CIA-NYPD Alliance = Systematic Racial Profiling
By Kanya D’Almeida

WASHINGTON, Aug 25, 2011 (IPS) – While some Muslim Americans might have been hoping for a relaxation of the decade-long counterterrorism onslaught on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a report published by the Associated Press – unearthing new and shocking realities on the extent of intelligence-gathering operations in New York City – suggests that the offensive on “terror” is only just beginning.

Following months of investigations, including numerous interviews with current and former employees and agents of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the AP presented evidence Wednesday that “the NYPD (currently) operates far outside its borders and targets ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government… and it does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying.”

The report’s authors claim that neither the New York City Council – NYPD’s sole financier – nor the federal government, which doles out hundreds of millions of dollars each year, have been told exactly what is going on.

By law, the CIA is specifically prohibited from collecting foreign intelligence concerning the domestic activities of U.S. citizens; however David Cohen, a CIA veteran who jumped on board with the NYPD while the ashes of the twin towers were still smouldering, has successfully married the CIA’s intelligence architecture with the police department’s legal loopholes to create a human mapping system for identifying “potential terrorist threats” in the fearful aftermath of 9/11.

According to information from ex-police and -intelligence officers, the NYPD has dispatched teams of undercover agents, or “rakers”, into minority neighbourhoods to monitor daily life in bookstores, hookah bars and even cafes.

Police are also said to have used “mosque crawlers”, infiltrators who monitor sermons and spy on imams even with no evidence of wrongdoing. NYPD officials have even gone so far as to ‘rake’ information on cab drivers and food cart vendors, jobs often held by members of the Muslim community.

Historically, the CIA’s largely white American employee base has been a barrier to unfettered infiltration. But with the NYPD’s ethnically diverse employment pool, the agencies have been able to plant Palestinian rakers in internet cafes to study browsing histories of ‘suspects’ or send Pakistani spies into bookstores to keep tabs on customers reading or purchasing ‘radical literature’.

Restaurants too have been under close watch – if patrons applaud news reports on the death of U.S. troops, the restaurant could be labelled a ‘hot spot’.

Rights Groups, Lawyers Cry ‘Foul’

“This is the kind of information that must not be allowed to be buried under other news reports,” James Yee, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said at a press conference in New York City Wednesday. “What is happening (to the Muslim community) is an earthquake of a different magnitude, such that even those in New Jersey are feeling the shock- waves of the NYPD-CIA mapping programme in New York.”

Drawing members from virtually every sector of the Muslim community and its deep pool of allies – from the youth advocacy group Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) to the National Lawyers Guild – CAIR today called on the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into the allegations put forward in AP’s report.

“Intelligence and law enforcement agencies need to stop preying on ethnic minorities and be transparent in their actions – they are supposed to be preventing crime, but their own covert and potentially illegal operations only corrode trust between minorities and law enforcers, despite massive publicity stunts and PR campaigns to the contrary,” CAIR-NY civil rights manager Cyrus McGoldrick told IPS.

“Such operations have real, lasting and damaging effects on the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities,” he added.

“I personally have handled people’s complaints and fears of being scrutinised, being approached by police to become informants themselves or having their immigration status threatened if they did not comply,” McGoldrick said. “This has led to a terrible breakdown in the very fabric of community life – people are afraid to worship, to commune with their neighbours, to exercise freely their religious and cultural practices, especially when actions as innocuous as quitting smoking or going to bookstores are deemed a ‘terrorist threat’.”

Spokespeople for the NYPD and the CIA have vehemently denied claims that they used census data to match undercover officers to ethnic communities in a unit that became known inside the department as the Demographic Unit.

“It’s not a question of profiling. It’s a question of going where the problem could arise,” said Mordecai Dzikansky, a retired NYPD intelligence officer. “And thank God we (now) have the language capability and the ethnic officers (to do that) – that’s our hidden weapon.”

Legal experts claim that the report’s evidence offers the possibility of a strong case against both agencies for being in violation of civil and constitutional rights.

