SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 18: The Muslim community is outraged at the $35,000 bond set by a Immigration Judge in New Jersey for mother and sister of Matin Siraj, a 24-year-old Pakistani immigrant, who was sentenced last week to 30 years in prison for terrorism charges.
The accused was tried on a report of a paid informer of the New York Police Department.
Less than 12 hours after sentencing, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials raided the Siraj family’s Queens home at dawn, arrested father, mother and daughter and jailed them in New Jersey.
After Tuesday’s hearing, family’s immigration lawyer Mona Shah said the bond amount was peculiarly high for a routine immigration matter. The Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM), a civil rights group, held a demonstration in support of the family.
After hearing the judge’s decision, a family member said they cannot raise this money easily as they had already fought a preposterous case against their son. “The lives of an innocent family are being destroyed.”
While family and community members scramble to raise funds, the family will be held at Elizabeth Detention Centre in New Jersey. The father will not receive a similar hearing and instead, is subject to an ICE Administrative decision under an unspecified timeline.
An organiser of the demonstration in support of the family, Fahd Ahmed, said that setting such an unreasonable bond was clearly another political tactic to keep communities fearful and silent. “The Siraj family, another victim of the US government’s ‘war on terror’, is being targeted for their outspoken cries for justice on behalf of their son.”
A press release of the DRUM said that given the high-profile media attention on their son’s case, in which there were many underhanded legal irregularities and rights violations, the community considered these arrests and the unreachable bond an attempt to silence and make an example of the family through harassment.
