MIAMI, March 13: Six months after the attack on the World Trade Center, hundreds of Arabs remain detained in US prisons and the net has widened to include asylum seekers, some women and children who fled alleged persecution in the Middle East, human rights advocates say.

The US justice department has refused to issue a list of those detained or give a full accounting of the number. In its most recent statement on Feb 15, it said there were 327 individuals detained on immigration violations or being investigated for “possible terrorist connections”.

But that did not include those being held under sealed indictments or as material witnesses, a number which the justice department will not divulge but has indicated is relatively small, or the asylum seekers.

“We have absolutely no idea how many they have behind bars and neither does anybody else because the government simply will not tell us,” said Hussein Ibish of the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

The American Civil Liberties Union and 15 other organizations filed a lawsuit last December seeking the disclosure of basic information about individuals arrested and detained since the Sept 11 attacks. The case probably will not come before a judge for another month.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has refused to release the names of immigration detainees, saying the disclosure would be “too sensitive for public scrutiny.”

Testifying on Dec 6 before the Senate’s judiciary committee, Ashcroft said the Justice Department’s efforts to combat terrorism were crafted to avoid infringing on constitutional rights while saving American lives.

When it comes to asylum seekers fleeing persecution, there have been a number of rulings that constitutional protections do not apply to illegal aliens. They can be detained indefinitely while their cases are investigated and have no automatic right to an attorney.

“Asylum seekers are getting caught up in the immigration sweep conducted in response to September 11,” said Wendy Young of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children.

FAMILIES SEPARATED: “The United States is violating basic principles of family unity by separating families already traumatized by their displacement into separate detention facilities,” she added.