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Archive for the ‘NYC’ Category

FBI ‘community outreach’ to foster trust and generate goodwill?

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 29, 2012

Documents uncovered by The Associated Press revealed that the New York Police Department conducted an extensive surveillance campaign of the Muslim population in the northeast. Now it turns out that the FBI in San Francisco used a public relations program announced as “mosque outreach” to collect information on the religious views and practices of Muslims in Northern California. The claimed intention of the FBI outreach programs was to foster trust between law enforcers and members of the Muslim community so they could work together to fight crime and avert terrorism. We learn now, however, that the FBI was operating the community outreach in Northern California as part of a secret and systematic intelligence gathering program, and conducted without any apparent evidence of wrongdoing. The legacy of this deception will, no doubt, be to undermine trust for genuine outreach programs. An article at Msnbc.com has the story:

The FBI in San Francisco used a public relations program billed as “mosque outreach” to collect information on the religious views and practices of Muslims in Northern California and then shared the intelligence with other government agencies, according to FBI documents obtained by civil rights groups.

The heavily redacted documents, released after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, raise “grave constitutional concerns,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“In San Francisco, we have found that community outreach was being run out of the FBI’s intelligence division and was part of a secret and systematic intelligence gathering program,” conducted without any apparent evidence of wrongdoing,” said Shamsi. “The bureau’s documentation of religious leaders’ and congregants’ beliefs and practices violates the Privacy Act, which Congress passed to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights.”…

…The documents indicate that FBI was keeping records of conversations and activities within mosques and other Muslim organizations from 2004 through 2008, information that was provided by employees engaged in the outreach programs.

The announced intention of the FBI outreach programs is to foster trust between law enforcers and members of the Muslim community so they can work together to fight crime and avert terrorism…

…documents still under analysis by the ACLU indicate FBI San Francisco continued to mingle outreach and intelligence gathering through 2011, according to Shimsa.

The documents undermine trust for genuine outreach programs, said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that makes policy recommendations to lawmakers and leaders.

“I think the recent documents further underscore how well-intentioned community leaders who talk with the FBI are instead the targets of this broad, intelligence-gathering effort,” she said. “It’s easy to see then how that community leader who had a conversation with an FBI agent finds himself being harassed when traveling or crossing borders.”

“These documents are illustrating the actual experiences of American Muslims that we have been hearing for a number of years now,” she added…

…Rules governing FBI surveillance were relaxed in 2008 to give more leeway to FBI “assessments” — a stage of surveillance that takes place before the opening of a formal investigation. These more lenient standards, critics say, allow information gathering on individuals without probable cause.

Rights groups are asking the Department of Justice to restore stricter rules on surveillance and to prohibit racial and religious profiling in all cases.

“What we need is for the FBI to go back to the standards set after the Hoover-era abuses.… guidelines put in place that required the FBI to engage in surveillance only if there’s evidence of wrongdoing,” said Khera of Muslim Advocates. Read more here

Posted in California, FBI, Islamic, NYC, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, security/terrorism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

NYPD Apparently Targeting Buffalo-Area Citizens and Refugee Population Based On Ethnicity and Religion, Not Criminal Activity

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 18, 2012

It seems that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has focused on Buffalo-area Muslims and Somalis (including people and citizens resettled as refugees), not based upon on known criminal activity, but instead based upon these people’s ethnicity and religion. Although the NYPD, unlike the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department need not predicate domestic surveillance on information that their target is engaged or about to engage in criminal activity, the NYPD did not fully consult with local police and other federal security agencies about its activities in Buffalo. There is no sign that the Strategic Intelligence Unit announced its activities to the Buffalo area’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a cooperative effort that includes federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. There is also the concern that actions by the NYPD could be jeopardizing the good relationship that local law enforcement authorities have with the local Somali and Muslim populations, including US citizens. An article at the Buffalo News explains:

