9/11 galvanizes one lawyer in fight for Muslims Jang News Monday, September 10, 2007
DETROIT, Michigan: US lawyer Shereef Akeel was never particularly active in politics or in the bustling Arab and Muslim communities of Detroit, Michigan prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001. But that quickly changed the day a Yemeni welder, who had been fired the day after those attacks, got Akeel's number from a local social service agency. Akeel had been doing mostly personal injury lawsuits at that point. But he won his first discrimination case. And the next. And later this month the son of Egyptian immigrants will be in court fighting for the right of Abu Ghraib and other detainees to sue the government contractors responsible for interrogations at detention centres across Iraq. If the case goes forward, it will be the first to address the systemic abuse of Iraqi detainees and to attempt to hold higher-ups responsible for authorising or failing to prevent those practices. The military has only prosecuted low-ranking soldiers and attempts to sue the government have failed. This is for the sake of who we are (as Americans.) And if we don't understand the principals at stake here if we let them lay low we have done a disservice to our founding fathers, Akeel told AFP. Akeel first got involved in the detainee abuse case when a man walked into his office in March 2004 and told him of the horrific abuse he suffered at Abu Ghraib. It was two weeks before the photos were broadcast around the world and Akeel had trouble believing that the man, a Swedish national who had returned to his homeland to help rebuild Iraq had been sodomized, urinated upon, dragged by a belt around his neck, tied to other naked prisoners by the genitals and repeatedly shocked with an electric cable. But the details were too vivid and his demeanour too honest to be dismissed. He told me, After I was released from Abu Ghraib a good soldier gave me my (prison) bracelet and said you go to America and get your rights back, Akeel recalled. So Akeel, who had already taught himself how to handle discrimination claims, started working out the complexities of international human rights and how to sue an American corporation for crimes its employees committed in Iraq. When the government refused to turn over the unpublished photographs of further abuse at Abu Ghraib, he flew to Iraq to interview other victims in person. The reports were so widespread Akeel and his colleagues set up an office in Iraq to handle initial interviews. He said he has travelled to the Middle East about six times since then to interview detainees who were flown in to meet with him in Turkey or Jordan. About 200 detainees have been interviewed so far and more could be added to the class action lawsuit in the months it could take to go to trial. He's a smart lawyer ... and he's not shy about saying I need help thinking things through, said Michael Ratner, president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which has been helping Akeel move the case forward. He has a deep sense of what injustice is, Ratner said. Underneath is a moral humanitarianism ... he wants the law to be obeyed and he thinks the government is overreaching. He really is a patriot. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=71651 __________________________ PoEtEsS "In Deafness, I see the reward, courage, patience and success"...Zohra Moosa
