Rebecca Campbell

Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry Sept. 15 - Video"

During the past decade, there has been a well-orchestrated campaign of hostility and prejudice toward Muslims throughout the American Empire to justify its illegal conquest of the largely Muslim lands of Central Asia:

Here is yet another egregious instance of such bigotry, with the US government itself continuing this pathological pattern:

Soon after long-term legal Pakistani immigrant Muhammed Zahid Chaudhry applied as a volunteer for the Yakima Police Departments' Police Reserve Volunteers program in March 2001, Special Agent David Hendrix of the FBI’s regional headquarters in Yakima, Washington State asked Zahid to come to his office for an interview, with which Agent Hendrix seemed well satisfied, indicating no further action was needed.

Special Agent Hendrix probably saw what many others have: Zahid Chaudhry is a warm, kind and generous man, with a ready, sweet smile who spends much of his life in service to others; his wife, Ann Chaudhry, is a strong, competent, and loyal woman who shares her husband’s love of people.

About the time of this interview with the FBI, Zahid and Ann Chaudhry, began noticing that cars were parked outside their house; they were also being followed, as were their friends, and their mail began to disappear. The main car involved in this was stalking-type surveillance was a gold Crown Victoria with regular nonexempt Washington State license plates; Crown Victorias were the model of choice being used for police and other government cars at that time.

The Chaudhrys then began receiving telephone phone calls from a military intelligence officer evidently based at Fort Lewis named Munoz, often at deliberately inconvenient hours, from 12-4 AM. These disturbing calls seemed to be intended to incite or entrap Zahid and/or Ann and continued for a year or more.

One morning, at 3 AM, after Zahid Chaudhry had just spent a long night as a Yakima Fire Department volunteer at a fire scene, he got a call from Officer Munoz asking him when he "was going to come in and give us your plans". The normally cheerful Zahid, finally fed up, told Officer Munoz to go f---k himself. These calls then suddenly stopped.

Then, in early 2003, the Chaudhrys were detained by the US Customs and Border Patrol in Blaine (CBP), WA while returning from Vancouver BC, after being told by CBP to come into the station for a "secondary inspection". They asked for Zahid’s identification cards/papers and wallet, which he happily gave them.

After examining Zahid’s military ID, one of the agents bellowed at Ann to move to the other side of the room, which she did; then 7-8 of the CBP agents circled Zahid. They threw him to the ground face down and handcuffed him with his hands behind his back. When Zahid, startled, asked why they were doing this, these US government agents claimed that they were doing so, "For your own protection."

The CBP agents then accused Zahid of having a forged military ID, "because there are no Muslims in the US military". They then took him into another room where they strip-searched him and subjected him to 4-5 hours of intense interrogation.

When Ann Chaudhry, out in the waiting room, finally asked what was going on, one of the agents yelled back, "Someone will take care of you after awhile.” Several hours later, Ann saw her husband, still handcuffed, in the hallway. She went up to the counter to speak to the female agent. As Ann did so, two male agents appeared on either side of this female agent; when Ann asked them to step back, as she needed to speak to the female agent, they did so reluctantly, as if they thought that Ann was going to assault her.

Ann then told the female agent that she was having an extremely heavy menstrual period and needed to change her pads immediately; the female agent told her that they had no public restrooms. Ann then spoke out angrily about how she and her husband were being treated abusively by the CBP; the female agent asserted that the Chaudhrys’ treatment by the CBP was "routine". Ann Chaudhry then stated that she knew otherwise: she had been sitting there for hours enough to see that their treatment by the CBP was definitely not “routine”. Ann had also seen K9 search dogs taken outside to their car -- the only one in the lot besides CBP vehicles.

Zahid Chaudhry was then taken back for several hours to another interrogation room, with his wife still waiting to go to the restroom and change her menstrual pads, which were now overflowing. Finally, when one male agent told Ann that she could use the restroom, the others yelled at him that she needed to have an escort. Two women agents then appeared and demanded to search Ann’s purse, which Ann reported they handled as if it were poison. They then escorted her to the restroom, standing as sentinels on either side of her toilet stall.

