Law and Disorder April 18, 2011

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister

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The Muslim Peace Coalition and the United National Antiwar Coalition

Last week, activists took to the streets in a mass anti-war demonstration in the streets of New York and around the country. We talk with one of the organizers. Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, founder of the Muslim Peace Coalition who joins us to discuss his work as executive producer of Chicago’s Radio Islam.  He’s among the most well-known Muslim activists in the country and has recently completed a 3 state tour having addressed dozens of mosques demanding an end to the ongoing attacks and spying on Muslim communities.

Malik Mujahid:

  • 700 thousand Muslims have been interviewed by the FBI. Most of the mosques have been checked out for atomic bombs.  What they think is a Muslim could be a brown skinned guy, who is Hindu, or could be Latino.
  • Once you start doing injustice in one group, it doesn’t stay in one group. At this moment there’s quite a bit of inhumanity toward undocumented workers which are in larger numbers.
  • The personal cost is very high. A Yale University research, says that 50 percent of Arab Americans have clinical signs of depression. Muslims are last to hired and first to be fired.
  • People can get out of this when they realize there’s a criminalization in the inner city.
  • Latinos the largest minority in this country lives in a state of fear, becaust they may be mistaken for undocumented and green card holder.
  • 75 Pecent of Latinos stopped or arrested for suspect of documentation actually are quite legal citizens from several generations.
  • The whole thing is based on a myth that Muslims were responsible for 911 and the continued terrorist attacks.
  • War and terrorism are connected through occupation. We say that the hate in the country is rising, we’re becoming an unwelcoming nation. I visited the 1199 in New York and I was surprised how welcoming they were.
  • 2.5 million Americans became new gun owners last year.

Guest – Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid is founding Chairman of Sound Vision Foundation, the leading producer of educational content on Islam and Muslims. He is also executive producer of the daily Radio Islam talk show on WCEV 1450 AM in Chicago. Imam Mujahid serves as Chair of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, the premiere interfaith organization in the world. He is former Chairperson of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago.

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Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States

We’re joined today by two of the three authors of book titled Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. Joey Mogul, director of the DePaul Civil Rights Clinic and partner with the People’s Law Office, and Andrea Ritchie, a Police Misconduct Attorney.  The criminalization of LGBT people is explained in the book with acute detail and historical research.  The book reveals that continual targeting of queers by law enforcement is not an accident  but part of a larger systemic issue.  The cases covered in this searing book show how the legal system routinely discriminates against those identified as queers.  But there’s more to it than that, other factors such as poverty, race and class also make them a target. We learn more about the book and how this discrimination is viewed within the mainstream gay community.

Attorneys Joey Mogul / Andrea Ritchie:

  • The term trans-gender is an umbrella term, that is inclusive of gender identities.  It encompasses people who are born with a particular genitalia, but whose gender expression or identity is different from their anatomy.
  • We use the term criminal legal system because the system has produced anything but justice for people who fall under the umbrella of LGB or T.
  • Sometimes its a cop writing you a ticket for disorderly conduct, because they perceive your expression in a public space to be disorderly.
  • Once they get to the police precinct and they don’t know which box to check, that can result in being searched. Not for any lawful purpose as contraband, weapons but to determine what your anatomy is because they feel like that’s relevant in which box to check for you.
  • What we’re seeing nationwide is police officers unsure of someone’s identity, police stations nationwide have no guidelines in determining someones gender. What we’re seeing is these genital checks.
  • There have been transgender women who’ve been searched in San Francisco, who’ve not only experienced these humiliating strip searches but then have been forced to dance or masterbate, in front of these officers.
  • They want to humiliate and punish based on their gender identity.
  • Really things are getting better for a small minority of LGTB and the vast majority end up facing these patterns of criminalization.  In the court systems, we’re seeing individuals whose sexual orientations or gender identity is being used against them.
  • Archetype of queers as a security threat.  We talk about prisons as queer spaces in that, we see prisons being used as a tool to say that gay people are the predators.
  • My home is the People’s Law Office. The work I do is police and government misconduct cases and I do death penalty cases. But I’m queer. I do hold myself out to the queer community and I do get these cases.
  • Walking While Trans. One encounter with a cop can change your whole life.
  • It’s really important for us to reach out to Guild Members, this is state sponsored homophobia and trans-phobia.

Guest – Attorney Andrea Ritchie,  is a police misconduct attorney and organizer in New York City.

Guest – Attorney Joey Mogul, a partner at the People’s Law Office in Chicago and director of the Civil Rights Clinic at DePaul University’s College of Law. She  focuses on civil rights cases involving police misconduct, criminal cases brought against individuals engaged in street demonstrations and other forms of First Amendment expression, and capital defense cases.

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