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Tag Archives: BOP

Seifullah Chapman: 2009 (Alhamdulillah, for Allah’s Mercy These People Have None)

As salaamu alaikum. I pray that you receive this while in the highest of emaan. Alhamdulillah, you have always been there with us during our years of incarceration, supporting us and letting others know of our situation. As I have not written to you in a while, this is the latest update of our current situation; I hope that you can inform people about our situation, your readers, and also incarcerated Muslims who might end up in the Bureau of Prison’s (BOP) new Special Management Unit (SMU) program, where I am currently being housed.

Prior to arriving at United States Penitentiary (USP) Lewisburg’s SMU program on April 20, 2009, I spent twenty-three months at FCI Terre Haute in the Communications Management Unit (CMU). There has been much reported about that Department of Justice program, its illegality, and its targeting of the Muslims. The CMU program is basically designed to keep a certain group off the prison compounds, and to restrict their communications in an attempt to completely cut them off from the rest of the world. Many a relationship had been harmed or destroyed by this program. May Allah forgive us and help us.

Early this year, Ismail Royer, Sabri Benkhala and I filed a law suit against the BOP over the CMU program. Prior to that, and for the entire duration of my time spent in the CMU, I never had any problem with prison staff, but all of that ended abruptly when the law suit was filed. It was not much more than a month later that I was transferred to USP Lewisburg’s SMU program in retaliation for our law suit.

For a year and a half at CMU the administrative staff had permitted all of us to pray in small groups of three. A short time after filing the law suit, Ismail and I (and one other brother) were given incident reports for praying in a group of three and not cutting our prayer when we were told that we needed to go pray in our cells.

There was no emergency that would have necessitated us leaving the prayer, and we were praying in the same out-of-the-way corner that we had prayed in for months. There is no staff member that had not seen us pray there in the past and this was the first mention of the “pray alone in your cell policy”. The BOP claims that this is the reason for my disciplinary transfer to the SMU – for praying in a group of three. Subhanallah. So, I was transferred to USP Lewisburg.

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Posted by aseerun on May 12, 2013 in Risala, Letters from Seifullah Chapman

Tags: Florence, CMU, Terre Haute, medical negligence, ADX, Ismail Royer, BOP, SMU, Special Management Unit, MuslimLink, Muslim Link, Sabri Benkhala, SIS, special investigative service, www.muslimlinkpaper.com, Abdul-Mumin Ishaq, Seifullah Chapman

Mufid Abdulqader: April 28, 2012 (Life in the CMU – Guilty Regardless)

28 Apr

In the CMU, there is a new brand of justice dispensed and it is called: ‘You are guilty as charged regardless of your innocence, or evidence, no matter what!!! We do not care about what anyone else thinks’.

This is the same type of justice of which we, “THE USA”, accuse other countries of dispensing on their own people and keep track of their violations in our daily, weekly, monthly and yearly reports on human and civil rights abuses, and we sanction them until they prove that they are no longer practicing injustice and mistreating their own people.

At the CMU, this is how it starts: When an inmate violates any BOP rule, staff can issue an incident report against that inmate if they choose to do so. The incident report is usually given to the inmate within 24 hours of the incident. Usually a Lieutenant or other staff brings the incident report to the CMU unit and gives it to the inmate. The incident report includes the inmate’s name, number and description of the violation as well as the code associated with the violation and the name of the staff who issued the violation. Each violation code has specific punishments associated with it. The inmate does not have to defend himself at the time the incident report is given to him.