The New York City Police Department’s focus on Buffalo-area Muslims continues to this day. Further, an internal document indicates the surveillance began even before NYPD detectives met with the Erie County undersheriff in December 2008 to describe their “Somalia Project.”…

…At the same time, there is no sign that the Strategic Intelligence Unit announced its activities to the Buffalo area’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a cooperative effort that includes federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

The Associated Press in recent months revealed the NYPD’s covert efforts to examine Muslim businesses, infiltrate mosques and keep an eye on Muslim students on college campuses, not just in New York City but in locations around the Northeast. The Muslim Student Association website at the University of Buffalo was among those monitored, a separate NYPD document shows.

The NYPD calls its surveillance and intelligence-gathering legal and necessary and does not apologize for the program. The department after 9/11 determined it “could not rely solely on the federal government” for its defense. Says Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly: “Our primary mission, our primary goal, is to keep this city safe.”

Yet ethnicity and religion, not criminal activity, seem to have sparked the NYPD’s interest around the Northeast, including Buffalo…

…Unlike the NYPD, the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department must predicate domestic surveillance on information that their target is engaged or about to engage in criminal activity.

“I can tell you that we don’t predicate any investigation based on somebody’s race, or color, or national origin, or on the exercise of their First Amendment rights,” said William J. Hochul, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York. “In terms of the bigger picture, why was the NYPD doing what it was? I don’t have all the details.”…

…If the NYPD did not provide a heads-up on its activities to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, it should have, said a former agent-in-charge here for the FBI.

“If I had still been up there that would have bothered me a lot,” said Peter J. Ahearn, who headed the FBI office in Buffalo from 2001 to 2006 and now works as a consultant helping businesses deal with government. “With the reputation the NYPD does have, and I know this factually, they will do different things in cities around the country and not even let law enforcement know they are there.

“There are reasons to be concerned,” he said. “If you are not talking to law enforcement, and the local police department rolls up on you, it creates an officer-safety issue. Also it can prove detrimental to the efforts that the local law enforcement community is making in the Muslim community. We had some very good community outreach up there.”

Dr. Khalid Qazi, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York, agrees.

“This is all related to the security of the homeland, I don’t have any doubt about that,” he said of the NYPD’s foray into Buffalo. “The only question in my mind is, when we are working very cooperatively, and in a very proactive fashion for the security of the homeland, whether these types of actions are counterproductive.

“And I guess the issue always will be, where do we stop so we don’t compromise the civil rights and civil liberties of innocent Americans?”…

…Yahye Y. Omar, chairman of the Imams Council of Western New York, also is active on the West Side, especially as executive director of HEAL — Help Everyone Achieve Livelihood — a nonprofit that helps immigrants and refugees.

He is engaged in a long-standing effort to make the Islamic way of life less mysterious to outsiders, and to encourage Somali youth to consider how they can enrich their community.

In 2010, he helped establish a law enforcement education program for Somali high school and college students. It brought in representatives from the FBI, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and the State Police to speak about the role of law enforcement, and careers. On a wall of his office, Omar has proudly placed a photo of a local Somali now with the Baltimore Police Department…

…Omar expressed [his] sentiments about the NYPD surveillance…why does the New York police force need contacts in the Somali and Muslim community here after its members have cooperated so much with local authorities?… Read more here

Posted in Buffalo, Dept of Homeland Security, Dept. of Justice, FBI, Islamic, NYC, security/terrorism, Somali | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Relief partners’ ongoing glitzy gala events for Angelina Jolie

Posted by Christopher Coen on October 7, 2011

A showbiz blog at The Guardian updates us on the continuing black-tie dinners and glitzy ceremonies at which the resettlement and relief establishment continues to give awards to its preeminent celebrity luminary, Angelina Jolie. There are the luxury hotel ballrooms, the limousine fleets, the five-star banquets and the donning of floorlength-and-fabulous gowns. Church World Service, the International Rescue Committee and the UNHCR are some of the organizations that have gotten in on the act and, somewhat embarrassingly, all in the name of helping the world’s poorest.

