S. Calif. Muslims Join Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage

Inland Muslims to visit WWII internment camp

By PAIGE AUSTIN
The Press-Enterprise

Friday, April 25, 2008

More than 100 local Muslims will take part in a pilgrimage north to the Manzanar World War II internment camp today to raise awareness about threats to civil rights during times of war.

For many, the trip is both a celebration of civil rights strides made in the last 60 years as well as a reminder of the dark pages in history written by prejudice and fear, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Ayloush is a U.S. citizen who was born in Lebanon and now lives in Corona. He journeyed to Manzanar, at the foot of the Sierras, last year with his children.

"I can honestly say it was one of the most shocking experiences of my life. It really awakened me," Ayloush said.

Staring down at the tiny graves of children who died at the internment camp, Ayloush said he was struck by the need to defend civil liberties during times of peril such as World War II or the current war on terror.

"You could almost hear the sounds of the people who were there," he said. "The freedoms we enjoy today came at a very heavy price by those who came before us."

Ayloush sees key similarities and differences between the experiences of Japanese-Americans during World War II and American Muslims during today's war on terror.

Just like innocent Japanese-Americans were the target of prejudice and suspicion after the Pearl Harbor attacks, Muslims in this country have been subject to widespread suspicions since the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.

Muslims experienced immigration delays, were profiled at airports, and were subject to electronic surveillance, and 83,000 Muslim men were required to report to federal agents, he said.

Ayloush said he has been the victim of harassment at airports as well as electronic spying. Last year, he made headlines when he and the American Civil Liberties Union sued the federal government to find out whether federal agents were monitoring him as a leader in the Muslim community.

"Muslims have to go to the airport two or three hours early," he said. "You're stopped. You're searched. They take your laptop. They copy your business cards."

Ayloush said these experiences along with the pilgrimage to Manzanar drive him to crusade for civil rights protections.

"Civil liberties are best tested during hard times," he said. "It's easy to say we are a nation of civil liberties when things are easy."

Near the town of Bishop, Manzanar remains today as an unassuming monument to tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans who were ripped from their lives during the war.

For Corona resident Zakia Kator, the camp is a reminder that civil rights abuses can happen at home. The Riverside attorney will also make the pilgrimage today with her daughter and about 25 of her siblings, nieces and nephews.

"This kind of backlash that happens during times of war is something that I know is on the minds of a lot of Muslims," she said. Kator's mother and sister wear a hajib, traditional Islamic head scarves. She worries that they could be the victims of anti-Muslim sentiments. But she also sees hope in the progress the nation has seen since the internment camps.

"The point of this trip is to get ourselves and everyone else educated so that people understand that what happened to the Japanese here during World War II can never be allowed to happen again to Muslims or anyone," said Kator.

Prisoner 345

Who is prisoner 345? And why should you and I care about him?

Prisoner 345 is Sami Al-Haj. Sami Al-Haj is prisoner 345 at the United States Detainment Camp in Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Sami has been on hunger strike since 7th January, 2007.
Sami was arrested in Pakistan in December 2001 while travelling with a legitimate visa to work in Afghanistan as a cameraman for Al Jazeera. But he is being held as an ‘enemy combatant’. Al Jazeera, its offices, and its reporters have regularly come under attack (political as well as physical) by the Bush administration. Its crime is not becoming a cheer leader (like many other media outlets that we shall not mention) for the Bush administration's numerous endless wars.

The Bush administration and the Pentagon have not charged Sami with any crime. Who gives us the right to take the freedom of people and separate them from their families without charging them with crimes? How would we feel if an American is subjected to such immoral and illegal practice?
Mr. Al-Haj must be freed and compensated for all the harm we have caused to him and his family. Mr. Al-Haj deserves an apology. But again, we owe this apology to the millions of innocent Iraqis and Afghans that we have ruined their livelihoods for the terrorist crime of 9/11 which they had no responsibility for.

I never met Sami Al-Haj. I never worked for Al-Jazeera. So why do I care? This position is basically for three groups of people. The first, it is for me personally. I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said that one who sees injustice and remains silent about it is a mute devil, ie a silent partner in that injustice. I do not want to be an accomplice in this major injustice.

