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    “America, your 9/11...is our 24/7”*, Ten Years of Fighting State Violence Arab Resource and Organizing Center September 9, 2011

    Imagine one day, you oversleep your alarm clock by a few hours. You wake up, and the world is a different place. You leave your house and your neighbors look at you with suspicion. You walk down the street and racial slurs are shouted in your direction. Your sister is harassed at her workplace. Your brother, a lawful resident, is forced to give his fingerprints to immigration. Your cousins are made refugees in their homeland (again). Confused, you turn on the news and see two planes have hit the World Trade Center. Your world has changed forever.  

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    Childhood lost and found: Ten years gone Francesca Fiorentini September 11, 2011

    It always seemed like an absurd exercise to recount where one was on 9/11. Some way to personalize the moment or get closer to the action. Maybe it’s just a way to make something that has been so filtered and retold, so shadowy yet simultaneously sensationalized, feel real. Sadly, the task of remembering is difficult without images of some patriotic red, white, and blue CNN graphic coming to mind. We have been told how to feel about the event (and those that followed) for so long, we rarely get a moment to do so. I choose to remember the day, and the horrors that have happened since, with this brief recollection of the moment that I became an adult.

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    Imprisoned in New Orleans Jordan Flaherty, Tamika Middleton February 16, 2006

    When hurricane Katrina hit, there was no evacuation plan for 7,000 prisoners in the New Orleans city jail, generally known as Orleans Parish Prison (OPP), or the approximate 1,500 prisoners in nearby jails. According to first-hand accounts gathered by advocates, prisoners were abandoned in their cells while the water was rising around them. They were subjected to a heavily armed “rescue” by state prison guards that involved beatings, mace and being left in the sun with no water or food for several days, followed by a transfer to state maximum security prisons.

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    Racist Rage: Islamophobia, the Tea Party, and Endless War Rami El-Amine December 1, 2010

    We are witnessing an unprecedented surge in racism against Muslims in the US. There is a real fear among US Muslims that if there's a successful terrorist attack on Americans, particularly on US soil, we will surely face pogroms and detention centers. The growth of the Far Right and, more specifically, the Tea Party over the last two years has contributed immensely to this feeling. While it is the US's "war on terror" that has caused and continues to cause the most harm to Muslims worldwide, the Tea Party has been key to fanning the flames of Islamophobia over the past year.

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    Breaking Barriers to Employment: Criminal Record Reform in Massachusetts Aaron Tanaka December 1, 2010

    This summer, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed a landmark law reforming the state’s criminal background check system. Aimed at improving acc ess to jobs, housing and other vital services for residents with arrest records, overhauling the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) has been a target for Massachusetts community activists for over a decade. The successful passage of CORI reform marked a notable break from War on Drugs crime policies that have driven the rapid expansion of police and prisons since the early 1970s. Massachusetts’ precedent-setting laws frontline a growing national movement to reverse the systemic economic barriers faced by formerly convicted people. 

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    With Liberty and Justice for All? Jon Liss June 1, 2010

    The war against immigrants has just taken another turn for the worse with the passage of SB 1070 by the Arizona state legislature. This law is designed to criminalize undocumented immigrants, all who help them, and ultimately all who "look" like them! It is a continuation of a 20-year battle that will ultimately determine the future of the US. Winning full political and economic rights for 10 to 15 million immigrants will have an impact comparable to that of freed slaves and the rise of Black reconstruction in the 1860s and 1870s or to the formation of Roosevelt's New Deal coalition in the 1930s and 1940s.

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    The Holy Land Five Candice Bernd October 1, 2009

    As the five defendants of the Holy Land Foundation case were being sentenced on May 27, 2009, in Dallas, Texas, members of the local Muslim community came together to rally outside the Earle Cabell Federal building.  They held a banner that read “feeding children is not a crime” and wore black shirts with the words “Free the Holy Land Five.”

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    Aafia Siddiqui: Another Person Disappeared in the War on Terror Cullen Goldblatt January 01, 2007

    SEEKING INFORMATION states the FBI in large bold letters at the top of the notice, then:

    Date of Birth Used: March 2, 1972

    Details: Although the FBI has no information indicating this individual is connected to specific terrorist activities, the FBI would like to locate and question this individual.

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    Rabih Haddad Speaks Out from Detention Rabih Haddad July 14, 2002

    “The real scoop is that the government lied”

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    War and Terror Pranjal Tiwari September 14, 2004
      As the “war on terror” announced by our rulers approaches its third year, it is receiving bad reviews all around, even in the mainstream media, establishment, and intellectual circles. Pranjal Tiwari takes a look.

    Typical of the barrage of criticism that the war on terror has been subjected to is a recent report from none other than the Army War College which concluded that “[T]he global war on terrorism as currently defined and waged is dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious,” but qualified that “its parameters should be readjusted.”

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