“There are (various) avenues through which one could potentially challenge these intelligence operations in court,” Faiza Patel, co-director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told IPS.

“The first is obviously through challenges based on violations of the first amendment, since these intelligence gathering practices potentially impinge upon protected speech. There is also the possibility of challenging them based on provisions in New York City’s administrative code, which prohibits profiling on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity etc,” she added.

“The City Council, which already has oversight of NYPD, should actually start shouldering these responsibilities. To date, they have not had a hearing to discuss intelligence-gathering activities and it’s high time they did,” Patel stressed.

However, the prospect of the CIA and NYPD being hauled into the spotlight, even for a slap on the wrist, is slim.

The AP report reminds us that, “the NYPD has faced little scrutiny over the past decade as it has taken on broad new intelligence missions, targeted ethnic neighbourhoods and partnered with the CIA in extraordinary ways.”

It continues, “Though NYPD has been mentioned as a model for policing in the post-9/11 era, it’s a model that seems custom-made for New York – no other city has the Big Apple’s combination of a low crime rate, a 4.5 billion dollar police budget and a diverse 34,000-person police force.” …source

Democratic Opening in Bahrain Needs Release of All Prisoners of Conscience
9/6/11 06:13 PM ET – by Jean-François Julliard – Secretary general, Reporters Without Borders

That Bahrain released 137 people on August 9th is good news, but it also shows the scale of arrests, done in full view with little criticism. Five weeks ago, President Barack Obama hailed the launch of a national dialogue by the Bahraini government as an “important moment of promise for the people of Bahrain.” The government lifted the state of emergency on June 1st and started the national dialogue a month later, but continued to arbitrarily hound bloggers, the media and journalists. Clearly the regime is saying one thing, but doing another.

Earlier in the year, President Obama pointed out that “mass arrests and brute force are at odds with the universal rights of Bahrain’s citizens” and recalled the necessary constitutional separation of powers — particularly between the executive and judicial. Reporters Without Borders urges the United States to renew its pressure on Bahrain, a leading U.S. ally in the Gulf, and to secure the support of Saudi Arabia, whose has strong influence over Bahrain. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia must work together to pressure the Bahraini authorities to cease violating their citizens’ rights to free expression and assembly by arbitrary arrest and prosecution, to release prisoners of conscience, and to continue the national dialogue in good faith.

On June 22nd, a military court imposed long jail sentences on 21 activists and civilians supposedly on charges of belonging to terrorist organizations and trying to overthrow the government. These actions violate international human rights standards. But this is not the sole irregularity observed in the trial. According to some of the defendants and their families, the suspects were tortured or mistreated while in detention.

Eight of them, including the human rights activist and blogger Abduljalil Al-Singace, were given life sentences. The head of the pro-democracy and civil liberties movement Al Haq, Singace has been in jail since March 16th, for allegedly trying to destabilize the government because he used his blog to denounce the deplorable state of civil liberties and discrimination against Bahrain’s Shiite population. He had been arrested several times since 2009 for the same reasons.

The other 13 suspects got sentences ranging from two to 15 years in prison. The blogger Ali Abdulemam, tried in absentia, got 15 years. Abdulemam is regarded by fellow Bahrainis as one of his country’s Internet pioneers and is an active member of Bahrain Online, a pro-democracy forum that gets more than 100,000 visitors a day despite being blocked within Bahrain. A contributor to the international bloggers network Global Voices, he has taken part in many international conferences at which he has denounced human rights violations in Bahrain. He was arrested in 2005 for criticizing the regime in his blog and was detained again from September to February 2011, but he avoided re-arrest and has been in hiding for several months.

And of course, none of them were amongst these 137 released prisoners.