The second group is my children. I have always stressed to my children the Qur'anic teaching of speaking against injustice, especially when it is committed by one's own. Presently, my country is engaging in unjust practices. Remaining silent is not an option. My children need to know that when I had the chance to speak out, I did not cower. The Guantanamo Bay Gulag must be shut down. Those responsible for any crimes should have their day in an independent court and if not found guilty, they should be freed. The indefinite detention without charges is in itself a form of terrorism (called kidnapping), let alone the torture our government (sanctioned by our Attorney General Alberto Gonzales) has applied in the process. This is not what America stands for. As Americans, we have a duty to oppose those whose actions taint our country's history, image, and credibility. Of course, our first duty is to defend the dignity and humanity of every human being.

The third group is Sami’s family: his parents, his wife, and his son Mohammad who was born after Sami was illegally detained by our forces. They need to know that many Americans are ashamed and appalled by the actions of our government. We feel your pain. We pray for the day Sami will be free and will finally get to meet his son for the first time. As a father, I know that there is nothing that we can do to make up for the days Sami was deprived from seeing his son grow or the days Mohammad needed his father’s love, hugs, and comfort.

For more information on Sami Al-Haj, please read:
http://www.prisoner345.net/
Shutdown the Gitmo Gulag
The Road to Guantanamo

Sami must be freed.


This poem below is an excerpt from an article which appeared in the leading British newspaper The Independent on June 21, 2007.

Humiliated In The Shackles
By Sami al Hajj

When I heard pigeons cooing in the trees,

Hot tears covered my face.

When the lark chirped, my thoughts composed

A message for my son.

Mohammad, I am afflicted.

In my despair, I have no one but Allah for comfort.

The oppressors are playing with me,

As they move freely around the world.

They ask me to spy on my countrymen,

Claiming it would be a good deed.

They offer me money and land,

And freedom to go where I please.

Their temptations seize

My attention like lightning in the sky.

But their gift is an empty snake,

Carrying hypocrisy in its mouth like venom,

They have monuments to liberty

And freedom of opinion, which is well and good.

But I explained to them that

Architecture is not justice.

America, you ride on the backs of orphans,

And terrorize them daily.

Bush, beware.

The world recognizes an arrogant liar.

To Allah I direct my grievance and my tears.

I am homesick and oppressed.

Mohammad, do not forget me.

Support the cause of your father, a God-fearing man.

I was humiliated in the shackles.

How can I now compose verses? How can I now write?

After the shackles and the nights and the suffering and the tears,

How can I write poetry?

My soul is like a roiling sea, stirred by anguish,

Violent with passion.

I am a captive, but the crimes are my captors'.

I am overwhelmed with apprehension.

Lord, unite me with my son Mohammad.

Lord, grant success to the righteous.

Pilgrimage to MANZANAR

I spent my last weekend at Manzanar as part of the annual Pilgrimage to Manzanar program. It was a life-changing experience that helped renew my commitment to the work I do. Evreyone of us has to put their best efforts in promoting dialogue and understanding among all people. So often, we take our civil rights and freedoms for granted. The Japanese Americans took it for granted too and learned the hard way that it is not a guaranteee, not even in America.
















Our country acts at its best when the good people do not remain silent when the fear and hate mongers spread their bigotry and paranoia.

Here is a good summary from our trip (as published by the InFocus Newspaper). Read the whole article on their website. It is really powerful. I am also attaching a few photos from the trip.

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Pilgrimage to MANZANAR
By Munira Syeda, Contributing Writer


...On Saturday, April 28 around 1,000 Americans and members of the California Muslim community made a pilgrimage to Manzanar National Historic Site, in what was called the 38th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, to learn about the experiences of Japanese American detainees. Among the visitors was the Southern California Muslim family of Barbara Serhal, whose Japanese American parents were incarcerated at Manzanar...

In 1942, internees arrived at the camp with very little luggage. Most of their belongings, businesses and homes were destroyed, taken away or sold at a fraction of the original price. They came to a desolate desert area, where they learned to live in cramped corners, form lines, and exhibit new attitudes at gun-point...

