We reviewed our areas of concern with the auditors, which include physical and emotional abuse, medical care, living conditons, contact with family, attorneys, and advocates (such as NJCRDC), religious access, dietary problems, and dogs.

The auditors reaffirmed that we could bring in witnesses to the detainee interviews. They will develop a schedule with us and give us a day or two notice. In addition, they seem willing to offer witnesses to detainees who don't have them.

They did not commit to interviewing transferred or released detainees but said if we provide names and a summary of their complaints they will consider it.

Timeline for the audit: Hudson interviews start on Monday, June 27. Passaic interviews will begin after July 12th.

Indictment of George W. Bush, April 30th, 2005

New Jersey Civil Right Defense Committee, the Graduate Student Association of Rutgers, together with other activists and organizations, will hold a Grand Jury Indictment of George W. Bush et al for Torture, Illegal Detention and Murder, Saturday April 30th from 3:30 to 6:30 PM. The Indictment will be held in Room B, Douglass Student Center, Rutgers University George St. and Nichol Ave, New Brunswick. Come, here testimony and be part of the Grand Jury that will decide who the real criminals are!

This grand jury indictment, a first step to a full trial by People’s Court in the fall, will bring to popular attention the connection between the widely publicized crimes at Abu Ghraib, the still covered-up torture at Guantanamo and the detention without trial of tens of thousand of immigrants here in the US. The government has been all too successful in creating an image of the criminal immigrant, an image that allows the exploitation of twenty million non-citizens under appalling conditions—undercutting the rights and standards of living of all. The indictment will instead show that depriving non-citizens of the rights granted them, as well as citizens, by the Bill if Rights, inevitably leads to the horrors of torture and paves the way for the elimination of rights for citizens as well.

We will present first-hand and media accounts of torture, illegal detention and murder. The NJCRDC has been in direct contact with detainees across NJ county jails for the past couple of years. Some former detainees will be present to describe what they endured—detention without charge or trial. We will document the US laws that prohibit what has been occurring. And we will present memos and other documents that directly link these crimes to those who are in charge of detention and torture facilities like Sheriff Jerry Speziale, General Miller and General Sanchez, and to policy makers like Rumsfeld, Tom Ridge, Alberto Gonzalez and G.W. Bush.

Defendants will include: Bush, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Ridge, Gen. Miller, Sherrif Jerry Speziale, and Clinton, for his role in proposing the 1996 laws used to justify most detentions.

Please contact the NJ Civil Rights Detention Committee for more information at elerner@igc.org or log on: www.nj-civilrights.org

Please circulate this announcement!

MADANI BA RELEASED FROM DETENTION, April 19, 2005

Mr. Madani Ba called from a payphone to say that he was released.

Here is some background on Mr. Ba.

Madani, a 54 year-old from Mali, has resided in the US for the past 27 years, since 1978, and has a green card. He had been held in Passaic County Jail with a final deportation order since September 2003. The government continued to detain him, claiming that his deportation to Mali was "imminent". This was clearly not true, since the Mali embassy has put in writing that they will not take him back.

Madani's continued detention was illegal - both as a violation of the Bill of the Rights guarantee of speedy process and also in direct conflict with the 2001 Supreme Court Zadvyvas vs. Davis ruling. This ruling on habeas corpus said that detainees must be either released or deported within six months of receiving a final deportation order.

Madani, who has advanced diabetes, went on a hunger strike in March 2005. He only stopped the hunger strike after being placed in solitary confinement and having his glasses taken away so he could not see. Then he was visited by an ICE official who both threatened him and promised him they would release him. Madani planned to start another hunger strike even though his health was precarious.

Madani could not eat most of the food given to him because he does not have any teeth. He survived largely on beans, which the jail gave him for both for lunch and supper. The medical care he received in the jail was completely inadequate. His diabetes condition has deteriorated, his blood sugar is high and his feet are numb.

Passaic County Jail is one of the worst facilities for immigrant detainees in the country. They are subject to extensive verbal and physical abuse from the guards and the jail has once again brought the detainees into contact with attack dogs on a regular basis. The detainees are denied adequate medical care and medicines for life-threatening llnesses, amounting to life-sentences for persons whose only crime has been a desire to reside in "the land of the free..."

On April 11, 2005 New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee initiated a telephone and e-mail compaign to obtain Madani Ba's release. Due to the diligent efforts of everyone who called or e-mailed ICE and Passaic County Jail officials on his behalf, Madani Ba was released on the morning of April 19.

JOURNALIST FROM SIERRA LEONE DEPORTED, SAFETY AND WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN, June 30, 2004

Paul Barrow, a journalist who escaped from Sierra Leone in 1992 for fear of his life, has been deported. He was taken from his cell at Hudson County Correctional Center at 5 AM on Saturday, June 26. His family received a brief phone call from him in the early hours of June 27. Since then, there has been no word from him. Paul feared torture and death upon his return. Read the Home News Tribune story

Incidents of Abuse at Hudson County Jail, March 2004 Read Letter to BICE & Jail Officials

** On March 1st, 2004, at 5:30 pm at least three correctional officers Sergeant House, Officers Friday and Vargas severely physically assaulted two detainees. Reports were made to Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants, Families for Freedom, New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee and North Jersey ARA about the attack and the four groups collectively notified the American Civil Liberties Union-NJ and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (legal counsel for one of the assaulted detainees, Sadek Awad). Officers reportedly repeatedly punched, kicked, and stomped an inmate in the face, back, shoulders, neck and groin, breaking three of his teeth. Another detainee was banged against the wall, punched and kicked in the ribs, face, back, and legs (which had just been operated on). Both of these unprovoked incidents took place in front of all the inmates in B 100 West. Both were initially denied proper medical care, and the first inmate was hurriedly transferred to MiddlesexCounty jail, which denied his admittance and he was returned to Hudson. Both inmates have since been moved out of B 100 West and the guards that assaulted the detainees have also been moved out of the unit. “Today I bear witness to the worst physical abuse by correctional officers." stated one inmate witness who has been detained for two years. Several witnesses have come forward to give testimony. Internal Affairs and Immigrant Rights groups are presently conducting separate investigations.

