Friday, May 31, 2013

American Muslim Who Claims He Was Tortured Abroad Sues FBI


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/yonas-fikre-torture-proxy-detention-lawsuit

Article PhotoYonas Fikre, an American Muslim who claims that he was tortured in the United Arab Emirates at the behest of the US government, sued the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department on Thursday. 
Fikre, whose story was first reported by Mother Jones in April 2012, claims he was abused by local authorities in the UAE after refusing to become an informant for the FBI.
As Mother Jones reported in 2011, the US government has acknowledged that the information it shares with foreign governments about American terrorism suspects sometimes results in the arrest, detention, and interrogation of those suspects. The FBI has also acknowledged that FBI agents occasionally "interview or witness an interview" of American terrorism suspects detained abroad. 
Fikre's lawsuit contends that he was a victim of this practice, commonly known as proxy detention, and seeks $30 million in damages as well as injunctions to prevent the government from treating anyone else the way he claims he was treated.
this should be an interesting case study, in light of all the can't kill Americans abroad even if they are fighting alongside the enemy well does this American have the same rights or was that just a jibber jab from the right in the period of "anything that we can use to bring him down". let's see how much freedom Americans have especially when they are Muslim
Fikre's claims are not unique—indeed, they are remarkably similar to the accounts of other American Muslims who say they were detained and interrogated by foreign security forces at the behest of the US government.
Fikre's story echoes those of Naji HamdanAmir MeshalSharif MobleyGulet Mohamed, and Yusuf and Yahya Wehelie. All are American Muslim men who claim that, while traveling abroad, they were detained, interrogated, and in some cases abused by local security forces; the US government, they say, used this process to circumvent their legal rights as American citizens.
right wing has a hard on for other religions especially those they have already determined are the worse people in the world and according to Bush "they hate us for our freedom", no the hate us because we stick our noses in their business and try and convert them to the fractiured example of what not to do they aren't crazy, invade pillage and pay them for the priviledge that's where your money went.
Several FBI officials have confirmed to me (on the condition that they not be named) that the bureau has for years used some of its elite international agents—known as legal attachés, or "legats"—to coordinate the detention of American and foreign terrorism suspects at the hands of American allies. And although the FBI maintains that foreign governments that detain American terrorism suspects are told not to abuse them, many of the countries in question have long histories of abusive detentions.