The program also included an interfaith ceremony at the camp cemetery, featuring Shinto, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim prayers. CAIR-LA Area Executive Director Hussam Ayloush and Dr. E.M. Abdul Mumin, head of Riverside’s Du Bois Institute, led the Muslim prayer.

More than 135 internees died at the camp from 1942-45. Many were sent back home for burials but as many as 80 were buried at the camp cemetery. When the camp finally closed, family members of deceased internees took their remains to be buried somewhere else. However, according to historic accounts, at least six people, including three babies, were still buried at the cemetery in 1946...

After the pilgrimage, Ayloush said, "Americans in general, and American Muslims in particular, must visit Manzanar and other internment camps to witness first-hand the kind of dehumanization and injustices that can occur when a country and its people are driven by fear and paranoia during war. Sadly, we find ourselves, yet again, wrestling with the very ideals our nation was founded upon."

Shut Down the Gitmo Gulag

By Hussam Ayloush
June 15, 2006
http://www.cair-net.org/default.asp?Page=articleView&id=39925&theType=NB

After the suicides of three Muslim detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, questions continue to be raised about the necessity of a facility originally designated to hold the worst of the world's deadliest terrorists.
These suicides were desperate acts committed by prisoners who saw neither an end to nor a reason for their incarceration. They must have known that in Islam, committing suicide is a major sin. So what would drive these detainees to such desperate acts?

There are nearly 30,000 suicides each year in our nation. According to research data with the Institute of Medicine, 90 percent of these suicides were associated with a mental illness, in particular, depression. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have documented that depression runs rampant among prisoners at the Guantanamo camp, resulting in an increase in attempted suicides and hunger strikes.

Many people in the Muslim world were outraged when U.S. Navy and State Department officials labeled the suicides a "good PR move." Later realizing the negative impact of these statements, the State Department took a step back.

In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, some 750 men belonging to 40 different nationalities were captured and imprisoned at the Cuban base. Some of the men were picked up in Afghanistan, while others were sold to American military by those looking to make money. A number of those detained were as young as 12 to 14 years old.

Desperate and depressed, many detainees tried to commit suicide by staging hunger strikes, but guards kept them alive through force-feeding, a practice criticized by the international medical community. They had been detained for years without ever being told what their crime was, or without being shown the inside of a courtroom.

In his 2002 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush described the prisoners as "terrorists who once occupied Afghanistan now occupy cells at Guantanamo Bay."

That same year, Vice President Dick Cheney told the American public that these were hardened terrorists, capable of the most heinous crimes. "These are the worst of a very bad lot. They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans, innocent Americans, if they can, and they are perfectly prepared to die in the effort. And they need to be detained, treated very cautiously, so that our people are not at risk," he said.

But a report by a professor of Seton Hall University School of Law, who represents two Guantanamo prisoners, shows the kind of threat these men really posed.

According to the report, of the 517 detainees studied, only 8 percent were al-Qaeda fighters. Also, 55 percent of the prisoners had not committed any hostile acts against the U.S. or its allies. Just five percent were captured by the U.S. forces, while the rest were sold to the U.S. by Pakistani authorities, Afghanistan Northern Alliance and bounty hunters.

Reports of abuse and inhumane treatment at Guantanamo continue. A United Nations report earlier this year mentioned shackling prisoners, stripping them, covering them with hoods and blindfolds, using dogs and subjecting detainees to harsh temperatures, and stated that such abuses violated international law banning torture. Last month, a U.N. committee said the prison violated the 1984 Convention Against Torture. The U.N., key U.S. allies such as Britain and Germany, as well as U.S. Senator John McCain and others have questioned Gitmo's tactics and called for its closure.

To this day, most detainees are denied lawyers, a right to a fair trial or visitation from family members. We are told we are fighting this war to protect freedom and rule of law, yet we fail to implement those same principles at Guantanamo Bay.

It would be difficult to fathom the idea of another country taking in hundreds of American prisoners, accuse them of a crime, and then never grant them a fair trial, or any trial for that matter.

Those guilty of real crimes should be tried and punished. But those who are innocent must be released. It is time to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and end this dark chapter in our modern history.