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Announcement :: Civil & Human Rights |
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NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CONDEMNS EFFORT BY U.S. ARMY TO GATHER INFORMATION ON STUDENTS |
Current rating: 0 |
by Anthony Badgerow
Email: nlgumkc (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) |
17 Feb 2004
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NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD 143 Madison Avenue, NY NY 10016
Tel: 212.679.5100 www.nlg.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 17, 2004
Contact: Michael Avery, President,
617-573-8551, 617-335-5023
Heidi Boghosian, Exec. Dir., 212-679-5100, ext. 11
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CONDEMNS EFFORT BY U.S. ARMY TO GATHER INFORMATION ON STUDENTS
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) has condemned an apparent effort on the part of the United States Army to gather information about students engaged in a civilian academic conference. On February 9, two Army officers came to the University of Texas Law School seeking information about a conference that had been held on February 4. The agents requested a roster of attendees and sought to interview the organizer of the event.
The conference was entitled, "Islam and the Law: The Question of Sexism?" and was co-sponsored by the U.T. student chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. The conference was also co-sponsored by the University of Texas School of Law, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Student Bar Association, the Texas Journal of Women and the Law, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, the Freedom and Justice Foundation, the Muslim Law Students Association and the Human Rights Center at U.T. Law. (For more information on the conference, go to: www.utexas.edu/law/news/2004/010704_islam.html). The conference was apparently also attended by military personnel in plain clothes.
NLG student vice-president Maunica Sthanki, a law student at U.T. noted that, "The conference itself was extremely secular, apolitical and was an attempt to educate people about Islam, as well as engage in an academic debate on issues of women’s rights in the Muslim world." She said, "It is particularly frightening that the Army sent investigators to an institution of higher learning. This raises disturbing issues of information sharing between the Army and civilian authorities such as the F.B.I."
NLG President Michael Avery said, "It appears that the government is stepping up surveillance of innocent activity at academic institutions. Two weeks ago a federal grand jury in Iowa attempted to subpoena information about a law school conference at Drake, now the Army has visited Texas Law School to inquire about a conference there. An element of racial profiling is present in this case, given the Muslim-related content of this particular event. Government spying on student conferences has no place in a free society."
The National Lawyers Guild, founded in 1937, comprises over 6,000 members and activists in the service of the people. Its national office is headquartered in New York and it has chapters in nearly every state, as well as over 100 law school chapters. |
See also:
http://www.nlg.org
http://www.geocities.com/nlgumkc
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Re: NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CONDEMNS EFFORT BY U.S. ARMY TO GATHER INFORMATION ON STUDENTS |
by Jan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
18 Feb 2004
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Who do we contact with our concerns about this?
We must raise our collective voices again! |