When Ann was finished, these two female CBP sentinels escorted her back into the reception area, where she sat for several hours more until Zahid was brought back out to join her. They waited together in the reception area for yet one hour more; then, suddenly an agent dumped all of their belongings taken from their persons and their car onto the counter in the reception area, yelling at the Chaudhrys that these were their belongings, and to take them and go.

The Chaudhrys returned to their car, to find that it had been ransacked, with dog hair all over. The car, which had been carefully packed, was in complete upheaval: food only partially opened and carefully packed for the trip home was now ripped completely open with dog hairs in it, and what papers had not been taken inside were strewn all over the car. They found that their sea shell collection, that they had lovingly and carefully collected and painstakingly stored so it would not get shaken during the trip, had been deliberately pulverized. They felt violated and traumatized by this ordeal, evident from the tears that still appear in their eyes whenever they speak of this incident. They have not been to Canada since; they say there should be no doubt about the reason why American/Canadian tourism has markedly dropped off since September 11, 2001: it is because of the abusive manner that US Customs and Border Patrol treats innocent travelers, particularly those with Muslim-sounding names or darker skin.

The Chaudhrys sent numerous letters of complaint about this traumatic incident to numerous government officials and agencies at all levels, with no response except from several Washington State officials, including the governor and their state elected representatives, all of whom told them there was nothing they could do, as it was a federal matter. There was no response whatsoever from their federal elected representatives.

Ever since this traumatic incident at the Canadian border, the Chaudhrys, upon their return from overseas flights, have been numerous times detained, harassed and humiliated at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for hours at a time by agents of the US Customs and Border Patrol. Valuable personal items, such as Zahid’s PDA have been openly stolen by CBP personnel, and other personal items have disappeared during these extended interrogations. During one such airport detention, Zahid asked that his wife be informed of his whereabouts, so that she would not leave the airport without him; otherwise he would be stranded at SeaTac airport in mid-winter, with the mountain passes to Eastern WA being closed by snow at night.

Ann was then approached in the airport waiting area by a male CBP agent who got in her face, rudely asking to see her ID. When she protested that there was no reason for this, the agent retorted, pointing proudly to his chest, "I'm a federal officer, and I can do whatever I want." This arrogant CBP agent then informed her that her husband was being indefinitely detained in an interrogation area.

By the time Zahid emerged to meet his wife from this interview several hours later, the Chaudhrys were forced to drive home through the dangerous Snoqualmie Pass by night during heavy snow under duress. The Chaudhrys have also been detained by CBP to the point that they have nearly missed connecting flights, with CBP agents laughing at them as they ran to catch these flights.

During one such extended interrogation, CBP confiscated Zahid’s green card. This seemed malicious, as all green card holders are required to have their green cards ON THEM AT ALL TIMES. ICE can arrest and deport anyone at their discretion if permanent residents do not have their green card on them. It therefore seemed to be CBP’s intention that Zahid would be found without his green card, and thereby deported, without even an attorney, spouse or family being informed of this action against him.

The Chaudhrys were further required to return to SeaTac Airport for “deferred inspections”, in order for CBP to officially allow Zahid’s “entry” into the U.S., intentionally causing additional undue hardship to the Chaudhrys by forcing them to make several trips back and forth over long distances from Eastern Washington State, hampering their earning a livelihood and taking care of daily personal business . CBP agents later lied to the Chaudhrys, alternately claiming that Zahid’s green card was on someone’s desk in Seattle, was returned to Lincoln, Nebraska, or was being sent to them in the mail; but this green card was, in fact, never returned to them.

Later in 2003, the Chaudhrys went to a Removal of Conditions interview for Zahid at the Yakima branch of the US Citizenship and Immigration Service. Zahid and Ann were taken by agents to separate rooms and each was told that they had lost Zahid’s file. Ann told them that this was no problem; she had always kept a duplicate of anything government-related. At this, the INS agents seemed extremely agitated, saying that they “could not do an interview from a photocopy.” They gave Chaudhrys another form to fill out in the reception area, which the Chaudhrys easily did from their photocopy, and were then escorted to another room in the back.