There are limits to the regime’s leniency. Two royal decrees signed on June 29th were an attempt to silence international criticism. The first makes it possible for civilians to be tried in civilian court instead of the martial ones when they are accused of destabilizing the government. It also makes it possible for them to appeal to the highest civilian appeal court to fight against the rulings of the national security appeal court. The other, Decree No. 28, created a commission of enquiry into the incidents that took place in the kingdom during February and March. …source

Justice Department won’t release full memos on George W. Bush’s warrantless surveillance
By Associated Press – Wahsington Post – August 29, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is refusing to release legal memos the George W. Bush administration used to justify his warrantless surveillance program, one of the most contentious civil liberties issues during the Republican president’s time in office.

In responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the department is withholding two legal analyses by then-government lawyer John Yoo, and is revealing just eight sentences from a third Yoo memo dated Nov. 2, 2001. That memo is at least 21 pages long.

Each of the three memos was summarized in a public report more than two years ago by five inspectors general. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel says Yoo memos from Feb. 8, 2002, and Oct. 11, 2002, were classified and protected from public disclosure by the deliberative process privilege. The Nov. 2 memo was withheld almost in its entirety for an additional reason, that it was covered by non-disclosure provisions in federal laws.

Yoo’s work at the Justice Department during the Bush administration long has been intensely controversial, especially his authorship of memos defending the Bush administration’s use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorist suspects.

The department’s Office of Legal Counsel, where Yoo worked, is in charge of providing controlling legal opinions to the president and all executive branch agencies.

Yoo’s memos on interrogation and warrantless surveillance were long ago withdrawn and replaced by his successors at the department. Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008 spelled out the role of the courts in the surveillance process.

Key Justice Department memos by Yoo and others at the Justice Department in support of harsh interrogation techniques have been publicly released — some by the Bush administration, others during Barack Obama’s presidency.

Two years ago, Matthew Aid, a private researcher, asked the Justice Department to release three Yoo memos on warrantless surveillance. The Office of Legal Counsel responded three weeks ago.

The eight sentences released from the Nov. 2, 2001, memo closely track the 2009 inspectors general summary. In that memo, Yoo wrote that FISA “cannot restrict the president’s ability to engage in warrantless searches that protect the national security.” According to the IGs’ report, the Feb. 8, 2002, memo said that Congress had not included a clear statement in FISA that it sought to restrict presidential authority to conduct warrantless surveillance activities. The Oct. 11, 2002, opinion reiterates the same basic analysis contained in Yoo’s Nov. 2, 2001, memo in support of the legality of the president’s warrantless surveillance program, according to the IGs’ report.

Among the reasons Yoo’s memo has been controversial is that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enacted in 1978, set up a secret court — before which only government lawyers appear — with power to grant, or reject, government applications for warrants to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ communications in this country. It stated that the act was the exclusive means by which this could be done.

The Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists first reported on the Justice Department’s decision on the FOIA request. …source

CIA Sponsors Domestic Spying Activities By The NYPD?
By SOP newswire2

A coalition of a dozen civil rights and advocacy organizations is calling on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Department of Justice to take action in response to revelations that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) is engaged in widespread religious and ethnic profiling and monitoring of Muslim communities and houses of worship in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The revelations are contained in documents obtained by the Associated Press (AP) showing that undercover NYPD officers in a so-called “Demographics Unit” targeted the Muslim communities with the assistance of individuals linked to the CIA. NYPD officials denied the Demographics Unit ever existed, despite the AP`s publication of an NYPD presentation that described the mission and makeup of the unit.

AP: Inside the Spy Unit That NYPD Says Doesn`t Exist
AP: NYPD Demographics Unit Presentation
Editorial: The CIA and the NYPD are worrisome bedfellows (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

A coalition letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee requests that the committee conduct “an immediate investigation into this affair and hold formal hearings on the civil rights implications of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsoring domestic spying activities by the NYPD and its legality.”

The coalition letter to the U.S. Marshals Service requests that the organization “withdraw its deputization of those special unit police officers involved in the above mentioned NYPD intelligence gathering activities, taking into account their safety and liability, the legality of such activities, and the civil rights implications of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsoring domestic spying activities by the NYPD.”

A similar coalition letter to the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section requests “an immediate investigation into this apparent pattern of profiling by the New York City Police Department.”

