As Part of Growing Trend, Sikh "Terrorism" Detainee Chooses Deportation

August 7, 2006

Source: NCM

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=07b6be56cd5439ea38f077581fdfe196

On August 7, 2006 New California Media reported, "On April 30, U.S. agents removed human rights lawyer and prominent Sikh nationalist Harpal Singh Cheema from his Yuba County jail cell, told him to change into the musty old clothes he'd been wearing when he was taken into custody in 1997, and transported him, turban-less and barefoot, to the San Francisco International Airport. Not allowed to call his wife, Singh, 48, was placed on a plane to New York, then to Delhi, India -- a country where local authorities had detained him without charge and tortured him on four separate occasions years before. After spending more than eight years in a Marysville, Calif., jail -- much of it in 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement -- Singh gave up on getting a fair trial in the United States, according to his lawyer. Earlier this year, he waived protection under the Convention Against Torture and told American authorities to go ahead and deport him back into the hands of his torturers. His case stands as another example of what some contend is a growing phenomenon: the federal government's abuse of its detention powers when it cannot pursue criminal charges against an immigrant or elicit a final deportation order. In such instances, immigrant advocates allege, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) simply keeps detainees behind bars until they give up their legal cases and leave the country."