gations of abuse and inadequate detention conditions have prompted the Department of Justice s Office of the Inspector General to launch an investigation of the treatment of special interest" detainees held at Passaic County Jail and the 205 Metropolitan Detention Center." Its report is scheduled to be released by October 2002-70

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Some forms of mistreatment that many "special interest" detainees have endured are no different from those faced by other immigration detainees. A 1998 Human Rights Watch report concluded that many jails used by the INS to hold immigration detainees did not provide adcquate detention conditions The report documented, among other findings, that INS detainces were held with and under the same punitive conditions as convicted criminals Living quarters were often overcrowded, access to exercise was inadequate, food and clothing were sometimes limited, and medical and dental care was substandard. In addition, access to legal representatives, family, and friends was severely curtailed by strict jail rules that were inappropriate for administrative detainees. The report also documented the INS's failure to overscc appro

duration, incommunicado, small cell, or little hight. Scc Manfred Nowak, V Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary, 1993, p. 187. In the case of Campus v Peru (HRC, 577/94, para. 8.7), the Human Rights Committee found that three years of continued solitary confinement was a breach of article 7 See also, Marais v. Madagascar (49/79); and El-Alegreisi v. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (440/90).

DOJ Initiates Detainee Civil Rights Review," Announcement by the Department of Justice, April 2.

2002.

2 Human Rights Watch met on April 25, 2002 with staff from the Office of the Inspector General to discuss the treatment of September 11 detainees and some of the findings of this report. Their timchine for the release of the report is included in "Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act." US Department of Justico-Office of the Inspector General, July 15, 2002. 2^1 Human Rights Watch, “Locked Away: Immigration detainees in jails in the United States." A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 10, no. 1(G), September 1998. Most non-citizen detainees are confined in local jails because of a shortage of space in federal facilities.

priately the conditions under which the detainees lived.

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One of the reasons for these inadequacies was the lack of national guidelines and standards for the treatment of immigration detainees In part as a result of criticism by Human Rights Watch and other groups, the INS developed Detention Standards to be implemented in all facilities that house INS detainees to ensure minimum guarantees in their treatment. The precise time. table for the implementation of the Detention Standards is a mystery Our ongoing monitoring of the conditions under which INS detainees are confined indicates, however, that they continue to be held under inadequate conditions that fail to meet the Detention Standards. In addition, 54 percent of immigration detainees continue to be incarcerated in jails that are intended for accused or convicted cnminal inmates, and often hold immigration detainees with those populations

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22 The INS's website states that implementation of the Detention Standards will take place in two phases over a period of two years. The first phase will cover INS Service Processing Centers (SPCs), Contract Detention Facilities (CDFs) and the nine largest state and local government facilities (IGSA facilities) and the second phase will cover the remaining IGSA facilities. All phase-one and phase-two facilities must be in compliance with all INS Detention Standards, bv December 31. 2002. (See http://www.ins.gov/graphics/lawsregs/guidance him) However, in our February 6, 2002 visit to the Hudson County Correctional Center in New Jersey, one of the nine largest IGSA's. jail officials said that they only had to be in compliance with the Detention Standards by the end of the year. Human Rights Watch repeatedly asked the INS through phone calls and in writing individually and through a coalition of NGO's. during a three-month period in carly 2002, when spccific facilities must be in compliance with the Detention Standards, but it received no clear answer.

INS Detention Standards Presentation to various NGOS by the INS's Detention and Removal Office, Junc 7, 2001. The reason the TNS holds individuals in its custody in local jails is its lack of adequate space in federal facilitics to house the exponentiallygrowing population of immigration detainees. 2001, the INS had 22,000 people in custody on an average day. compared to 6,700 per day in 1995.

In

Administrative Segregation

Scores of non-citizens detained in conncetion with the investigation of the September 11 attacks and charged with administrative violations, minor crimes, or held as material witnesses have been incarcerated for weeks and even months in segregated housing units designed for inmates with records of extremely dangerous or high security risk behavior. Some facilities kept the detainees isolated in their cells twenty-four hours a day, with only brief breaks for exercise outside of the cells a few times a week. They had restricted or no access to telephones, limited visitation rights, and were denied access to libraries, radio, and television. In some cases, the lights were kept on in their cells twenty-four hours a day.