Once more, dear friends, to a familiar furrow, as we must ask: when did philanthropy stop being its own reward? The inquiry is prompted this time by news that Angelina Jolie has been garlanded with yet another humanitarian award. According to the UN Refugee Agency’s own report on the matter, the agency “paid lavish tribute” to the Hollywood star on Monday night in “a slick ceremony”.

Of course, this not the first award that the UN has bestowed upon Angelina. They confected another one in 2005, giving her their first Global Humanitarian Action Award, which was presented at a glittering black-tie dinner at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, attended by 700 diplomats and dignitaries.

Back in 2002, another glitzy New York ceremony had attended Angelina’s receipt of the inaugural Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program Humanitarian Award…

…in 2007, she scooped another gong, this time from the UNHCR’s close partner, the International Rescue Committee. This was the Freedom Award, previously used to honour Winston Churchill and Aung San Suu Kyi, and which is given in recognition of an individual’s ability “to shape history”. There seems to have been some ceremony in – well, what do you know? – a swanky New York hotel.

One could go on. But what a strange business this is – this hiring of luxury hotel ballrooms, this renting of limousine fleets, this preparing of five-star banquets for invited bigwigs, this donning of floorlength-and-fabulous gowns. No doubt many of the providers contribute their services for free or at cost, but it seems to be a most idiosyncratic way of helping some of the world’s poorest people… Read more here

Posted in CWS, IRC, NYC, UN (United Nations) | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Refugee community gardens plundered in Indianapolis

Posted by Christopher Coen on October 4, 2011

After community gardens were recently plundered in New York City, thieves in Indianapolis have also made their mark, equipped with shovels and plastic bags and brazenly entering gardens in broad daylight to carry away produce. This is the second year in a row that one community garden has been ripped-off in the city. An article in The Star gives us the details:

After a summer of battling bugs, pulling weeds and digging dirt in the stifling hot weather, gardeners of the Grassroots Community Farm were nearly in tears over the latest insult.

They struggled several times last week for answers to an unexpected problem at their three-acre plot near 38th Street and Lafayette Road.

Who would steal their hard-won tomatoes right off the vine? Who cut the collard greens and swiped their sweet potatoes?

Apparently, the gardeners decided, it wasn’t deer from nearby Eagle Creek Park. Rather, it was the work of vegetable thieves who came equipped with shovels and plastic bags.

Their plot isn’t the only community garden in the city to suffer thefts and vandalism this summer.

The Grassroots gardeners are all immigrants or refugees…

…Indianapolis is not alone with stories of garden thievery. The New York Times reported recently that veggie thefts this summer that have disheartened gardeners in New York’s network of more than 700 community plots…

…”Thefts and vandalism are huge,” declared Kay Crimm of Grow Me gardens.

Last year, her group had a three-acre site near 46th Street and Arlington Avenue. It was plundered so badly that the gardeners left the site and moved to a plot at 46th Street and Post Road, she said, but it has “been ripped up, too.”

The garden coordinators said veggie thieves are brazen, making their raids both at night and in broad daylight.

Beltran-Figueroa said “private property” signs did not stop the thefts on at least two days in the past week… Read more here

Posted in Burma/Myanmar, community gardens, Indianapolis, NYC | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

A Bronx Tale

Posted by Christopher Coen on January 1, 2011

Some of the last of the Nepali-Bhutanese refugees resettled to the Bronx by the IRC are now out-migrating. An article in the New York Times in September 2009 reported that the IRC had placed the Nepali-Bhutanese refugees in a Bronx apartment building with a weed-choked front courtyard and grimy staircases (here). The refugees’ apartments were only furnished with a couple of bureaus and several beds that doubled as couches, and little else The IRC declined an interview for the documentary The Refugee Syndrome about these refugees. The current New York Times article tells more.

