When: 7pm - 10pm, followed by Open Mic.

What: Join the Center for Constitutional Rights and Coney Island Avenue Project in a community event to learn about post-9/11 immigration sweeps, "targeted killings," and the human costs of the U.S. "War on Terror."

(Public Transport: Take B/Q to Newkirk Ave.)

Speakers:

Leili Kashani and Rachel Meeropol from the Center for Constitutional Rights. Also speaking will be an individual recently released from immigration detention.

Live classical Indian Kathak dance (by Sangita Rai) and Pashtun music (by Haroon Bacha & Sahib Gul) will follow the discussion, with open mic after 10pm.

The two lawsuits discussed will be Turkmen v. Ashcroft and Al-Aulaqi v. Obama:

Turkmen v. Ashcroft is a class action civil rights lawsuit filed on behalf of a class of Muslim, South Asian, and Arab non-citizens who were swept up by the INS and FBI in a racial profiling dragnet following 9/11. CCR filed the case in 2002 against former Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, former INS Commissioner James Ziglar, and employees of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York. The suit charges that on the pretext of minor immigration violations, the Immigration and Naturalization Service unlawfully held the plaintiffs – all men from Arab or South Asian countries – in abusive detention conditions for the months that the FBI took to clear them of links to terrorism. Last year, five of the seven Turkmen named plaintiffs settled their claims for $1.26 Million from the United States. On September 13, 2010, CCR filed an amended complaint adding six new named plaintiffs, and is continuing the case in an effort to hold accountable the high-level architects of this policy to detain and abuse non-citizens without evidence or charges.   

Al-Aulaqi v. Obama is a lawsuit challenging the government’s authority to place individuals suspected of terrorism on kill lists and target them for death even though they do not present an imminent threat and are outside a zone of armed conflict. It is filed on behalf of Nasser Al-Aulaqi, whose U.S. citizen son Anwar Al-Aulaqi is being pursued in Yemen and targeted by the CIA and Defense Department for death. The lawsuit asks a court to rule that using lethal force far from any battlefield and without judicial process is illegal in all but the narrowest circumstances and to prohibit the government from carrying out targeted killings except in compliance with these standards. It also asks the court to order the government to disclose the legal standard it uses to place people on government kill lists. This lawsuit is filed against Secretary of Defense Gates, CIA Director Panetta, and President Obama.