Shameless Plagiarism

First read this SF Chronicle report from August 26.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/26/MNGQ5KPVV91.DTL

2 Lodi residents refused entry back into U.S.

The federal government has barred two relatives of a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists from returning to the country after a lengthy stay in Pakistan, placing the U.S. citizens in an extraordinary legal limbo.

Muhammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalized citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, have not been charged with a crime. However, they are the uncle and cousin of Hamid Hayat, a 23-year-old Lodi cherry packer who was convicted in April of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp.

Federal authorities said Friday that the men, both Lodi residents, would not be allowed back into the country unless they agreed to FBI interrogations in Pakistan. An attorney representing the family said agents have asked whether the younger Ismail trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan.

The men and three relatives had been in Pakistan for more than four years and tried to return to the United States on April 21 as a federal jury in Sacramento deliberated Hayat's fate. But they were pulled aside during a layover in Hong Kong and told there was a problem with their passports, said Julia Harumi Mass, their attorney.

The father and son were forced to pay for a flight back to Islamabad because they were on the government's "no-fly" list, Mass said. Muhammad Ismail's wife, teenage daughter and younger son, who were not on the list, continued on to the United States.

Neither Muhammad nor Jaber Ismail holds dual Pakistani citizenship, Mass said.

"We haven't heard about this happening -- U.S. citizens being refused the right to return from abroad without any charges or any basis," said Mass, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

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Then read this Dawn, Pakistan story from August 28.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/08/28/top14.htm

Two barred from returning to US

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali


SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 27: The US government has barred two relatives of Hamid Hayat, a Pakistani-American convicted of supporting terrorists from returning to the country after a long stay in Pakistan.

Mohammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalised citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, have not been charged with any crime. However, they are the uncle and cousin of Hamid Hayat, 23, who was convicted in April of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp.

US authorities said that the men, both Lodi residents, would not be allowed back into the country unless they agreed to FBI interrogations in Pakistan. An attorney representing the family said agents have asked whether the younger Ismail trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan.

The men and three relatives had been in Pakistan for more than four years and tried to return to the United States on April 21 as a federal jury in Sacramento deliberated Hayat's fate.

But they were pulled aside during a layover in Hong Kong and told there was a problem with their passports, said Julia Harumi Mass, their attorney.

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What a glaring example of shameless plagiarism! I know one Abdus Sattar Ghazali who is a serious man, but this joker got to be someone else. After making a few changes in the first paragraph of the story he literally copied everything else from the Chronicle and got it published under his name. I understand that Dawn editors don’t read all international newspapers so I am going to bring this to their attention. The Dawn editors owe an apology to the San Francisco Chronicle and they need to fire this cheater.

Diary of August 25, 2006

Strange how things work out for me. Even with all the mishaps I encountered, it turned out to be a productive day.

Najeeb got directions to the courthouse from the Internet and gave them to me. There were inaccuracies in those directions once you get closer to Sacramento. I left home at 6:15 am and reached Sacramento around quarter past eight, but then it took me a while to find the right way to reach the court on 'I' street. When I reached the court it was 8:40. I could not find street parking so I parked in the garage facing the courthouse. I needed to first attend the court session—obviously I could not take my cameras with me. That meant I needed to first go empty handed in the court and after hearing the sentence run back to my car in the parking structure, grab the cameras, and run back to the court building to be there on time for Umer Hayat’s press conference.

As I entered the court building I found Demian Bulwa of San Francisco Chronicle in the lobby. I greeted him; he could not remember my name—although we had met in Lodi, he talked with me on the phone when I was in Karachi, and had also communicated with me via email. Busy reporters do meet a lot of people and it is understandable that they cannot remember everybody’s name.

My breakfast that morning had a lot of fluid in it so I needed to use the restroom right away. After using the restroom I took the elevator to the 13th floor. Umer Hayat was to be sentenced in Courtroom number 10 on the 13th floor. There were still a few minutes till 9 when I entered the courtroom. I read the list of cases to be heard that morning. Umer Hayat vs. US Government was on top of the list. In the courtroom clerks were chatting with each other; there was a small audience mostly comprised young men and women. I liked the grandeur of the court décor. Heavy wood furniture commanded respect and made you wear a very serious face in that room. I thought about the evolution of courtroom architectural design and imagined the discussions architect of that building must have had with the contractors. Soon the room started to fill up. Attorneys in business suits holding files and briefcases showed up. Spectators too started taking seats. Umer Hayat entered along with his attorneys. Then all of us were asked to rise. Judge Burrell entered the room and the court came to order. I could not understand most of the court proceedings not only because of my lack of knowledge in legal matter but also because I had a hard time hearing Judge Burrell. But I understood that part when Judge Burrell asked Umer Hayat if he wanted to say anything before Judge would read the sentence. Umer Hayat had a female interpreter on his right hand side. This interpreter would start whispering in Umer’s ear even before the Judge would finish his sentence. Either she had excellent skills to hear and speak at the same time, or she already knew what the judge was going to say. I was very disappointed to hear from the interpreter that Umer Hayat did not wish to say anything before the sentence. I thought a short speech in Pushto would have been very effective; such a speech in Umer’s native tongue would have highlighted the language-divide between the prosecutor and the accused. I also thought Umer was inappropriately dressed for the occasion. Instead of wearing a suit he should have worn shalwar-qameez along with a turban on his head. Just imagine the drama of watching this foreign-born man, dressed in strange clothes, making a speech in an incomprehensible language!