Normally a UDC (Unit Disciplinary Committee), made up of two staff, calls the inmate to a hearing and reads the violation and asks him for his defense. This usually takes place within three days after the violation is given to the inmate and if the violation is not serious. If the violation is serious, such as fighting with other inmates, then the inmates involved will be immediately taken to the SHU (Special Housing Unit) where they are held in solitary confinement and placed under investigation. The investigation may take up to six months while the inmates are held in the SHU. I will address the issue of the SHU and the DHO (Disciplinary Hearing Officer) hearing in another e-mail. Let’s go back to the UDC hearing: Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by aseerun on April 28, 2012 in Letters from Mufid Abdulqader, Risala

Tags: administrative abuse, BOP, CMU, HL5, Holy Land Five, Holy Land Foundation, Mufid Abdulqader, Prison Life, UDC

Ahmad Mohammad Ajaj: March 11, 2012 (We are Prohibited From Sending Greetings to our Family)

11 Mar

Yesterday, the CMU inmates were notified by the Unit Manager that sending simple greeting to any family
members or friends through other family members or third party will be considered a violation of the CMU rules
and a disciplinary action will be taken against the inmate.

Now, we [are] prohibited from sending greeting to our family members. Its not enough that we are deprived of contact visits with our family and friends and we [are] deprived of video-conference visits with our families who live overseas and lack all means and funds to visit with us and its not enough that written letters from family and friends may take weeks or months before it released to us, the new restriction also deprive us of even sending a simple greeting to our brothers, sisters and children!!. Most of us, receive no visits at all. For more than “20″ years, I received no visit from my dad, my sisters and other family members who live in Jerusalem and lack all means to travel to the United States and all my requests for a visit via the available video-conference systems were denied. A 15 minute telephone call cost approx. $15 and now [I] can’t even send greeting to another family member during the limited the “15″ minutes call!!.

Even the so-called out-law governments allows inmates contact visits with their families, allows inmates to freely send greeting to others, allows inmates to have video-conference visits with their childerns, brothers, sisters, parents, and others, allow the Red-Cross and other human rights organizations to monitor the conditions of confinement in their prisons … etc.

I hope this e-mail finds [you] in the best health and spirits and thank you once again for working hard to protect the rights of prisoners.

Sincerely,

Ahmad M. Ajaj
#40637-053
USP-Marion
P.O.Box 1000
Marion, IL 62959

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Posted by aseerun on March 11, 2012 in Letters from Ahmed Mohammad Ajaj, Risala

Tags: Ahmad Ajaj, Ahmed Ajaj, Ahmed Mohammad Ajaj, Bagram Prison, BOP, CMU, forced nudity, GTMO, http://www.cageprisoners.com, israeli prison, medical negligence, solitary confinement, War on Family

Ahmad Mohammad Ajaj: February 12, 2012 (‘Life’ in a CMU)

21 Feb

February 21, 2012
Dear Ms. Aviva Stahl:

We currently have no access to educational, vocational or rehabilitative programs available in other BOP prisons nor are there staff or inmates to provide such classes.

We are not allowed to make legal calls to attorneys except when the attorney first calls the prison and proves urgent need to speak to his client.

We are not allowed to make legal calls to human rights organizations, legal aid centers and the clerk of the court.

The CMU is completely isolated from the prison general population. We have no access to a yard and instead we only have access to cages for recreation.

We are not allowed to have contact visits with our families and communications with our families are very limited.

We are not allowed to have video-conference visits with our beloved ones despite the fact that such visits are allowed even in Bagram Prison in Afghanistan and will be allowed in GTMO according to news articles. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by aseerun on February 21, 2012 in Letters from Ahmed Mohammad Ajaj, Risala

Tags: Ahmad Ajaj, Ahmed Ajaj, Ahmed Mohammad Ajaj, Bagram Prison, BOP, CMU, forced nudity, GTMO, http://www.cageprisoners.com, israeli prison, medical negligence, solitary confinement

Wali Khan Amin Shah: January 28, 2012 (Life In US Prisons)

05 Feb

Bismillah,

I was asked by some brothers and sisters about the life in US prisons, I wish to inform you that I have been in US prisons for seventeen years now, but not every prison in the US is like the other. First they have two different systems Federal prisons and state prisons, they can send a Federal inmate to state prison and vise versa, even in Federal prisons they have many different levels and you can think of it as levels of security, low means that the inmates have more freedom, then medium with less freedom , high is least in freedoms, then they have Maximum which of course the highest level with very little freedom, having said that you have to take in consideration the inmate’s status, there are pretrial inmates, hold over inmates, pre-sentencing …etc

