Author: jacklinefahmy

Fahmy, NYPD Surveillance After Muslims

NYPD Surveillance After Muslims

Have you ever walked down the street of New York and felt a number of eyes staring at you? Almost as if you have eyes on the back of your neck and you can literally feel strangers just look you up and down. I can guarantee you that no matter how often this may have happened, the unease and anxious feeling that comes along is not easy to get accustomed to. But “who cares,” you may say to yourself, “they’re just strangers that I will never see again.” Right? But what happens when it is no longer a creepy man on a street corner? What happens when you are constantly being watched, and no I’m not talking about that creepy man, but instead a group authoritative figures? The ones that are supposed to protect you, yes, the NYPD, have now become that uncomfortable feeling you get down your throat.

New York City is unlike any other city in the world. Known to be a beautifully diverse city with a mix of many different cultures, races, and religion, New York is the center of the universe. However, within the recent decade, a specific group of people have been singled out, watched, and targeted due to an incident that should not have even caused such hatred toward them. Muslims have been the main victims since the 9/11 attacks, carried out by only 19 Islamic extremists, yet somehow changed how Muslim Americans are perceived in this country for nearly 15 years now. Since 2002, the New York City Police Department’s Intelligence Division has occupied themselves with the religious profiling investigation of Muslims in New York City and beyond. 1 This marginalized a large segment of American Muslims, however protesters and advocates believed that these racial and religious reporting demonstrated ineffective policing and considered it a “wasteful amount of tax dollars.” 2 According to the FBI, anti-Muslim hate crimes are approximately five times more frequent than they were before 2001. Singling out Muslims included the establishment of the secret surveillance program by the NYPD that mapped and tracked the daily lives of typical Muslim Americans throughout New York City and beyond. The New York Police Department mapped a picture of the American Muslim Community throughout the five boroughs of New York, also along New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. The Intelligence Division argued that regardless of its impact on American Muslims constantly being watched 24/7, spying on a community is “harmless because it is clandestine and that those who are targeted should have nothing to fear, if they have nothing to hide.”3

However, the New York Police Surveillance did not originate amongst the Muslims. According to “Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and its Impact on American Muslims,” by The Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Project CUNY School of Law, surveillance of minority groups has been traced as far as 1904, when Italian immigrants were monitored by the “Italian Squad.” In 1906, the NYPD also focused on anarchists and labor activists by a group known as the “anarchist squad.” Within the last 15 years or so, the NYPD primarily focused its attention on religion and religious practices, mosques, student associations, organizations, businesses, and random Muslim individuals. This impacted students on college campuses, as they are afraid to discuss any conversations relating to civil right issues or international conflicts simply because they feel it would draw greater NYPD investigations. Since 9/11, many Muslims have put in effort to improve and develop causal relationship with their local police districts, yet when interviewed by the CLEAR Project CUNY School of Law, day-to-day interactions such as reporting a stolen cell-phone or simply asking for directions became a worrisome task for Muslims and therefore caused them to keep their distance from the NYPD in general. Additional to invading Muslim American’s privacy in focused areas such as Brooklyn and Manhattan, the NYPD also sent undercover officers into less suspicious neighborhoods filled with restaurants, halal shops, and hookah bars to “listen to neighborhood gossip” and to get a “feel of the community.” 4 The NYPD even went as far as sending native language speaking officers into Egyptian communities for deeper investigations.

Of the results of the NYPD surveillance towards Muslims, interviewees found that the surveillance impacted the way Muslims practiced their faith, their religious life, and the way they physically expressed themselves the most. Suppressing religion and places of worship disrupted their ability to practice freely. It is evident to say that these law enforcement policies deeply affected the way the Muslim faith is practiced in New York City. The mosque, a place of worship for majority of Muslims went from being a peaceful haven to becoming the “Hot Spot.” 5 The “Demographics Unit,” an intelligence division subgroup doing the monitoring, mapped at least 250 mosques, not only in New York City, but in the surrounding areas such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania. For many Muslim individuals, the risk of being in a police file triggered them and resulted in them no longer attending the mosques or praying with other Muslims. “I used to go to the masjid [mosque] quite a lot. That stopped as soon as they [the NYPD] knocked on the door,” said Ashan Samad, a 26-year-old Brooklyn resident and one of the 57 American Muslims interviewed for the purposes of identifying and documenting these impacts. However, the United States Supreme Court, Everson V. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing, 6 once stated that “No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs. For church attendance or nonattendance.” Ironic, right? Ultimately, this surveillance continually raised concerns of the Muslims rights to practice their religion freely without interference of the state.

