Safana Jawad, a former Iraqi citizen, fled to Spain in 1979. Since then, she worked for several years in the 1990s as a translator for the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. She now runs an antiques boutique there. Her ex-husband and teenage son live in the Tampa Bay Area. The ex-hubby's been honored by President Bush, and he is not considered a threat here.
Recently, Jawad's ex sent her a plane ticket to come on a surprise visit for her son's birthday. When she arrived, she was strip searched, her headscarf was taken away (she was told she could use one provided by the prison) and she was deported without seeing her son due to an alleged tie with a suspicious person who means harm to the U.S. However, the federal agents who apprehended Jawad won't release the name of this nefarious person she's supposedly associated with. The ACLU is investigating a lawsuit on her behalf.
Some Questions Which Come to Mind:
1) Although supporters say she was singled out because she was the only person on the plane with a headscarf, I doubt it. We have plenty of Muslim women with headscarves around here, and they're being left unmolested.
2) It's very, very unsettling to know that someone can be accused of associating with a person who is dangerous to the U.S., without being told whom that someone is.
3) No matter how chummy her ex hubby is, I wonder if he set her up, and if so, why?
4) Why the humiliating strip search of a Muslim woman, when she already passed airport screening? Perhaps they consider Spain's screening to be substandard? If that's so, then shouldn't we be stripsearching everyone coming from Spain?
Granted, she was stripsearched at the jail where she was held for deportation, and it's common policy to stripsearch anyone put in jail. However, if Spain did it's job, and she was merely being held until she could be put back on a plane to Spain, why put her through that?
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17 comments:
It is so hard to say what they know and what they dont in this case. Often, I feel like the american intel people are simply using the shotgun method: fire in all directions at random and hope to catch something.
But we will never know if there was something here or not. But to be fair to the guys who gave her a hard time: lots of the sept. 11th guys came through spain. Europe is a great place because you do not need papers to go from one nation to the next.
I've never seen rhyme nor reason to our security policies of incoming international passengers. I've seen them confiscate nail clippers and even took my screw driver magnetic bit set that didn't even contain the handle! I've seen them lift an old woman out of her wheel chair so that they could frisk her and the chair while letting other people like myself who are more likely to carry a bomb on board pass by unsearched.
I've always been for profiling when it comes to searches and to date, the terrorists who have made it to our shores have been males not females. Searching her was pointless. Maybe somebody wanted some Abu Ghraib like pictures.
OK Slick, an excellent point about how she was fine to work at an embassy at one time, but is not fine to enter the country. Of course she's currently not working at the embassy, so I suppose they could say she picked up her nefarious connection after she worked at the embassy.
Dribbler, I agree, I think we need to do more to create secure airports. Israel has always been the best at that, and we could use them as an example.
Ed, I agree that profiling is necessary, although there are more white than meditteranean muslims (the primary source of terrorism). Still, we all know that the terrorists that have been harmful to the US have come from the Meditteranean Muslim countries.
Alex, you're right about the "shotgun method" I think, but I didn't register that the terrorists came largely from Spain. That's an interesting point!
The strip search is pretty much standard when you go to jail. That search was not for a bomb but merely for contraband going into the jail. Trust me I know. (sigh)
It is rather bizzare to be told you have an associate who is bad but not be told who that associate is. (the possible reason of course being that they don't want said associate to know that they are on to him/her)
Women can carry bombs/messages/equipment to terrorists without being terrorists themselves.
Wheelchairs make excellent explosive delivery systems. As do little children with backpacks.
All of that being said, odds are she is linked to someone with the same name as some suspected terrorist. (Will the real Abdul Rahman please stand up?)
It’s profiling. After 9/11…I think anyone who resembles any nature of being Muslim is often searched more than others.
I have mixed feelings on this one. It does sound a little overboard to me though.
I can understand the strip search - it's standard when entering a jail. I'm just trying to figure out why she went to jail in the first place. Regardless of guilt, if she was being denied entry into the country, for any reason, why didn't they hold her in customs and then put her on the next flight out? I'm pretty sure there was another flight back to Spain in the next 24 hours. Instead, we use our resources to hold someone who we then have to deport.
