16 year old girl arrested... threat to national security

[Fuck You, Pay Me]

Teachers and Classmates Express Outrage at Arrest of Girl,
16, as a Terrorist Threat

By Nina Bernstein

April 9, 2005, The New York Times


At Heritage High School in East Harlem, where the student
idiom is hip-hop and salsa, the 16-year-old Guinean girl
stood out, but not just because she wore Islamic dress. She
was so well liked that when she ran for student body
president, she came in second to one of her best friends -
the Christian daughter of the president of the parent-teacher
association, Deleen P. Carr.

Now Ms. Carr, a speech pathologist who calls herself "a
typical American citizen," is as outraged as the girl's
teachers and classmates, who have learned that the girl and
another 16-year-old are being called would-be suicide bombers
and are being held in an immigration detention center in
Pennsylvania.

"They have painted this picture of her as this person that is
trying to destroy our way of life, and I know in my heart of
hearts that this is bogus," said Ms. Carr, who welcomed the
Guinean girl to her house daily and knows her family well. "I
feel like, how dare they? She's a minor, and even if she's
not a citizen, she has rights as a human being."

According to a government document provided to The New York
Times by a federal official earlier this week, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation has asserted that both girls are "an
imminent threat to the security of the United States based on
evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers." No evidence
was cited, and federal officials will not comment on the
case.

Its mysteries deepened as teachers and neighbors gave details
of the Guinean girl's life, like the jeans she wore under her
Muslim garb, her lively classroom curiosity about topics like
Judaism and art and her after-school care for four younger
siblings while her parents, illegal immigrants who have lived
in the United States since 1990, eked out a living.

"I just can't fathom this," said her art teacher, Kimberly
Lane, who has repeatedly called the youth detention center
but like Ms. Carr was not allowed to speak to the girl, who
has no lawyer. Among the unanswered questions they raised was
why, if she was really a suspect, no F.B.I. agent had shown
up to search her school locker or question her classmates,
who sent her letters of support.

"This is a girl who's been in this country since she was 2
years old," Ms. Lane said. "She's just a regular teenager -
like, two weeks ago her biggest worry was whether she'd done
her homework or studied for a science test."

Until now, attention has focused on the other 16-year-old, a
Bangladeshi girl reared in Queens who could not deal with the
hurly-burly of her West Side high school and withdrew into
home schooling. Yesterday, on a motion of the government, an
immigration judge closed the Bangladeshi girl's bond hearing
to the public and adjourned it to next Thursday, said Troy
Mattes, a lawyer who is taking over the case but has yet to
meet her.

By the Bangladeshi girl's account, reported by her mother,
the girls did not meet until March 24, after their separate
arrests in early-morning raids on immigration charges against
their parents. Both grew up in Islamic families. But while
the Bangladeshi girl had grown increasingly pious, and
uncomfortable in the urban culture of the High School of
Environmental Studies on West 56th Street, the Guinean girl,
a 10th grader, embraced every aspect of Heritage High, at
106th Street and Lexington Avenue, her teachers said.

"She is, yes, an orthodox Muslim, but completely integrated
into this school," said Jessica Siegel, her English teacher
in a class in which topics like teenage pregnancy and world
politics were discussed. Ms. Siegel was profiled in the book
"Small Victories," by Samuel G. Freedman, as an
unsentimental, but fiercely committed teacher who provoked
and delighted her students.

"She's a wonderful, wonderful girl," Ms. Siegel said. "She's
about the last person anyone could imagine being a suicide
bomber."

The English teacher's most vivid recollection was of a day
two months ago when she heard a kind of roar in the hallway
of the school, which is full of colorful student collages and
life-size sculptures in papier-mâché. The teenager had
stopped wearing her veil, and she beamed as her fellow
students, seeing her face for the first time, cheered.

After the class read "Night," the Holocaust memoir by Elie
Wiesel, the girl wrote a paper about genocide in the Sudan,
she recalled. But she was so excited about a field trip to
see Christo's "Gates" in Central Park, Ms. Siegel said, that
she skipped an appointment at immigration - a teenage impulse
the teacher now worries might have set off problems with
federal authorities. Her father is now in immigration jail
facing deportation.

At Woodrow Wilson Houses a few blocks from the school, a
sticker on the family's apartment door reads, "Allah is our
protector." Yesterday no one was home, but across the hall,
Christine Anderson, a neighbor, shook her head in disbelief
when she learned why she had not seen the girl or her father
in recent weeks.

"Why would they take the lady's daughter?" she asked.
"They're nice people, and hard-working people. I've been here
four years. I know she's not a problem child."

Ms. Lane, the art teacher, said that when Heritage High first
learned that immigration agents had picked up the girl, one
of her best friends asked if someone from the school might
have denounced her as an illegal immigrant. "I remember
telling her the government doesn't go after 16-year-old
girls," Ms. Lane said. "And in the last few days, I'm
wrestling with the fact that, yes, it does."

© Copyright 2005 New York Times Company

[Real American]

Teenage girls in Palestine commit suicide bombings all the time. Why is it so hard to believe one might do it here?

[Fuck You, Pay Me]

They had no reason to believe that she might carry out a suicide bombing. Since you don't know a thing about America and its foundations that the founding fathers laid out for us, only you and people like you believe that we should arrest/deport every Muslim in the country.

[Fuck You, Pay Me]

Timothy McVeigh blew up a building. Let's arrest all white males in the country. You're an idiot.

[Capo Di Tutti I Capi]

Teenage girls in Palestine commit suicide bombings all the time. Why is it so hard to believe one might do it here?

Your fucking stupid,maybe thats the only way to defend them selfs when your giving Israel the most advanced weapons in the world.

[411]

I get the feelin that Borat is Siko....

[nibs]

this is funny.  people in think tanks and in panel discussions love to ask the question, "why haven't there been any suicide bombings in the u.s.?"

the answer is typically the the u.s. muslim community has expressed that those sorts of leanings are simply inappropriate.  the u.s. is an island so the same types of foreign support plus the semi-homogenous environment of the palestinian controlled territories isn't there to support these sorts of attackers and attacks in the u.s.

but people have been wondering if it would happen.  the main reason people are outraged is that the u.ss's track record in terms of falsely accusing and imprisoning terrorist suspects is horrific.  we really don't know if this girl is a terrorist or not.   you've statements from people talking about "she was curious about judiasm and loved blue jeans"  what the fuck does that mean"   does that imply:
 "unlike that bastard akbar who hated blue jeans and was indifferent to judiasm.  he was a terrorist, i'm glad the fbi got him"

these people are not experts in suicide bombers.  their comments hold no weight.  maybe she was a terrorist, maybe she wasn't.  she actually fits some of the profiles of terrorists that have been active in europe for example.  second generation citizen, looking for something to belong too.   blah blah blah. 

i don't think there are enough facts here to call it either way, other than the u.s. poor track record to date in cases like this.

[white Boy]

us patriot act?

[Real American]

They had no reason to believe that she might carry out a suicide bombing.

How the hell do you know that? You think that the FBI just randomly picked her up for the hell of it? The FBI has evidence indicating that she was interested in a suicide attack otherwise she could not and would not have been arrested.

I love how the New York Times puts out an article talking about how this girl loves wearing blue jeans and spending time with her friends, and all of a sudden that means this girl is 100% innocent and a victim of the government. Get real, dude.

Like someone above said, all these jack offs at her school defending her don't have any idea what she could have been up to.