Coalition members include:

* Afghans for Peace
* Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
* Asian Law Caucus
* Bill of Rights Defense Committee
* Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
* Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR)
* Demand Progress
* Defending Dissent Foundation
* DownsizeDC.org
* Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM)
* Jews Against Islamophobia
* South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)

When the revelations of NYPD profiling were first published, CAIR`s New York chapter joined a coalition of civil rights and advocacy organizations in calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the initial AP allegations.

At the news conference, more than a dozen concerned leaders — including a state senator, Christian and Muslim religious leaders, and representatives of rights organizations — expressed outrage at the potentially illegal program.

Earlier this week, CAIR called on the New York City Council and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to enforce the law that prohibits the use of racial or ethnic profiling by law enforcement officers.

CAIR is America`s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding. …source

The NYPD’s ‘astounding’ domestic spying program
The AP reports that New York City police, with the help of the CIA, skirt domestic surveillance laws to snoop on Americans in minority neighborhoods
August 25, 2011 – The Week

A mosque in Astoria, Queens: Undercover NYPD officers called “mosque crawlers” are reportedly spying on muslim communities, even if no crimes are suspected.

A mosque in Astoria, Queens: Undercover NYPD officers called “mosque crawlers” are reportedly spying on muslim communities, even if no crimes are suspected. Photo: Emily Anne Epstein/Corbis SEE ALL 62 PHOTOS

It is no secret that the New York Police Department launched its own global intelligence unit after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But it’s news to almost everyone that the NYPD, in close and “extraordinary” collaboration with the CIA, might have bent domestic surveillance and civil rights laws by sending undercover agents to monitor Muslim enclaves and mosque services, according to a months-long investigation by the Associated Press. Here’s a look at the “astounding” NYPD “domestic CIA” operation:

What does the NYPD spy unit do?
Its goal is to gather and analyze intelligence about terrorist threats to New York. The unit has officers stationed in 11 foreign cities, and its operatives have been caught operating in New Jersey and Boston. Its most controversial initiatives, according to the AP, include the use of undercover officers (dubbed “rakers”) to troll New York’s Muslim neighborhoods looking for suspicious people and shops, and “mosque crawler” informants who report on what clerics are saying to their followers.

Where does the CIA fit in?
The unit was set up, and is still headed, by David Cohen, a retired CIA officer. Cohen brought aboard CIA agent Larry Sanchez, who stayed on the agency payroll while training police agents from his NYPD office — an unusual arrangement that appears to have breached “the wall that’s supposed to keep the CIA out of the domestic intelligence business,” the AP says. Also “blurring the lines between police work and spying,” the NYPD sent an officer to the CIA training farm to learn the agency’s tradecraft, and a senior CIA operative is currently working undercover in the top ranks of the NYPD unit.

Did any of this raise eyebrows?
NYPD lawyers raised concerns about the “raking” operations, and the intelligence unit got embroiled in an ongoing civil-liberties lawsuit after Cohen’s undercover agents infiltrated anti-war groups before the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. The FBI also has turf issues with Cohen’s unit, and thinks it might be illegal. In fact, “senior FBI officials in New York ordered their own agents not to accept any reports from the NYPD’s mosque crawlers,” the AP says. But the authorities with oversight — the New York City Council and the federal government, which gives the unit millions in aid — have asked few questions.

Is any of this illegal?
Let’s put it this way, says John Cook at Gawker: “When the FBI’s lawyers are so concerned about your ethnic profiling that they won’t rely on your reports, you know you’re in trouble.” Throw in CIA dabbling in domestic spying, and these operations are “probably illegal.” The NYPD is evidently worried enough that it routinely shreds documents, says Adam Serwer at The American Prospect. But most of the unit’s work doesn’t “appear to violate the letter of the law,” says Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. Still, “ethnic harassment” and spying on mosques and anti-war protesters is “not what the NYPD is supposed to be about.”
…source

Op-Ed Contributor
Political Repression 2.0
By EVGENY MOROZOV – September 1, 2011

AGENTS of the East German Stasi could only have dreamed of the sophisticated electronic equipment that powered Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s extensive spying apparatus, which the Libyan transitional government uncovered earlier this week. The monitoring of text messages, e-mails and online chats — no communications seemed beyond the reach of the eccentric colonel.