The problem with our current system is that there is a list of names that are being denied access. So, if Saur Kraut comes through immigration and it pops up on my list, I have to deny you access. It doesn't matter that there are 1500 SK's in Timbuktu (it's a very popular name there) and I have nothing else to go on, if it's your name, you're out of here. Later on you may find out that the SK they're truly looking for is 4'11", 400 lbs and black but since you share her name, you can't come in.
There's a fine line between erring on the side of caution and civil rights violations. I'm just not so sure we're doing a good job of walking that line.
Wheelchairs make excellent explosive delivery systems. As do little children with backpacks.
I agree, they do. But when is the last time one of those two methods have been used to attack the United States. They can't search everybody, or so they claim, so we need to play the odds and right now, the odds say that an old woman in a wheelchair or little Timothy carrying the backpack aren't likely to be carrying explosives.
Mohammed, age 25 and carrying a backpack... now that is a different story.
Ed, you're right that they are less likely to be carrying bombs but more and more they are likely to be smuggling drugs.
Saur,
Excellent post.
I remember when getting naked was taboo in most Muslim societies. I was sitting next to this Muslim woman on a trip to Colombia and she started talking to me about pleasures of the flesh. She told me that she was once married to a much older domineering man who didn’t meet her desires. But here’s the kicker, she said she use to purposely shop for clothing on the other side of the tracks because she knew the clothing would have a security chip sewn into the hem. She said that stripping in front of the respectful airport security personnel instead of her domineering husband gave her a feeling of self worth. You just never know.
What airport did she fly into? Miami Airport has flights from Madrid on both American Airlines and Iberia Airlines.
There are no warning signs at the gates for flights to Spain - therefore the FAA and TSA are satisfied that the screening process over there is at least "as good" as the screening in the USA.
The secret list program has major flaws, but due to the secrecy of the project it is not likely any of these problems will be fixed. The powers that are have decided to just keep everything secret - and be done with it. Senator Edward Kennedy was on the do not fly list for a year before he could get off - a regular citizen has no chance of clearing his or her name.
There is no way of knowing why she was on the list. If she was really a danger, she would be in a secret jail right now and not in Spain.
The ACLU is just spinning its wheels on this one. Unless Bush has a need to discredit someone, he will not leak / declassify anything.
Mr. Gator, your fantasy life is rich and imaginative. Your wife must enjoy that. ;o)
Heather, is it really as simple as a name on a list, no descriptions, nothing? I'll have to do some research on that. Fascinating.
Ed, I agree that there are likelier suspects, and that profiling is a necessity. To deny that is to bury our heads in the sands of political correctness.
Mike, yeah, a little too much for me, too.
Deb, I don't know. We are being terribly politically correct nowadays. I don't think they looked at her and said "Ah, there's a Muslim. Let's deny her access to the US because of her muslim-ness." It's when they ran her name that an associates name came up. Supposedly, that is.
Exmi, you're right, that is the only logical explanation for not disclosing the name. And yet, wouldn't he/she be tipped off as it is? I mean, say she gets back to Spain, goes to a party, and is sitting around drinking tea and eating crumpets, telling of her unusual experience. Don't we think her associate, or a connection to him/her, would hear about it? Seems pretty thin to me...(?)
Iguana, Oh good. I specifically wanted you to weigh in on this one. I haven't flown since 9/11 so I'm completely unfamiliar with airports and their procedures. The closest I got was to pick up my little cousin at the airport a year and a half ago. I think it's incredible everything's being done in such a way that we really don't have the right to know our "accuser" (if we can say that accusing is guilt by association).
That really is unsettling. That is incredible that someone can be arrested and not be given all the details. I do wonder if her hubby set her up. Hmmmm...
I dunno what I think. Do we owe non-citizens information on why they aren't allowed into the country? I have no idea what her rights are/were.
I do know that we are making lots and lots of mistakes on stuff like this.
2. If we don't defend our freedoms, we are forced to give them up. There is no reason why the government can't tell someone whom they are being accused of associating with, and NO reason why anyone should ever be searched in such a manner without a lawyer present, especially if there is a warrant. This war has changed a lot of the rules, and none of them for the better. But if Americans won;t defend their rights, they DESERVE to lose them.
4)I agree. If they searched her because the thought Spain didn't do a good job, they should have searched everyone on the plane, and on every plane coming from Spanin. They don't have the manpower to do so, and the more people you search, the more likely it is that at some point, people won't stand for it anymore!
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