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Alternet.com June 3, 2004 Disappearing Muslims in America By Stuart Klawans Persons of Interest by Alison Maclean and Tobias Perse is one of the 16 feature-length documentaries at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival June 10-24, 2004. Persons of Interest addresses the cases of about a dozen of the Muslim men in the United States who were imprisoned after September 11, 2001, on slight charges, if any at all, and held without trial for a year or more. You already know, of course, that our authorities shut away many people back then for nothing more than being named Muhammad. You also know, without believing a word of it, Attorney General Ashcroft's claim that he was rounding up only terrorists, or those who knew terrorists, or maybe lived down the bloc from somebody whose second cousin knew someone. But unless you belonged to the family or legal team of a detainee, you probably do not know the name and face of anyone who was locked away, nor could you readily get such information on your own. Our government prefers not to say who, or how many, it held. (Human Rights Watch estimates the number at more than 5,000.) So Maclean and Perse have done us a valuable service by showing some of these people and their families and letting us hear their stories. Window metaphors suggest themselves: The filmmakers have shone a light on the situation, or let in fresh air. And, sure enough, the interviews take place in a bare room with whitewashed walls, with a glowing window niche at the left. ….. The Human Rights Watch report on Persons of Interest After the September 11th terrorist attacks, more than 5000 people, mainly non-U.S. nationals of South Asian or Middle Eastern origin, were taken into custody by the U.S. Justice Department and held indefinitely on grounds of national security. Muslim immigrants were subject to arbitrary arrest, secret detention, solitary confinement, and deportation. Many were denied access to legal representation and communication with their families. During a period when the State Department has made every effort to depersonalize these detentions, refusing to reveal the names or even the number of immigrants detained, the voices of those affected — their testimonials and experiences — become our only window into the human costs of post September 11th immigration policies. Following an unconventional format, Persons of Interest presents a series of encounters between former detainees and directors Maclean and Perse in an empty room which serves both visually and symbolically as an interrogation room, home, and prison cell. Through interviews, family photographs, and letters from prison, the directors have fashioned a compelling and poignant film, allowing those affected a chance to tell their own stories. |