Such harsh and punitive conditions are typically used to punish jail or prison inmates for violating disciplinary rules or to segregate inmates with a history of dangerous conduct or who might be at risk from other inmates (administrative segregation"). They are completely unjustified for persons detained on material witness warrants because they may have information useful to a criminal investigation and who have not violated jail rules while incarcerated They are equally unjustified for persons detained on immigration charges. According to the INS's Detention Standards, administrative segregation should be a non-punitive form of separation from the general population" under which dctainees should "receive the same general privileges as detainees in the general population, consistent with available resources and security considerations. "These privileges include interaction with other detainees, visitation and access to recreation, television, board games, the law library, and reading materials, and telephone access similar to that of detainces not held in segregation.

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ropolitan Detention Center in New York. Some were doubled-up in one-person cells while others were held alone, according to the Legal Aid Society of New York.27 Lights were kept on twenty-four hours a day at the SHU and the windows in some cells were covered so no

sunlight filtered through 276 Attorneys said that their clients complained that they were woken up every day in the middle of the night for head counts. They also said that detainees were only allowed one hour of outdoor exercise per day. Since the exercise period was scheduled for 6:00 am and the detainees were not given winter clothes, many declined to leave their cells. Detainees were shackled, cavity-searched, and videotaped whenever they were moved outside their cells, and they were videotaped even when

Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Brian Lonegan, Legal Aid Society. New York. New York. April 15, 2002.

The number of "special interest" cases kept at the SHU decreased to eighteen by the end of March 2002. fourteen by mid-May, and seven a month later. after some detainees who had been held there were deported, moved with the general population, or transferred to other facilities. Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with attorney Bill Goodman, New York, New York, March 25, 2002: with attorney Lawrence Feitell, New York New York, May 14, 2002, and with Adem Carroll, Islamic Circle of North America, New York. New York, June 13, 2002.

26

Covering windows so that no natural light enters the cells is a violation of international standards. Rule 11 of the UN. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners states: "In all places where prisoners are required to live or work, the windows shall be large enough to enable the prisoners to read or work by natural light." "Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners," adopted Aug. 30, 1955, by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders. U.N. Doc. A/CONF/611, Annex I, E.S.C. Res. 663C, 24 UN ESCOR Supp. (No. 1) at 11. UN Doc. E/3048 (1957), amended E.S.C. Res. 2076, 62 U.N. ESCOR Supp. (No. 1) at 35. U.N. Doc. E/5988 (1977).

The Human Rights Committee has determined that a cell constantly illuminated by artificial light contributed to conditions of detention that were considered inhuman under article 10 of the ICCPR. Scc, c.g. Massion and Baritussio v. Uruguay, Communication No. R.6/25/1978, Larrosa v. Uruguay, Communication No. 88/1981.

they were talking to their attomeys Lawyers told Human Rights Watch that they did not know for sure if the cameras recorded sound but their confidential conversations with their clients could certainly be lip-read. Attorneys have also alleged that some detainees held at the SHU were physically and verbally abused, denied 279 medical care, allowed only very restricted access to telephones. 27 and deliberately prevented from observing certain mandatory religious practices.

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Detainees held in administrative segregation at other facilitics endured similarly stringent conditions of detention For instance, Uzi Bohadana said he was held seventeen days in solitary confinement at Concordia Jail in Ferriday, Louisiana, during which he could not make any phone calls or receive any visits He said he was not allowed outside of his cell at all during this time He said a nurse came to his cell regularly to treat the injuries he had received after being beaten by inmates at another facility Bohadana said that sometimes correctional officers did not take him to the showers for a week. He had no radio, television and no reading matenals. When he protested the conditions of his

Two plaintiffs in a class actions suit against the US government--Asif-ur-Rehman Saffi and Syed Amjad Ali Jaffri-maintain they were physically abused by correctional officers at the MDC. Ibrahim Tukmen v. John Ashcroft, "Class Action Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial," April 17, 2002 Sec also the section, Physical and Verbal Abuse, in this report The Legal Aid Society of New York said that they talked to two detainees who said they had been roughed up, spat on pushed against the walls, and cursed by the correctional officers. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Lonegan,

detention, correctional officers said the FBI had ordered it.21

An undisclosed number of "special interest" cases were held in isolation at Denton County Jail in Texas Onc of them was Ghassam Dahduli, a forty-one-year-old Palestinian man born in Saudi Arabia. Dahduli, who had lived in the United States since 1978, had been charged with an immigration violation before September 11 for taking a part-time job in network engineering when his visa allowed him to engage only in religious work