Several unidentified federal agents then entered the room, telling Ann to leave, looking down the hall after her to make sure she had gone back into the reception area. One of the federal agents then slapped a file with Zahid's name on it onto the desk in front of him. When Zahid protested that this was the file they just claimed to have lost, one of the agents sneered, "What you gonna do about it?!"

Zahid was so much in shock from this malicious response, that he does not remember the rest of this interview. Ann only remembers that he emerged with a Notice of Intent to Rescind Approval of Permanent Residence in his hand that he has never signed. In retrospect, the Chaudhrys realized that these additional agents were there to arrest Zahid and deport him to Pakistan; only Ann’s photocopied file, about which the unidentified agents seemed so disturbed, saved him from this fate.

From 2001-2003, Zahid was asked to take numerous polygraph tests at both the Yakima Police Department and the regional FBI headquarters in Yakima: several at the YPD headquarters, over a dozen at the FBI headquarters, sometimes followed by interviews. During the last of these numerous polygraph interviews at FBI headquarters, Special Agent David Hendrix finally attempted to intervene, telling Military Intelligence Officer Munoz and several other unidentified agents, "See, I told you -- this is a good guy! This is a waste of taxpayers' money!" Whereupon Hendrix, as regional FBI Director, was then summarily ordered out of his own office by one of the unidentified government agents, indicating that the Chaudhrys’ persecution was coming from a much higher level of the US government than the regional level.

In 2004, the IRS demanded an audit of Zahid Chaudhry’s income tax statements, which yielded nothing of note. At about this time, the academic office of his paternal uncle, Central Washington University-Ellensburg mathematics professor Dr. Alla Ditta Raza Chourdary, was, in his uncle's presence, ransacked by federal agents, who eventually left, taking nothing. Prof. Choudary has since then changed from being very outgoing to very timid, and has remained so; he has moved back to Pakistan, only occasionally returning to use his house in Ellensberg during visits to the US.

In 2003, Zahid Chaudhry, as a Washington State National Guard member, was deployed for service in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He served in support of this mission at a number of US Army installations, ending up at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington State.

During his four years of duty there at Fort Lewis as an E-4 specialist with a spotless record, Zahid never received a much-deserved promotion for which he was well-qualified, with less-qualified soldiers repeatedly receiving promotions over him. He was repeatedly given holiday duty, despite the fact that this duty is usually reserved to those who have committed infractions, of which he was completely free. When he finally asked why this was, he was told, "You're a Muslim and don't celebrate these holidays anyway."

Then, in the spring of 2004, Zahid Chaudhry’s unit was given orders to deploy to Iraq during the night. Zahid says he has no memory of that night. All that he remembers is that he awoke the next day on a cot in a dilapidated barracks permanently paralyzed from the waist down with a broken back and suffering from amnesia. He has never been given any credible or satisfactory explanation of what happened that night from any authorities that could have been remotely responsible for his plight, which further makes the US government’s eagerness to deport him extremely suspect.

Zahid was in Med Hold for many months, kept out of public eye sight, not at the military hospital, or any kind of medical facility, but housed at the older World War II-era barracks throughout the winter. It was as if the army did not want him and other injured soldiers attracting or getting attention, much like the disgraceful conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC, that were exposed some time later.

Now disabled for life, Zahid Chaudhry was honorably discharged from the US Army in 2005, and from the Washington Army National Guard in 2006.

In 2004, Zahid applied for US citizenship under qualified military service, choosing this route instead of doing so as a permanent legal immigrant from Pakistan married to a US citizen or applying under other provisions under which he also qualified, such as family ties, etc. The Chaudhrys saw many of Zahid’s immigrant comrades-in-arms be granted US citizenship under this provision of immigration policy, but this has been repeatedly and unreasonably denied to him.