For two years, a five-story walk-up apartment building in the Bronx has served as a small beachhead for a new immigrant community: refugee families from the South Asian nation of Bhutan. From this new home on University Avenue, where they were placed by a resettlement agency, the families have made their first, tentative steps in an unfamiliar culture and language.

But now they are on the move again. In the year since The New York Times profiled the building and the eight Bhutanese families who were living there, four of the families have left for other states — Virginia, Pennsylvania, Vermont and North Carolina — and most members of a fifth have moved to Albany…

…Yet the experiences of the families on University Avenue also say something about New York. Often portrayed as an ideal spot for new immigrants, with its array of public services and advocacy groups and its fertile mix of ethnicities, the city may not necessarily have all that a newcomer needs to build a future. Indeed, a trove of census data released in December shows how immigrants to America in the last decade have spread out from the big cities where they have traditionally clustered, or bypassed them altogether.

This is especially true for new immigrant populations like the Bhutanese, who, numbering more than 250 since 2008, have arrived in New York in small numbers and lack established social networks to turn to for support. Some are improvising, creating those communities elsewhere — in smaller, less expensive cities where relatives have already been resettled.

Those who have left the Bronx building said they were driven out of the city mainly by the high cost of living, particularly rent.

During his year in New York City, in the throes of the economic downturn, Mr. Mishra and his two sisters struggled to find jobs and were barely able to cover basic expenses, including the $975 monthly rent for their one-bedroom apartment. While new refugees have immediate access to financial support and other services from government and private sources, that aid often begins to dissipate after several months…

…Officials at the International Rescue Committee, the resettlement program based in New York that brought the Bhutanese to University Avenue, acknowledged the difficulties that the city posed for many refugees. While New York offers extraordinary advantages, they said, including an extensive public transportation system and a network of organizations accustomed to working with immigrants, it could also be costly and, for some, emotionally overwhelming…

…Abhi Siwakoti, another Bhutanese refugee, decided to leave New York City after trying for months to cover his family’s expenses, including the $1,200 rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the University Avenue building… Read more here

The question that remains however is why the IRC placed these refugees in the Bronx to begin with. The rents were sky-high before the refugees arrived. Crime was rampant. Although the IRC refers to the area’s extensive public transportation system, refugees report never having been to Manhattan. Burmese refugee clients of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York reported that they had never been to the Statue of Liberty.

Posted in Burma/Myanmar, Catholic, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, dangerous neighborhoods, furnishings, lack of, IRC, Nepali Bhutanese, NYC, safety, secondary migration, refugee | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Burmese refugee family resettled to a one-bedroom Bronx apartment, earn $7.25/hr

Posted by Christopher Coen on December 11, 2010

An article in the New York Times details the case of a Burmese refugee family resettled to the Bronx by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. Despite being sponsored by the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, Catholic Charities can’t see to find a few extra nickles to take the family to the Statue of Liberty, or even to Manhattan.

…Mr. Bae Reh and Ms. Moo Pro, both 27…are refugees from Myanmar whose parents fled to a camp in Thailand to escape a government that drafted citizens at random and forced them to commit atrocities against their own ethnic tribes…

In 2007, the American government began admitting some of the refugees. After a two-year investigation ensured that Mr. Bae Reh and Ms. Moo Pro had no health problems or messy political entanglements, they arrived in New York in March…

“They didn’t even know where to put stuff,” said Onita Misa , the family’s case manager at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, one of the seven beneficiaries of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. “They put food in the cabinet with detergent,” she said. “I had to start with the A B C’s: ‘Here is the toothbrush, here is the toothpaste.’ ”

The organization was enlisted to help after being alerted to the family’s plight by the State Department’s Reception and Placement Program. Ms. Misa found an apartment for them in the West Farms section of the Bronx; it is below street level at the end of a dank outdoor hallway. The Neediest Cases Fund provided $900, which paid for their first month’s rent. Ms. Misa filled out the rental paperwork and bought the essentials.

