Address the Hostile Environment Causing the Growing Incidents of Racial Violence

Address the Hostile Environment Causing the Growing Incidents of Racial Violence

QUEENS, NEW YORK (January 8, 2013) – This afternoon, DRUM (Desis Rising Up & Moving), CAIR-NY (Council on American Islamic Relations), City Council members, community leaders and over 150 community members, and friends of affected family members, gathered to mourn the victims of recent racial violence, and highlight the root causes of the problem at a press conference and vigil at the Jackson Heights Plaza.

Huffington Post: Muslim Advocates Rally After Subway Pushing Death To Fight ‘Climate Of Hostility’
PressTV: New Yorkers rally against anti-Muslim hostility
OnIslam: US Muslims Protest Subway Murder, Hatred
Queens Chronicle: Sunando Sen’s friends, Muslim community speak out against hate crimes
Queens Courier: Beating the DRUM for Tolerance
Times Ledger: Jax Hgts rallies for subway hate crime victim
HispanTV: Islamofobia en los EEUU
India Abroad: Hostile Environment Causing Growing Incidents of Racial Violence
Queens Latino: Comunidad multiétnica se reúne con políticos de Queens
Amsterdam News: Muslim advocates rally against subway pushing and NYPD racial profiling
Queens Ledger: Vigil calls attention to recent hate crimes
IndiaWest: Friends, Co-Workers, Remember NY Subway Victim

The recent subway pushing death of Indian immigrant, Sunando Sen, at a 7 train station is the fourth such case of racial violence within the last two months. The suspect, who likely has mental health issues, stated that she pushed him because she “hate[d] Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001.” Speakers highlighted other incidents affecting the AMESA (Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian) communities including the stabbing of a Muslim man on his way to the mosque in Flushing, the killings of several men of Middle Eastern descent by a serial killer in Brooklyn, and the brutal assault on a man for being Muslim in Corona. The same trend has been evident across the country, such as the Oak Creek, Wisconsin tragedy.

Close friend and neighbor of Sunando Sen, Ranjit De Roy, who is also a member of DRUM, said that he “saw and talked with Sunando just moments before the incident. He was a quiet and gentle man, who never harmed anyone. How many more lives will we lose to racism?”

“As bias motivated crimes occur with more regularity, it is time for our policy and decision makers to acknowledge that hateful rhetoric and discriminatory policies can lead to violence,” said Muneer Awad, Executive Director of CAIR-NY.

“The common theme between these incidents is the effect of the hostile environment on the minds of the perpetrators,” said Kazi Fouzia, Racial and Immigrant Rights Organizer at DRUM. “It is the ongoing and biased governmental policies, such as pervasive surveillance of Muslim communities by the New York Police Department (NYPD), which not only violate civil rights, but also create the environment for these incidents to take place.”

“I am deeply disturbed by the recent string of racially-charged crimes committed in Queens and across the country,” said NYC Council Member Daniel Dromm who chairs the Council’s Committee on Immigration. “We must respond quickly and condemn these reprehensible acts. These heinous ideas simply have no place in one of the most diverse and tolerant cities in the world.”

“When our own government, our own police, our own institutions, our own media continue to engage in racial profiling or painting communities as suspect, we cannot expect the results to be any different than what they are right now,” said DRUM Leader Shahina Parveen.

The press conference was followed by a vigil, where victims of racial violence, and gender violence were remembered, including the 24 year old “Nirbhaya” who was raped and killed in Delhi. Holding candle lights, the speakers shared the importance of changing society to value all life equally.

ENDORSED by: ASAAL, Arab American Action Network (Chicago, IL), Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Bangladesh Society, BAYAN USA, Canadian Muslim Union, Chhaya CDC, Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center, CUNY CLEAR, Damayan, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, Global Justice Institute/Metropolitan Community Churches, Humanist Center, ICNA – Islamic Circle of North America, Interfaith Council of Flushing, Interfaith Center of New York, International Action Center, International Socialist Organization, Islamic Center of Long Island, Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan NY, Jackson Heights Bangladesh Business Association (JBBA), Jatiotabadhi Student Forum USA, Jews Against Islamophobia, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), Justice Committee, Labor for Palestine, May 1st Coalition, Munshigonj Bikrampur Association, Inc, Muslim Consultative Network, Muslim Peace Coalition USA, National Lawyers Guild – New York City Chapter, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, New York City Labor Against the War, NICE – New Immigrant Community Empowerment, Pakistan Solidarity Network, Rights Working Group, South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), Sakhi for South Asian Women, SALGA-NYC, Sikh Coalition, Siraat (Vancouver BC, Canada), South Asian Bar Association of New York, South Asian Network (Los Angeles, CA), South Asian Solidarity Initiative, St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, Sukhi-NY, Teachers Unite, Turning Point for Women and Families, Ugnayan, United Methodist Women Section of Christian Social Action, United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), UNITED SIKHS, Veterans for Peace NYC Chapter 34, WESPAC Foundation

Translation of Speech by Shahina Parveen, DRUM Leader

Greetings of Peace. My name is Shahina Parveen, and I am a leader in DRUM. We are gathered here after loss of our brother Sunando Sen. But we have to ask why these incidents keep happening again and again. In the last 12 years, the policies of our government and institutions have created a hostile environment against Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians. This fear has an effect on the minds of the public, and especially on those who are easily manipulable. Clearly, the attacker here cannot even grasp reality.

I personally know how easily people can be misled because my son, Shahwar Matin Siraj, who was very young, naïve, and easily manipulable, was targeted by an informant of the NYPD. This informant, who was paid $100,000, fed my son lies, showed him inflammatory and horrifying pictures and articles, and pressured him into a plot that the informant himself created. My son is now serving 30 years for a crime he did not commit. All the other cases are also people with similar mental health issues: James Elshafay was schizophrenic; Ahmed Ferhani was bipolar and abused; Jose Pimentel talked to himself. People with mental health issues need help and treatment, not punishment. This not only destroyed my family, but it also spread fear in minds of Americans.

For the past 12 years, we have seen this happen over and over again: whether it was Special Registration program that made men from Muslim countries register with the government; the NYPD’s surveillance programs which treat and show all of our communities as guilty until innocent; or these cases of entrapment, which target vulnerable people, to manufacture fake terrorism plots. What kind of message does it send when our own government portrays our communities as suspect? What benefit is there in fear mongering, asides from their funding? Who is watching over the NYPD’s activities?

Human life is too precious to be to be exploited this way. Now, it is time to end this racism, this injustice, this hate, and these prisons. This is why I have been involved with DRUM to bring oversight and accountability over governmental agencies and policies, such as an Inspector General over the NYPD. Only when we work to ensure that those who set the example for us all are fair, will our communities be able to heal and support each other.