Two 16-year-old Muslim girls are detained in New York and basically not allowed to talk to anyone. Only one five minute call from a mother a week. Then they’re released, with no charges.
Read the details here on The All Spin Zone which feels special attention is needed for this story. Read the entire post, but here’s a small taste:
My daughter turns 18 on Monday. As a parent, I inherently know how it would have affected her (and me) for life to have something similar happen to her at 16. Six weeks in detention, five minutes each week speaking with her mother on the phone, the rest in the hands of the government that brought you Abu Ghraib.
Yes, this is outrageous beyond words – but it begs the question – how many more 16 year old girls are being currently held on U.S. soil under similar circumstances?
Indeed, after 911 many of us (including TMV) believed the government needed to take stronger measures for internal security. In the case of detentions such as this, the key is going to be to find out the detention rate versus the prosecution rate. Seizing 16 year old girls? There should be an awfully big justification for it — and some end results. It doesn’t seem as if these detentions accomplished more than detain and scared two girls. And put their mothers through incredible agony.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.