Ehab Elmaghraby with his parents
The US government has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by an Egyptian who was among dozens of Muslims detained after the Sept. 11 attacks, held for months and deported, The New York Times reported yesterday.
The settlement is the first the government has made in a number of suits saying that non-citizens were abused and their constitutional rights violated after the attacks.
Lawyers representing both Ehab Elmaghraby, an Egyptian who lived in the United States for 13 years and ran a restaurant in Manhattan, and Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani, who is still pursuing the suit, described the outcome as significant.
Elmaghraby, 38, was reported to have reluctantly decided to settle to cover medical bills arising from the abuse he suffered when detained.
The Feds are still appealing the judicial process — trying to exempt Ashcroft from testifying and cross-examination.
If they are not citizens of the US how can they have constitutional rights?
Rights are extended to all residents of the US and should be.
This money is small compensation to be sure.
One down, hundreds and hundreds more to go…
gm, really I hope someday all the people that ask deplorable questions like that eventually die off from old age, or whatever, so that the world can get on its way to becoming the paradise that it could/should be. If you really believed in the constitution and what it supposedly stands for, then you’d want to extend aspects of it, such as the 6th amendment, to everyone, or at least legal residents such as this guy.
In the US we basically think that anyone outside our borders is some sort of sub-human vermin that serves no purpose other than to send us goods. That we have the rights, and they don’t. That its perfectly acceptible to bomb, starve, torture, and kill whoever we want in our name, for our good. This not only makes thing really terrible for a large amount of people, but it quite often just comes around and fucks us in the end anyway (ie: 9/11)
By denying basic human rights to everyone we not only aprear to be the bad guy to the world over, but we in fact are the bad guy. Keeping 14 year olds in outdoor cages for 5 years without a trial…that’s us being the bad guy.
S of Z
Well put.
The only comment I would add to it is that Americans can not claim any High Road. We have stooped as low as the terrorists that attacked our way of life. We can not be a nation of laws when the President feels he may willfully flaunt the Constitution and laws at will.
If he was here legally then he should absolutely get what the court awarded him. I have no problem with that.
If he was here illegally, they should have deported him at his home country’s expense and not wasted our tax dollars on his trial. I, like many Americans, am sick of people coming here illegally and then taking advantage of everything our taxes pay for. I am not against immigration, I think immigration makes us a great country, but we can not continue to allow people to break the law and benefit by it. And that goes for the employers too. Anyone or any business that employs illegal persons should have their (business) assetts seized, just like we do to the mob.
“The only comment I would add to it is that Americans can not claim any High Road. We have stooped as low as the terrorists that attacked our way of life.”
What kind of f-ing drugs are you people on? Grow up and get a grip! These terrorists are cutting peoples heads off in the name of their religion of peace. Then they broadcast it to the Muslim world. The abuses in Abu Gharib and Gitmo are not comparable to this. Look, we may be doing some bad things in the name of freedom and democracy but we are not running around killing civilians willy-nilly. Even in the case of Falujah–probably the heaviest assault of this war–the US Marines gave civilians warnings to get out. How often do the terrorists provide their victimes with that luxury? My point is you are comparing apples and oranges as is typical for those who have no experience or consciousness of what totalitarianism is all about.
kafir1 wrote:
“These terrorists are cutting peoples heads off in the name of their religion of peace. Then they broadcast it to the Muslim world. The abuses in Abu Gharib and Gitmo are not comparable to this.”
I don’t see any difference there. What is the difference? It’s the same with only the characters and religion switched around.
kafir1 wrote:
“Look, we may be doing some bad things in the name of freedom and democracy but we are not running around killing civilians willy-nilly.”
How many civillians were killed in the Iraq war compared to how many terrorist.
“I don’t see any difference there. What is the difference? It’s the same with only the characters and religion switched around.”
If you do not see the difference between civilians being killed as an unfortunate result of combat and civilians being killed indiscriminately and intentionally by terrorists I do not know what to tell you. You probably see no difference between the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces–who occasionally kill civilians but not due to any policy of doing so–and the actions of terrorists like Hamas who intentionally kill women and children. I understand that people like you can not see a difference, thankfully most Americans can. And slowly but surely, the Euros are coming to their senses as well.
When we start cutting terrorists heads off live on FOX News and when we start killing civilians indiscriminately I’ll buy your argument. Until then, you are way off base with the comparison. It may be the perspective in the Islamic World where everyone is somehow a victim of imperalism, colonialism or the Zionist conspiracy but here in the free world it has no validity.
I know a lot of civilans have been killed in Iraq. That is unfortunate and very sad. But most of them have been killed by the insurgents, not by coalition forces. All you have to do is listen to the news–not FOX but NPR or the BBC even–and every day the insurgents are killing other Iraqi Muslims.