What is even more surprising is where Colonel Qaddafi got his spying gear: software and technology companies from France, South Africa and other countries. Narus, an American company owned by Boeing, met with Colonel Qaddafi’s people just as the protests were getting under way, but shied away from striking a deal. As Narus had previously supplied similar technology to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, it was probably a matter of public relations, not business ethics.

Amid the cheerleading over recent events in the Middle East, it’s easy to forget the more repressive uses of technology. In addition to the rosy narrative celebrating how Facebook and Twitter have enabled freedom movements around the world, we need to confront a more sinister tale: how greedy companies, fostered by Western governments for domestic surveillance needs, have helped suppress them.

Libya is only the latest place where Western surveillance technology has turned up. Human rights activists arrested and later released in Bahrain report being presented with transcripts of their own text messages — a capacity their government acquired through equipment from Siemens, the German industrial giant, and maintained by Nokia Siemens Networks, based in Finland, and Trovicor, another German company.

Earlier this year, after storming the secret police headquarters, Egyptian activists discovered that the Mubarak government had been using a trial version of a tool — developed by Britain’s Gamma International — that allowed them to eavesdrop on Skype conversations, widely believed to be safe from wiretapping.

And it’s not just off-the-shelf technology; some Western companies supply dictators with customized solutions to block offensive Web sites. A March report by OpenNet Initiative, an academic group that monitors Internet censorship, revealed that Netsweeper, based in Canada, together with the American companies Websense and McAfee (now owned by Intel), have developed programs to meet most of the censorship needs of governments in the Middle East and North Africa — in Websense’s case, despite promises not to supply its technology to repressive governments.

Unfortunately, the American government, the world’s most vociferous defender of “Internet freedom,” has little to say about such complicity. Though Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton often speaks publicly on the subject, she has yet to address how companies from her country undermine her stated goal. To add insult to injury, in December the State Department gave Cisco — which supplied parts for China’s so-called Great Firewall — an award in recognition of its “good corporate citizenship.” ….more

from twitter – Sept 6, 2001 – Appeal of 21 prominent #bahrain figures postponed until 28th of September

Bahrain court hears appeals on protest sentences
msnbc.com

AP – MANAMA, Bahrain — A Bahrain security court on Tuesday heard appeals on behalf two prominent opposition figures who are on hunger strike and 19 other activists sentenced in the crackdown on anti-government protests, rights activists said.

Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said the hearing took place before the special security court with military prosecutors and civilian and military judges set up after the Gulf kingdom’s Sunni rulers imposed martial law to deal with a wave of Shiite-led protests for greater rights.

Of the 21 activists, the court in June sentenced eight prominent opposition figures to life imprisonment while 13 others received shorter prison terms. Seven activists were sentenced in absentia.

The sentences were among the most severe punishments against the demonstrations for greater rights by the Gulf kingdom’s Shiite majority. Anti-government protests in the tiny, Sunni-ruled island nation started in February, inspired by other Arab uprisings.

Jalila al-Sayed, a Bahraini lawyer for one of the defendants said the court adjourned until Sept. 28. She did not elaborate on the proceedings further except saying that 14 defendants attended Tuesday’s hearing.

Among the eight defendants who received life sentences are Bahrain’s Shiite leaders Hassan Mushaima and Abdul Jalil al-Singace.

The two are said to have joined a hunger strike last week in support of jailed doctors who treated injured protesters and who face charges of trying to overthrow Bahrain’s 200-year-old monarchy.

Shiites account for 70 percent of Bahrain’s population of some 525,000, but claim they face systematic discrimination such as being barred from top government and political posts.