**Weeks prior, an immigration inmate housed with a Federal inmate was charged with having contraband in his cell, despite assurances from the Federal inmate that the contraband was his. The immigration inmate was sentenced to 15 days in the "hole" (solitary confinement). The "contrabands" turned out to be vegetables.

Incidents at Passaic County Jail

**Over the past month an HIV positive immigration inmate has been receiving his medication on such an irregular basis that it renders the medication useless. The detainee has complained multiple times and asked for regular distribution of his medication but this has been denied.

**There has been an ongoing pink eye epidemic within the immigration detainee units over the past two months. One detainee’s eyes became so swollen that he was unable to see. Initially the detainees with pink eye were given drops but this only lasted a brief time. For the last several weeks detainees have been reporting that they are receiving no medical treatment for the pink eye infections even after requesting medical assistance repeatedly. The extremely unsanitary conditions in the jail appear to be exacerbating the spread of infection.

Update on Mohamed Abu Shaker, December, 2003

Mohamed Abu Shaker, a Palestinian from Paterson, NJ, who was being held by the INS on no charges was deported to the Gaza Strip on December 3rd. Thank you to all the people who tried to intervene on Abu Shaker’s behalf. We must stop the deportation of innocent Palestinians back to the warzone in the Middle East. Mohamed Abu Shaker’s family is in Canada and needs financial assistance.

EDITORIAL: U.S. is becoming the monster it fears
MINNEAPOLIS, Oct 28, 2003
(Minnesota Daily, U-WIRE via COMTEX) --

Recently, the International Committee of the Red Cross publicly criticized the U.S. government for the prolonged and seemingly indefinite detention of 600 people in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The committee's action illuminates two distinct but related problems: Current U.S. policy offends common human decency and violates international law.

The committee delegates are the only outsiders with access to the detainees captured in Afghanistan, Bosnia and possibly elsewhere. The committee normally visits under strict confidentiality -- they usually reveal findings only to the detaining government. They prefer quiet diplomacy because governments are more likely to give them access. Accordingly, the committee's public announcement was extraordinary.

There have been 32 attempted suicides by 21 individuals over the last two years, reflecting the psychological pressure on the detainees. The committee claims this largely results from the detainees' uncertainties about their future, though it is not the only cause. The Washington Post reported Aug. 19 that former detainees claim U.S. officials subject detainees to extraordinarily lengthy interrogations, in which detainees stand for prolonged periods of time and are subjected to sleep deprivation or other disorienting tactics such as forced injections.

Representatives for the detainees have also alleged torture, including detainees shot with rubber bullets while tied to a pole or made to kneel cruciform in the sun until they pass out. Richard Bourke, an attorney for one detainee, aptly framed these practices as "good old-fashioned torture, as people would have understood it in the Dark Ages."

These practices offend ideas of common human decency, which forbids such treatment irrelevant of any treaty or law. In legal terms, both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Geneva Conventions forbid the interrogation techniques alone as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The United States ratified these agreements without relevant reservations.

The Bush administration gives two justifications for its actions: Self-defense and the words "enemy combatant."

Self-defense is not an acceptable justification. Neither of the aforementioned treaties' prohibitions of torture or cruel treatment is subject to derogation in times of emergency. Hence, the war on terrorism establishes no legal exception, much less the perpetual one the administration asserts.

The administration dug up the "enemy combatant" to avoid obligations under modern international law. The title is useful because its creation and use predates almost all relevant international human rights and humanitarian law. The administration found an archaic title because none currently accepted would allow it sufficient flexibility to mistreat those under its control.

Finally, neither a fair hearing for each detainee nor cessation of cruel tactics will compromise our safety.

A fair hearing for all detainees as to their guilt or innocence and their status under international law poses no threat to security. The United States need not set them free; rather, detainees should have their day in court, and if they are guilty of terrorist acts, there should be consequences.

U.S. officials must also cease cruel and degrading interrogation tactics as well as torture. As early as October 2002, the military admitted detainees in Guantanamo Bay are not valuable sources of intelligence. As such, the "stress and duress" practices gather us little information on terrorist activities while lowering us to the level of our enemies.

The current practices of cruel and degrading interrogation tactics and indefinite detention at the administration's "say-so" are unacceptable. Historically, this country has been a strong advocate for human rights and the law and must reassert that principle in its own conduct. Others in the future will use our conduct as justification for their own violations, as the Malaysian government has already done with its own arbitrary detentions.

If current trends continue, U.S. soldiers or civilians might become victims of such wrongs. For both our own interests, as well as human rights concerns, we must demand our government set the right example by protecting human rights in Guantanamo Bay.