As soon as the sentence was read and court moved on to the next matter I left. I hurriedly took the elevator down, and then ran out of the building to go to my car in the parking structure. When I came back with my cameras, video and still, all the TV station cameras had lined up a few feet away from the building entrance. I too waited with them.

Stranded US Citizens

I met Mohammad Ismail and his son Jabir Ismail in their village of origin Behboudi, not too far from the town of Hattiyan. They are both U.S. citizens and residents of Lodi. When I met them on March 11 of this year Jabir told me he had completed his Hafza (memorizing Quran); father and son were getting ready to go back to the US. I asked them if they were aware of the difficulties they might face when entering the US. When I asked them that question what I had in my mind were possibilities of hold up at the US port of entry and grueling interrogation. I never thought they would be on some kind of a no-fly list and would not be allowed to fly back to their country of citizenship.

Demain Bulwa broke this story in San Francisco Chronicle:


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/26/MNGQ5KPVV91.DTL

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, August 26, 2006 (SF Chronicle)
2 Lodi residents refused entry back into U.S.
Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer


(08-26) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- The federal government has barred
two
relatives of a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists from
returning
to the country after a lengthy stay in Pakistan, placing the U.S.
citizens
in an extraordinary legal limbo.
Muhammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalized citizen born in Pakistan,
and
his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States,
have
not been charged with a crime. However, they are the uncle and cousin
of
Hamid Hayat, a 23-year-old Lodi cherry packer who was convicted in
April
of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp............

----------------------------------------------------------------------


So, what is going on?
Presumably there is a “no-fly list” that “anti-terrorism officials” can put suspected ‘terrorists’ on? If you are unlucky to be on that list you cannot fly. You can probably fly from one terrorist county to another, for example Venezuela to Syria, or Iran to North Korea, but you cannot come closer to the US or countries that the US has influence on.
But then other questions:
What is the legality of that ‘no-fly list’?
Under what suspicion people are put on that list?
What toll free number to call to find out if you are on that no-fly list?
If someone gets on that list by ‘mistake’, what is the procedure to get off the list?

Are answers to all the above qeustions written down somewhere so that there can be some kind of accountability of public servants? Or is it asking too much in these trying times when teeming bands of terrorists are lurking in shadows ready to attack us and our government is hell-bent to protect us?

OK, sarcasm aside what do I see here?

I see mistrust at both ends. That the FBI is distrustful of bearded young men with skull caps, is a given. Lodi Muslim community’s distrust of FBI and the US Government is a little hard to understand, but go to Lodi a couple of times, talk to Muslim community members there, and you would see their point of view. They believe they have been punished without a crime. They believe Hamid Hayat is completely innocent. They believe they have been cheated by FBI. They believe FBI sent a spy who trapped the dumbest person among them. They believe FBI can tire you with interrogation, can record hours and hours of conversation, can then put together a “proof” of lying to FBI, and can then arrest you for that ‘crime’. Most probably this is the reason why Jabir is evading an interrogation by FBI in Islamabad. And who can blame him?

Interrogation:
What is your name?
My name is Suleiman.
Is that it, ‘Suleiman’, or you have another name too?
My name is Suleiman Ahmad.
But you told us your name was Suleiman, and now you are telling us something different. Do you know that lying to federal agents is a crime punishable by law?

[Though in most of the Muslim world the J name is written as ‘Jaber’, in Pakistan it is mostly written as ‘Jabir’. I have to find out how younger Ismail spells his name. Another clarification: In Muslim faith people are generally not given any of Allah’s ninety-nine names (Jabir, Qadir, Hakim, Rahman, Raheem, etc.); instead, the prefix ‘Abdul’ (one who worships) is added to one of the 99 names in calling a person, so a man can be called Abdul Rahman (one who worships Rahman), but not Rahman; this logic is most evident in the name Abdullah (one who worships Allah). Having said all this, lately I have seen cases when people do go by Rahman, Hakim, Qadir, etc.]

This one is for you, Hamid Hayat

It was last year that I became involved in analyzing the Lodi terror probe story. The person who initiated me on this was Najeeb Hasan. Najeeb is a young journalist of Pakistani descent. Najeeb had been visiting Lodi and interviewing community members. After Najeeb made contact with me and suggested that we make a documentary film on the case, I started going to Lodi with him. Names erstwhile coldly printed in newspaper stories and read sans empathy started to come alive. Ever since my first trip to Lodi I have often thought of Hamid Hayat. How does he feel in that jail cell? How is his one day different than the other? Does he get to read news about himself? What goes in his mind these days?

This blog is dedicated to Hamid Hayat. I'll tell you his story as it slowly unravels.