NYPD disbands Muslim 'spying' unit

16 April 2014 Last updated at 00:14 New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton (left) is said to have met with critics of the controversial surveillance programme prior to its termination The New York Police Department has disbanded a secret programme designed to eavesdrop on Muslims to identify potential terrorism threats.

The Demographics Unit had dispatched plainclothes detectives to listen to conversations and build files on places frequented by Muslims, US media say.

The squad had been the subject of two federal lawsuits in the past, and drew ire from civil rights groups.

It is also said to have sowed Muslim mistrust for law enforcement.

"This reform is a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve, so that our cops and our citizens can help one another go after the real bad guys," the office of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wrote in a statement.

'Psychological warfare'

The decision to stop the programme was reportedly made by new Police Commissioner William Bratton, and is viewed as a moving away from past intelligence gathering practices instituted after the 9/11 attacks.

The unit - in operation since 2003 and later renamed the Zone Assessment Unit - logged where Muslims worked, shopped, ate and prayed.

"The Demographics Unit created psychological warfare in our community," Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York told the New York Times newspaper.

"Those documents, they showed where we live," she added. "They were able to see their entire lives on those maps. And it completely messed with the psyche of the community."

Ms Sarsour along with several advocates reportedly met Mr Bratton and other police officials last week to discuss the shutting down of the covert unit.

The squad's detectives have since been reassigned, a police department spokesman said.

The head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Donna Lieberman, told the Associated Press the surveillance had harmed community relations.

"We hope this means an end to the dragnet approach to policing... and a commitment to going after criminal suspicion, rather than innocent New Yorkers,'' she told AP.

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Iran and Egypt, Twin Outsiders of the Muslim World – By Mohamad Korrani at PBS Org

A resonant history of influence and inspiration suggests it is now the turn of the Iranian people, and soon.

[ comment ] Tahseen Bashir, the late Egyptian intellectual and erudite diplomat, once said that Egypt and Iran are the only two real countries in the region, and the rest are simply “tribes with flags.”

“skip”

The intellectual dialogue between Fatimid Egypt and Iranians was vast and multifaceted and Iranians responded by starting their own Ismaili movement. It failed politically but succeeded culturally, producing some of the grandest works of Iranian literature and thought like the Safarnama (Book of Travels) of Nasser Khosrow, the History of Beyhaghi, and the philosophy of Avicenna.

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Filed under: Egypt, Fatimid Empire, Iran, Islam, Ismailis, Muslims Tagged: | a, Avicenna, Egypt, Fatimid Empire, Iran, Islam, Ismailis, Nasir Khusraw, Safar Nama

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Arab Protest Movements and the West: The Spectre of the Muslim Brotherhood – By Michael Lueders

Faced with popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Western politicians are having trouble ridding themselves of their black-and-white view of the Arab-Islamic world. Michael Lüders sends us this analysis

 
A regime change is long overdue in Egypt, but, as Michael Lüders writes: “Will it be possible to overcome the predominant mentality of clan ties and nepotism – a mentality to be found at every turn, at both the top and the bottom of the hierarchy?”

Tunisia and Egypt are at a turning point in their respective histories. The era of the Arab despots, of old men and their clans, is coming to an end. It is an awakening that can certainly be compared with the events in Germany that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This alone is reason enough to rejoice, even though the outcome of this experiment is still completely unknown. Will events lead to democracy or to a new form of bondage under different conditions? No one today can say where Egypt will be in a month, let alone in six months’ time. The protesters message, however, is unequivocal: “We are the people”.

“snip”

As a rule of thumb in all Islamic states, the relative strength of Islamist groups is more an expression of dissatisfaction with the prevailing situation than the expression of religious Muslims’ desire for a theocracy. As soon as there are political alternatives, the Islamists become only one grouping among many. In order to avoid being politically marginalised, they then have to make an effort to recruit followers and can no longer rely on religious slogans.

To over-simplify slightly, where Islamist parties take their orientation from Saudi Arabia or Teheran, they lose support. Where they follow a similar path to the Turkish AKP, there is no reason for the West to fear them.

“snip”

Yet it is not only Arab politics that will have to reinvent itself; the same goes for Western policy. The West cannot return to “business as usual”, and this also applies to its dealings with Israel, where the Netanyahu government is clinging blindly to Mubarak.

“Peace process” – an empty phrase

Considered by some to be a political alternative to Mubarak’s authoritarian regime: Nobel peace laureate Mohammad ElBaradei |

The Palestinian question cannot be solved by propagating a “peace process” that is no more than an empty phrase. Israel has shown absolutely no willingness to tolerate a Palestinian state capable of survival. The time has come for more than warm words from Berlin, Brussels and Washington, if a breakthrough is to be made.

What is astonishing is that wars have been waged in Iraq and Afghanistan, ostensibly to help democracy make a breakthrough in these countries.

These wars cost hundreds of thousands of lives in Iraq and have seriously damaged any credibility the West may still have. Billions have been spent on them, much of which is money down the drain.
The Tunisian and Egyptian road is the better one. Yet politicians in the West are having problems acknowledging it.

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Filed under: Israel, Germany, Palestine, Civil Society, Pluralism, Islam, Arab countries, Europe, USA, Egypt, Zionism Tagged: | Arab countries, Civil Society, Democracy, Diversity, Egypt, USA, Europe, Germany, Palestine, Pluralism, Israel, Tunisia

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