 9-11 INS Detainees at Brooklyn Detention Center
   NEW YORK - December 18 - Today, the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Justice has issued a report that provides a wealth of details substantiating allegations made by the Center for Constitutional Rights in a lawsuit filed in April 2002. The suit, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, is pending in the Brooklyn federal court, and was brought on behalf of a class of Arab and Muslim from South Asian and Middle Eastern countries with no ties to terrorism who were arrested in the wake of 9-11 by the INS on immigration charges – some as minor as overstaying one’s visa for a few days – and held without justification for months on end in the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. None of these detainees were arrested on terrorism charges.

The IG reviewed hundreds of videotapes, many of which MDC officials had failed to provide in response to earlier requests, and he interviewed MDC officials, Bureau of Prison officials, and other federal officials. His report, which supplements an earlier report issued this summer, documents an ugly course of systematic brutality and verbal abuse directed against the 9-11 detainees by MDC officers and supervisors. Detainees reported that they were slammed against an American flag T-shirt that was hung on the wall and that it was bloodied. In addition, the report reveals that MDC corrections officers, including some supervisors:

· Slammed detainees into walls

· Bent and twisted the hands of detainees, wrists and fingers

· Lifted restrained detainees off the ground by their arms

· Stepped on their leg restraint chains

· Left several detainees cuffed and shackled for seven hours in a cell

· Strip-searched detainees without any correctional justification

The IG also reported that conversations between detainees and their attorneys were recorded and videotaped from September to February 2002. He concluded that audio-taping these attorney visits “violated the law and interfered with the detainees’ effective access to legal counsel.”

Nancy Chang, Senior Litigation Attorney for Center for Constitutional Rights, one of the attorneys litigating the Turkmen suit, stated that “All Americans should be grateful to the Inspector General for his tenacity in uncovering evidence that had previously been withheld from him concerning the horrific treatment of Muslim and Arab detainees by MDC prison officials following September 11. These detainees were targeted based on their religion and ethnicity alone, and the emotionally charged atmosphere following the tragedy of September 11 cannot serve as an excuse for this brutality.”

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