Every institution even in same level of security can be different because the local people who run it have their
own way of doing things and they share only the bare minimum of the rules, they have great leeway and
discretion, so one thing can be allowed in one prison and banned in the other while both are at the same level of security, then you have different units, some units in the same prison can be totally different. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by aseerun on February 5, 2012 in Letters from Wali Khan Amin Shah, Risala

Tags: BOP, CMU, Federal Prison System, Osama Haidar, Prison Life, qira'ah, Qira'at, Qira-aat, solitary confinement, Wali Khan Amin Shah, War on Islam

Visitations at CMU: An Unregulated BOP Deliberately Estranges Families

08 Jan

When his wfie and children arrived to visit Shukri Abu-Baker at the secretive federal prison known as a Communications Management Unit (CMU) in Terre Haute, Indiana, this past fall, they were forced to sit in silence and stare at him through Plexiglass. The twin phones on either side of the partition wouldn’t work. They raised their voices to be able to hear each other, but the guards immediately told them to stop. Their communications, after all, had to be recorded and monitored live by someone in Washington, DC.

The Abu-Bakers had scheduled their visit over a month in advance. The Federal Board of Prisons (BOP) knew they were coming. The family made the fifteen-hour trip from Dallas to Terre Haute in a rented van, spending a total of $2,000 so they could spend eight hours that weekend seeing and talking to Shukri.

The prison officials told the family to go to the hotel and wait so that they could fix the phones. They never called them. When the family returned a month later to spend Eid at the prison, the same thing happened.
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Posted by aseerun on January 8, 2012 in Collateral Damage, Videos

Tags: BOP, CMU, Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land Foundation, http://www.thenation.com, Majida Salem, Noor Elashi, Shukri Abu-Baker, Terre Haute, USP Marion, Zaira Abu Baker

Khalid Awan: August 2007 (My suffering has gone on for far too long…)

15 Aug

I am 46 years old, Canadian citizen and native of Pakistan(Muslim). I was an immigration consultant in Canadaand also member of Canadian Bar Association as part of my business, I had an office in New York.

During 2001 immediately after the Sept 11, event the US government arrested me on Oct 25, 2001on a anonymous call, as a material witness for the 9/11 world trade centre terrorist attack. A detailed investigation by the FBI and USA Naval intelligence dept was conducted and I was cleared, but even then govt put me in front of Grand jury, and I was cleared and the case was dismissed by the Grand jury of the US Federal Court.

Approximately after two weeks, before I was released from custody the US Govt imposed new charges of Fraud and money laundering, under the advice of my attorney, I pleaded guilty and I was sentenced to prison for five years (which was four years more, what I pleaded). In which I had already spent three years in Detention jail, during the case, I had about 14 months left to finishing my sentence,(instead of appealing, I preferred to apply for Treaty Transfer to Canada, because if the case is in the appeal, defendant is not eligible for transfer back to his home country).

While at prison, I learned from the case manager Miss Hause, that my citizenship was incorrect in the FBOP’s (Federal Bureau of Prison) computer system as Pakistani instead of Canadian.

Its important to note, that all of my Canadian identifications (passport , citizenship card, S.I.N, Health card, Driving license etc) were under FBI’s possession, with a great deal of concern, I wrote a letter to the Canadian Consulate in Buffalo, N.Y to notify such mistake and requested them to fix this problem. This is especially important for Treaty Transfer back to Canada.
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Posted by aseerun on August 15, 2007 in Letters from Khalid Awan, Risala

Tags: administrative abuse, BOP, Canada, FBI coercion, FBI misconduct, framed, isolation, Khalid Awan, Material support, Pakistani, prosecutorial misconduct, RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, SHU