“It was amazing for them, compared to the camps,” she said of the modest apartment, where the two children sleep in the only bedroom and their parents sleep on the couch. The couple’s wedding photo dominates a wall in the living room: In it, Mr. Bae Reh is wearing blue jeans and a sports jacket over an untucked shirt, and Ms. Moo Pro has a youthful smile.

The only clothes they wear now are donated or bought for them from thrift stores. They have never been to Manhattan.

Ms. Moo Pro said she wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. “But how can I go there?” she said through an interpreter. “I don’t even know how to get there.”

Until she learns English, she is essentially unemployable. Mr. Bae Reh travels only to his job in Brooklyn — he makes $7.25 an hour as a packer at the 4C Foods Corporation in East New York. Read more here

Posted in Burma/Myanmar, Catholic, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, employment/jobs for refugees, faith-based, housing, housing, overcrowding, NYC | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Refugee Syndrome: Exploring the psychology of Bhutanese refugees in NYC‏

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 20, 2010

Wui Liang LIM, an M.S Candidate and reporter from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and his colleague, Nikolia Apostolou, recently completed their Master’s Thesis about Bhutanese refugees in New York City. The title is — The Refugee Syndrome: Exploring the psychology of Bhutanese refugees in NYC‏. It’s a multimedia project that explores the psychology of these refugees as they adapt to life in the Big Apple (here).

The IRC declined interviews for the documentary.

In the documentary I noted that Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch (formerly of the USCRI volag) says that psychiatry may be a solution for refugees’ depression, but does he know how refugees fare with the American mental health system? Will they take pills every day for depression? Many of the male refugees I know will not do that, as they think it is a sign of weakness. People from non-Western cultures also often don’t like our therapy style – i.e. sitting in an office with a stranger and talking about their problems. Wouldn’t it be a better idea for resettlement agencies to try to help ease refugees’ isolation?

By the way, I found the blog of Thakur Prasad Mishra, the Nepali-Bhutanese refugee journalist featured in the documentary. He writes about how dangerous the Bronx neighborhood is where IRC resettled the refugees. A 16-year-old Bhutanese refugee boy was beaten-up three times while walking on the street. (scroll down to August 4, 2009 entry titled Question of Security, here).

An article in the New York Times in September 2009 reported that the IRC had placed the Nepali Bhutanese refugees in a Bronx apartment building with a weed-choked front courtyard and grimy staircases (here). The refugees’ apartments were only furnished with a couple of bureaus and several beds that doubled as couches, and little else (check out the actual State Dept. refugee contract requirements, here). Is this why the IRC doesn’t want to talk about it?

Jit Bahadur Pradhan

The documentary also points to two suicides by Bhutanese refugees in recent months. One of those was 60-year-old Jit Bahadur Pradhan who killed himself on Jan. 11 due to depression (here and here). The USCCB resettled him to Pittsburgh on Dec. 2, 2009 via its Catholic Charities Diocese of Pittsburgh affiliate.

“He was found dead hanging in a laundry room Friday morning,” Bhanu Phuyel, another refugee resettled in the same city, told ekantipur.com from the US….Six members of the family were sharing a two-bed room apartment along with another family with four people. They had not received any other facility except food card.

[Jit Bahadur Pradhan] was annoyed with the circumstances, and used to complain with his two sons that the situation there was no better than in the camp in Nepal.

More than 150 Bhutanese refugees…have been resettled in Pittsburgh and outlying areas including Prospect Park and Green Tree. Sixty of them are working in a food-packing company.

Another Bhutanese refugee committed suicide in Nashville.

*UPDATE* Dec. 3, 2010 - Another refugee has committed suicide, this time in Phoenix.

Posted in Catholic Charities Diocese of Pittsburgh, mental health, Nepali Bhutanese, New York, NYC, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, suicide, USCCB | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

 
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