Day of Reckoning for Ashcroft?
By AAN Staff
july 16, 2003 10:39 am
A recent report by the U.S. Justice Department's Inspector General may energize an effort to bring top U.S. law enforcement officials to justice for the systematic sweep of hundreds of Arab and Muslim immigrants into detention after Sept.11, Chisun Lee reports in The Village Voice. Some of these former detainees are now suing U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and others for a host of civil rights violations. "In numerous cases, people not accused of any crime were locked down 23 hours a day, sometimes in solitary confinement, and shackled at the wrists, waist, and ankles when outside their cells," Lee writes. "Some detainees reported afterward that they had been slammed into walls, kicked, and subjected to petty torments like constant bright light during sleeping hours and deprivation of toilet paper and soap."