New Jersey Muslims appeal court ruling on police spying Fri Mar 21, 2014 10:30PM .Muslims in the US state of New Jersey have filed an appeal challenging a federal judge’s ruling that said the New Police Department’s spying on Muslims was constitutional.In February, Newark Federal Judge William Martini dismissed the Muslims’ lawsuit against the NYPD which questioned the constitutionally of the department’s spying on Muslims in mosques, restaurants, schools, and other locations.Farhaj Hassan, one of the plaintiffs in the case, says by dismissing the lawsuit, “the judge has said all Muslims can be treated as second-class citizens.”“Today we take this important legal fight against police discrimination to the next round, said Glenn Katon, legal director of Muslim Advocates, an organization representing the plaintiffs, before the plaintiffs filed the appeal on Friday. According to the dismissed lawsuit, which was filed in 2012, the NYPD started to spy on Muslims in 2002.The plaintiffs also said that New York’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, should scrap NYPD spying on Muslims now that he has turned the tide on the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactics which were supported by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.When he was sworn in as the new mayor of New York City on January 1, de Blasio said he would “put an end to economic and social inequalities.”“The de Blasio administration has already disavowed racial profiling in the context of stop-and-frisk,” said Baher Azmy, legal director for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which is also representing the plaintiffs. “We certainly hope it disallows religious profiling in the case of Muslim surveillance as well. These are equivalent and illegal practices,” he added.ISH/ISH
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 23:37:45 +0000