Witness to Abuse - Human Rights Watch

One cannot help but ask whether ignorance and prejudice about Muslims in the United
States and men of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent has helped color the analysis
of the government in these cases. The witnesses’ religion and national origin has taken
on excessive and unwarranted significance, as agents have become suspicious of the
most innocuous of activities. Many of the cases suggest the government has paid scant
heed to either the constitutional or the international prohibitions on discrimination on
the basis of religion, national origin, or ethnicity. Whether it was possessing a box cutter,
taking pictures of a bridge, or playing soccer early in the morning, the most innocent
conduct has aroused the government’s suspicions when undertaken by people who fit a
certain religious and ethnic profile.
Innocent people have also became the hapless victims of the government’s zeal because
neither the Justice Department nor the courts have honored the letter and spirit of the
material witness rules that protect everyone’s right to freedom. Disregarding the
requirement that arrests and incarceration not be used if there were some other way to
secure the testimony has meant the unnecessary arrests and detentions for scores of
men. Denying witnesses access to information and keeping the proceedings buried in
secrecy has also meant the Justice Department’s mistakes have not been rectified as
quickly as they might otherwise have been. Many of the cases already described in this
report suggest the extent of the government’s errors. Additional ones include the
following:
Abdullah Tuwalah and Salman al Mohammedi
In 2003, the Department of Justice was conducting a grand jury investigation into the
alleged criminal activity of Ali Saleh Ali Almari, a Saudi Arabian national who was a
student at Marymount College. Federal agents suspected Almari of assisting terrorist
plots as an operative, although they only charged him with running a college test-taking
scam—selling test answers to college students. 259 In connection with the grand jury
investigation, the Department of Justice arrested a number of material witnesses,
including two other Saudi Arabian and Muslim students at Marymount, Abdullah
Tuwalah and Salman al-Mohammedi. According to the lawyers for the two students, the
FBI’s main argument for arresting the two witnesses was that they knew Almari through
the Muslim society at school. Fred Sinclair, who represented al-Mohammedi, told
HRW/ACLU:
[I]t was guilt by association. He knew someone who knew someone …
If anything, my guys may have partied with [Almari] … The
259
Bret Ladine, “Saudi Man with Hub Ties Held in Alleged Test-Taking Plot,” The Boston Globe, June 29, 2002.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17, NO. 2(G) 82