Is any gathering of Muslims now a national security concern? Events following a recent legal conference at the University of Texas have left Muslims and civil rights activists wondering.
On February 4, 2004, the University of Texas Law School hosted a conference called
"Islam and the Law: The Question of Sexism?". The conference was devoted to discussion of the status of women in Islam and in Muslim countries. Both Muslims and non-Muslims agree that a free and open discussion of these and other issues is important, for Muslims in reforming their own countries and for non-Muslims in better understanding Islam and the Muslim world. Yet U.S. Army intelligence agents appear to have been monitoring the conference,
according to Sahar Aziz, a UT law student and organizer of the conference.
Two Army lawyers in plain clothes attended the conference, then
reported to Army intelligence that they had been approached by "suspicious" foreigners whom they were uncomfortable with. As a result of this, on Feburary 9, two Army intelligence agents went to the dean's office at the law school and began knocking on doors and asking students for the organizers of the event. Jessica Biddle, co-editor of the law school's journal on Women and the Law, which helped sponsor the conference, says that Special Agent Jason Treesh
asked her for a roster of attendees and also a video of the event. He also asked her to give his card to Aziz. Biddle says that she felt unnerved by the questioning.
Aziz received calls in the evening from law school friends that Army intelligence agents were looking for her. She was so concerned that she contacted a civil rights attorney, Malcolm Greenstein, who learned from the Army about the "three suspicious Middle Easterners" under investigation. Greenstein also said that the Army investigators had not obtained a subpoena or warrant for the information they were seeking.
When Aziz contacted Treesh, she told him that the conference had been open to the public and therefore there was no roster.
Aziz is not the only person disturbed by the investigation. Jim Harrington, director the Texas Civil Rights Project, said that the agents' tactics were meant to "intimidate and scare people from using the First Amendment". The National Lawyers Guild, which co-sponsored the conference, released a
statement condemning the investigation. Guild 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."
© 2004 Solidarity USA