More than 30 people died during months of demonstrations and harsh crackdowns in Bahrain, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

Dozens of protesters, human rights activists and Shiite professional like doctors and lawyers have been tried in the special tribunal. Two protesters were sentenced to death.

Bahrain lifted emergency rule in June. The king Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa ordered all protest-related cases moved to civilian courts. In August, the monarch issued another decree that reversed the decision. It was not clear how many defendants will remain with the security court.

Bahrain’s use of the security court has been strongly criticized by rights groups. Souhayr Belhassen, the president of the International Federation for Human Rights said the reversal to the special court is a “great concern” for the Paris-based group.

“Trying civilians before a military and special courts doesn’t comply with international standards,” Belhassen said in a statement Tuesday. …source

A special report on the torture and human rights violations against the detainees in the case of “Alliance for the Republic” BCHR

The military court in Bahrain issued harsh sentences against 21 opposition leaders and figures, including Abdul Hadi Al Khawajah, the prominent human rights activist.

The lack of international standards for trials and having civilians tried before a military court are blatant violations of their rights and a sign of the invalidity of the sentences issued.

Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) considers the detainees prisoners of conscience with no material evidence of their involvement in violence or the incitement of violence. The BCHR condemns their torture during interrogation and trial.

5 June, 2011

Introduction

On the dawn of 16th March 2011, Bahrain security forces backed by the military crushed the popular pro-democracy movement in Bahrain by clearing the Pearl Roundabout in the capital Manama from protesters after declaring the state of “National Safety” (Martial Law) and the intervention of GCC security and military forces in Bahrain under the cover of the “Peninsula Shield”. Saudi troops formed the majority among those forces which was led by Major General Mutlaq Bin Salem – the head of the Peninsula Shield forces. Local authorities launched a wide campaign of arbitrary detentions against all those involved in or supported – in any way – the pro-democracy movement during the period from 14th February until 17th March 2011. According to initial estimates, the number of detainees exceeded 2000 including 21 opposition leaders and human rights activists – 7 of whom were tried in absentia for not being able to arrest them. They were tried before a military court known as “The Court of National Safety” which was held at the Military Courts headquarters of the Bahrain Defense Force (the army). The following report presents a summary of the abuses they were subjected to before and after the trials which ended on 22nd June 2011 (case No. 124/2011). The sentences ranged from two years to life imprisonment [1] (attached a list of names and sentences).

In the aforementioned sentence, the court relied on reports and testimonies of the National Security Apparatus (the intelligence services) which claimed that members of this group (21 in total, 7 of whom were considered escaped) had formed an organization calling for a democratic republic instead of the current monarchy and that they had participated in managing the popular protest movement, inciting hatred against the regime and its symbols, planning for the overthrow of the regime by force, calling for civil disobedience, spreading false news about the situation in Bahrain and collaborating with a foreign power. These charges were denied by all the defendants and their lawyers who have considered them malicious as a punishment to these activists, who were annoying the authorities with their peaceful activities in the previous period, by imposing the most severe penalties under the two laws of “Terrorism” and the “State Security” law in the penal code which is condemned internationally.

All the defendants insisted that what they have done was only practicing their legitimate right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly calling for civil, political, economic and social rights to all the people. Moreover, all their activities did not go beyond the frame of peaceful actions.

This brief report outlines some of what these activists have suffered with torture and human rights violations since their arrest until the time of writing of this report. It includes the following:

I. Violations during the arrest and detention.
II. Torture at the National Security Apparatus (Al Qal’ah).
III. Physical and psychological torture at the military prison (Al Grain).
IV. Violations related to the interrogations done by the National Security Apparatus and the Military Prosecution.
V. Violations related to trials before the Military Court.
VI. Vengeance on relatives of the detainees.
I. Violations during the arrest and detention:

All fourteen detainees in this case said that their arrests took place by raiding their houses or houses of their relatives after midnight. They had not been summoned or informed that they are wanted by any authority. No documents of a judicial warrant for their arrest or search were presented. The following are some examples of detainees’ testimonies about the detention process: HERE