Further interviewees also noted that simply appearing Muslim due to the physical attributions of these individuals invited unwanted attention from the NYPD Surveillance. This outward identification includes traditional activity such as wearing a hijab or a niqab, which is a full covering of the woman and simply seeing men with outgrown thick beards. Assia (no last name given), an interfaith community organizer stated that “There’s always been a sense of stereotyping about dress. But now the veil thing has become more than just about being different. It has become charged with suspicion. A hijab or a beard isn’t just about being different and not fitting in. But now, it’s not just that, it’s also that people will see me as prone to violence.”7 Another Brooklyn College student claimed that parents began voicing their concern of their children’s choice of dress. In attempt to cover any indication that these students were Muslim, some parents did not want their children attending Muslim Student Associations or even wearing a Muslim hat for males. Some parents went as far as asking their daughters to discontinue wearing their headscarf, just so they do not “look Muslim.” 6

As if places of worship were not enough, campus life was not necessarily a very friendly environment either for many Muslims. The Muslim Student Association on campuses across New York City share a similar suppressed atmosphere, but additionally prove the impact the NYPD Surveillance had on younger students. These repercussions on students significantly affected their discussions, events hosted, and any other engagement they had within their school. Unfortunately, the NYPD infiltrated a number of these Muslim Student Associations, including Baruch College, Hunter College, La Guardia Community College, City College, Brooklyn College, St. John’s University, and Queens College. According to MACLC, CLEAR, and, AALDEF, the NYPD also established a group of undercover police officers into Muslims Student associations to act as students, even sending one to attend a whitewater rafting school trip.9 This resulted in the lack of a trustworthy environment amongst Muslims themselves, because it was hard to distinguish spies from students. A 19 year-old CUNY student raised such concerns when he revealed his experience with a spy. He claimed,

“I met him (the informant) through the MSA’s Facebook connections. He had told me he wanted to become a better person and to strengthen his faith. So I took him in, introduced him to all of my friends, got him involved in our extracurricular activities. I would wake him up for prayer every morning. He even slept over at my house, and I let him in even though he smelled of marijuana but I tried to look past it because I knew he was new to Islam. when I was texted the news (that he was an informant), the shock caused me to drop my phone. It took me 24 hours to get myself together and to respond, everyone on Facebook was waiting to hear what I would say, because I’m the one who introduced him to them.”

 

For such young adults age 17 to 22, having to deal with surveillance by a supposedly trustworthy department, affected many Muslim student’s college experience especially compared the non- Muslims students on the same campus.

Overall, it is evident to conclude that the NYPD Surveillance has impacted every aspect of American Muslims, such as place of worship, places to eat, and college campuses in New York City. This not only resulted in a lower number of visitors in mosques, an uncomfortable and unwelcoming atmosphere in colleges, but also mainly a mistrust of residents towards law enforcements. It is unfortunate that 9/11 has caused a religion to be seen by many as synonymous with terrorism.

 

 

 

 

 

Notes

  1. “Factsheet: the NYPD Muslim Surveillance Program” American Civil Liberties Union.”
  2. “Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and its Impact on American Muslims” The Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Project CUNY School of Law.
  3. Ibid.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Ibid.
  6. Ibid.
  7. Ibid.
  8. Ibid.
  9. Ibid.

Bibliography

·      ACLU. “FACTSHEET: THE NYPD MUSLIM SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM” aclu.com. 2017.

https://www.aclu.org/other/factsheet-nypd-muslim-surveillance-program

  • Diala Shamas, Nermeen Arastu. The Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Project CUNY School of Law. “Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and its Impact on American Muslims”

www.law.cuny.edu/academics/clinics/immigration/clear/Mapping-Muslims.pdf