[news] CKUT Radio: Detainees Hunger Strike in New Jersey

[Stefan Christoff]

CKUT Radio: Detainees Hunger Strike in New Jersey

Listen to an interview with Jeannette Gabriel of the New Jersey Civil
Rights Defense Committee about the ongoing hunger strike of two detainees
at the Passaic County Jail in New Jersey. The hunger striking is in
protest of systemic injustices of US immigration policy. Nigel Moccado, a
legal resident from India, has been on a hunger strike for over 50 days,
and Henmauth Mohabir, a permanent resident from Guyana, has completed a
fourth week without solid food.

Both detainees join the untold thousands of immigrants being held in
Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Service jails without being charged
with any crime. In both cases the detainees are in jail because of past
offenses. The Department of Homeland Security and the Bureau of
Citizenship and Immigration Services - formerly the INS - have a green
light to forego due process within the context of the Bush Administrations
War of Terror.

-> To listen to the interview with Jeannette Gabriel visit:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=7590

-> For more information visit New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee:
http://www.nj-civilrights.org

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NJCRDC New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee
STATEMENT OF THE NEW JERSEY CIVIL RIGHTS DEFENSE COMMITTEE

I want to begin with a brief quotation from Dalia Hashad, an ACLU
attorney, which appeared in the Herald News last Saturday:

"Twenty or 30 years from now this will be remembered as one of the
bleakest periods in American history. Don't let it be said that you did
nothing about it."  We are the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee,
a group of citizen activists from this area. And we are here to do
something about it.

We are here to express solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the
Passaic County Jail--all of them. But we are here particularly to applaud
the courage and perseverance of two of the immigrant detainees being held
here, among the hundreds who have been held over the past couple of years,
and among the many who have previously held hunger strikes in this
facility.

They are Nigel Maccado and Hemnauth Mohabir.

Nigel is from India. He is 54 years old. He has been subsisting on only
water and juice for over three weeks. He has a heart condition and is
being denied medication. Hemnauth, from Guyana, is 42. He is a permanent
resident with a green card. He has been virtually without solid food for
over two weeks. He is a musician and an artist. He was detained at JFK
last April, as he returned from Guyana after a visit to his mother in a
medical emergency. He has been denied contact with his wife and child
since. Hemnauth has written to us of the conditions inside the Passaic
County Jail.

'The food is very small in portion and strange in combination, like
macaroni and peanut butter....The jail is roach infested, the bathroom
shower goes from 160 to 60 degrees in one minute....The police do
shakedowns...on a regular basis with a dog....A policeman would be
marching on the metal table yelling for us to keep our heads on the bars,
the dog would be barking and jumping....One day a detainee was in the
bathroom during a shakedown, he was pulled out and beaten. I saw his head
bleeding....

'In March [during an earlier hunger strike], 8 of us was picked put and
put in the bullpen...the police came in the dorm with their dog. It jumped
at one prisoner and the prisoner pulled away. A policeman ran up ...and
hit him on his head and pushed his face into the ground. One... came up
and push his finger in my face and said, Do you want to say something? Two
more officers jumped on the other prisoner and was trying to handcuff
him....I saw them hitting him in his ribs and he was yelling "Look, my
hands, put the cuffs on!"...On the night of the second day they came to do
roll call with a dog. A senior officer...started cursing me, he said get
off your bed you f-ing asshole" I said it didn't call for that. Then he
and another officer came in and put us against the wall. The first officer
slammed my ribs. I said I'm sorry, please don't hit me, then he hit me
harder. I felt my breath cut for a minute....Later they came in in full
madness [with a dog]. They threw all the mattresses on the floor and
scattered all our papers, took our towels and sheets and put them in the
toilet, and tore up a Bible...They [scare us] ending our hunger
strike...Then...they came upstairs in the dorm with a pellet gun a dog and
metal detectors and searched and took all the toilet paper, detergent, and
extra blankets. They poured lotions on the towels. There were reports of
other beatings. They spit on one detainee. They insult us, saying "You
f-ing immigrants." I can go on and on....'