The US Citizen and Immigration Service office in Yakima kept postponing his citizenship test, always saying that Zahid was in a "name check" loop; this would indefinitely delay any decision on their part, since, as they told the Chaudhrys, “The clock doesn’t start ticking until the citizenship test has been given.” “Name check” is commonly used by the USCIS as a delaying tactic; they don’t have to make a decision until the test has been administered; then they have to make a decision within 120 days. That never happened for Zahid Chaudhry; he is still waiting after over six years.

Since the USCIS office in Yakima kept postponing Zahid’s citizenship test, always saying that they needed to run a "name check" that never happened, the Chaudhrys in 2005 went to Washington DC to see their congressman, Richard "Doc" Hastings, as well as Washington State’s US Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. When they arrived at Congressman Hasting’s DC office and requested to see him, they heard him personally tell aides thru an opaque screen behind which he was sitting that he would not see them.

The Chaudhrys talked to Hastings' aides for hours, after threatening to stage a hunger strike in front of the White House. The aides promised to discuss their case with Hastings, but nothing ever happened. In a federal document obtained by Freedom of Information Act four years later, the Chaudhrys found notes from one of Hastings' aides to a USCIS agent, asking if they should keep telling the Chaudhrys the lie that Zahid was still in the "name check loop”.

In late August 2010, apparent government stalking of the Chaudhrys outside their new home in Lacey, Washington began again, this time witnessed by their neighbors. Ann was able to get a license number of the car, which they are going to trace at the Washington State Department of Motor Vehicles. They are also going to file police and sheriff's reports as evidence of ongoing government harassment.

Although Zahid Chaudhry has many glowing letters of recommendation from many public officials at the local, state and federal levels -- including a former regional commissioner of the USCIS, and a highly placed attorney with the US Department of Justice, who, after a deportation trial deposition in July 2010, has also stated that this government persecution against this decorated disabled Muslim veteran is a waste of taxpayers' money -- the implacably ruthless USCIS is still going to move to deport Zahid to Pakistan and separate him from his wife and adopted family, including his four adopted grandchildren, in January of 2011.

The USCIS' spurious grounds for this action are a framed misdemeanor conviction during 1993 in Sydney, Australia -- outside both US jurisdiction and the federal statute of limitations -- as well as an allegedly forged check mark on a box on Zahid’s Yakima Police Department Volunteer Reserve application on which he allegedly fraudulently claimed citizenship.

Just after September 11, 2001, Yakima Police records historian/volunteer reserve coordinator Gary Belles took possession of Zahid Chaudhry’s application file for the Yakima Police Volunteer Reserve, after he had applied for the reserve in the spring of that year. Belles supposedly did so to check his records.

A number of those whom Zahid listed as references reported to the Chaudhrys that Belles had asked them unreasonable questions that seemed to be designed to elicit certain responses from them that would have been incriminatory to Zahid.

Gary Belles has since then been involved in a number of cases where he has been publicly accused of prejudice against other races and religions, and has been several times investigated by the City of Yakima concerning these accusations.
Belles also revealed under oath during a deposition for Zahid Chaudhry’s deportation trial in July 2010 several key pieces of evidence against himself and the US government:

o That Zahid’s secondary interview and polygraph test supposedly for the Yakima Police Department volunteer reserve position was a total ruse to get evidence against him to be given by Belles to the FBI; Belles had already determined that Zahid, because he was a Muslim, would not be chosen for this volunteer position and had already told all of this to the FBI;

o Belles revealed that, during Zahid Chaudhry’s Yakima Police Department polygraph test, he was asked if he were a US citizen, and he answered, "No". The US government has known this since that time -- 2001 -- and yet they continue to falsely charge that Zahid fraudulently claimed US citizenship.

Also, during the time that Gary Belles was the YPD records historian/volunteer reserve coordinator, Zahid’s original application for YPD reserve volunteer position with the allegedly forged check mark allegedly showing that he lied in writing about his citizenship status, had disappeared from the Yakima City Records Department, only to recently resurface with a suspiciously doctored-looking check mark on the “Yes” for citizenship box.

Belles also gave a copy of Zahid’s YPD reserve file to Special Agent David Hendrix of the FBI's regional office in Yakima, with the implication that he might be a potential terrorist. This is what instigated the many inteviews/polygraph tests that he had to endure in Yakima at the city police and regional FBI headquarters. Just last year, Gary Belles was reported as addressing different right-wing extremist groups, boasting that he had done more than enough in the past to make sure that Zahid Chaudhry will never be able to join the Yakima Police Department’s volunteer reserve.

After employing several incompetent attorneys, the Chaudhrys have finally retained the firm that many regard to be the best immigration attorneys in Washington State, Gibbs Houston Pauw, who have filed a Motion to Dismiss Zahid’s USCIS deportation case in the US District Court in Seattle. A favorable federal court ruling could supersede a negative one in the US Immigration Court. These high-powered immigration attorneys have told the Chaudhrys candidly that Zahid’s case cannot be won solely in the immigration court, but by truth spoken in the court of public opinion. That is why this article has been written; below is what you can do to help. Make no mistake: today it is the Chaudhry family seeking justice – tomorrow it may be you and yours. And, despite the diversity in America that has been used to deliberately divide us, in this we are all of us the same: we can each make a difference.

For more information, please check the Chaudhrys’ website www.justice4chaudhry.info. They can be contacted at compassion@justice4chaudhry.info

Sign the online petition to stop the US government’s unjust deportation of the disabled, decorated Muslim veteran:http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/Stop-deportation-of-decorated-disabled-muslim-veteran/

Write letters/emails/faxes of advocacy, demanding justice for the Chaudhry family to the White House, the Commissioner of the USCIS, the US Attorney General, the UN, the World Court, the US Ninth District Court in Seattle, the US Immigration Court in Seattle, foreign diplomats/officials whose nations have universal jurisdiction: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Israel and Spain; national/local veterans’ organizations and your local newspapers. Please also send a copy of each of these letters to their attorneys, Gibbs Houston Pauw, Attention: Devin Theriot-Orr, 1000 Second Avenue, Suite 1600, Seattle, WA 98104; these letters could be followed up by telephone calls for extra impact, made by yourself or others.

Write letters of Recommendation for Citizenship for Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry to their attorneys, listed above

Send donations, marked for Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry’s legal defense, to their attorneys. Please also get a message to the Chaudhrys that you have sent such a donation, with the date/amount to their email/phone above.

References

Are Americans Anti-Muslim?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1308224/Americas-anti-Islamic-atmosphere-goes-Ground-Zero-mosque-claim-Muslims.html?printingPage=true

Canada's War on Islam: The Case of Mahboob and Momin Khawaja
www.opednews.com/.../Canada-s-War-on-Islam-The-by-Stephen-Lendman-101008806.html

US Religious Leaders Condemn Anti-Muslim Frenzy Around 9/11
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_usa_muslims

Thousands of Muslims Protest Florida Church's Burning of Koran
http://www.examiner.com/deism-in-tampa-bay/thousands-of-muslims-protest-florida-christians-burning-korans

US Prisons, Muslims and Human Rights
http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/U-S-Prisons-Muslims-and-by-Bonnie-Kerness-100903-575.html
Ramadan at Guantanamo Bay Includes Nightly Force Feedings
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/24/1788938/ramadan-at-guantanamo-bay-includes.h

Investigation of Chaplain James Yeeseattletimes.nwsource.com/news/nation-world/jamesyee
Border Patrol Faces Spate of Misconduct Charges http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012855713_borderpatrol10.htmlAfter the Fort Hood Shootings, Muslim Veteran Battles On http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2009/10/30/10-30-09-muhammad-chaudhry
Former National Guardsman Fights Deportation in Washington Stateseattletimes.nwsource.com/.../2010176887_apwaguardsmandeportation.html
Yakima Police Investigation Into Ethnic Slurs Yields Report www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-9580466.html Press Release: Gibbs Houston Pauw Defends Muslim Veteran from Deportation http://ghp-immigration.com/news
Chaudhry vs. Napolitanodockets.justia.com/docket/washington/waedce/2.../48642/

-###-