Dahduli was free on bond while the case made its way through immigration courts. On September 22. 2001. fifteen to twenty FBI, police, and INS agents came to his house "with full media accompaniment," Dahduli said The INS revoked his bail, arguing he was a flight nisk and a danger to the community Dahduli said that the officials told the media he had contacts with bin Laden, which he adamantly denied

Dahduli was handcuffed, placed in belly chains and shackles, and transported to Denton County Jail. Texas, where he remained for sixtysix days in solitary confinement. He was held in a seven-by-ten-foot cell that had a shower and a toilet although it was "freezing." Dahduli was not given an additional blanket He did not have access to television, radio, or newspapers: he received a Quran only two weeks before he was deported Dahduli said he was only allowed out of his cell three tunes a week for an hour, when he was taken to an outdoor arca where he stayed alone He stated that he was usually let out at 6:30 or 7.00 am, when it was freezing cold." He only had a short-sleeved shirt and was not permitted to take a blanket. When it was raining or had rained and the floor was wet he was not allowed outside.

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Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with U Bohadana. Hollywood. Flonda. November 13, 2001 Bohadana had been arrested on September 14. 2001 for working while on a tourist visa. He was released on bond on October 5

Dahduli was deported on November 26, 2001. He was escorted to Jordan by an INS deportation and removal officer and by a Department of Justice investigator assigned to his case. Dahduli said that an FBI agent was waiting for him at the airport with Jordanian authoritics. He was detained and placed in isolation in Jordan for fifteen days during which he was interrogated four times, but he said he was treated well while in custody. Dahduli has been released and he said he has not had any further contact with Jordanian or US authorities.283

Dahduli also faced special restrictions on tclcphone usc as a result of being in solitary confinement. He was allowed to make a phone call the day he was arrested but could not call for three days after that Even though he had the right to three hours of phone use per day, he said that the correctional officers never brought the phone on time, and it had to be shared by ten detamees Dahduli said that in reality he could only make a phone call once a day for about fifteen minutes.

Dahduli's case was shrouded in secrecy. He said he was never informed of his right to contact the Jordanian embassy. Proceedings were closed to the public and to his family. Hearings were conducted through vidcoconference so Dahduli did not leave the jail. According to press reports. Dahduli's name appeared in an address book of an al-Qaeda member. Dahduli's attorney reportedly said that her client and the man belonged to the same mosque in the 1980s and had a brief encounter in 1998. Anny Bach, "Deported... Disappeared? The Nation. December 24, 2001; Mary McKee, "Peers say arrest of Richardson man is a shock." Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Seplenibcr 26, 2001

Dahduli also told Human Rights Watch that he had been confronted by two FBI agents in 2000. The agents allegedly threatened to take him away from his family, to deport him, and to call the Jordanian government and say that he was an informant unless he cooperated with them. His attorney at the time believed that they did not want any information but rather they wanted lum to serve as their mole indefinitely Dabduli did not agree to the FBI's demands. "If I was a suspect, why wasn't I ever interrogated? I never saw an INS or an FBI officer while I was in jail. Dabduli told Human Rights Watch His attorney said that Dahduli had not been interrogated since she was retained in January 2001.

Dahduli dropped the four applications he said he had with the INS to regularize his immigration status because he was told he would have to stay in jail during the process, which could take a year or more. He was

Some detainees from the Middle East, South Asia, or North Africa, who were in the custody of the INS before September 11 were moved to segregation after the terrorist attacks. For examplc. Mahtabuddin Aluned, a citizen of Bangladesh, was placed in solitary confinement at the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange, Virginia, shortly after September 11 and only removed thirty-three days later in response to his lawyers' complaints Ahmed said he had no hot water for a week and was not given access to cleaning products or a brush even though the toilets in his cell wing flooded repeatedly and the sewage stagnated in his cell He was handcuffed and shackled when he was taken from his cell. one hour per day, the shackles were kept during his indoor recreational time and in the shower. He was not allowed outdoors at all. Ahmed said that he was told by the jail official in charge of inmate classification that he had placed him in administrative segregation for his own protection because of his last name Ahmcd said that there were other Muslims in the general population who were not placed in solitary confinement.

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deported to Jordan because he held a valid Jordanian passport, even though Dahduli was born in Saudi Arabia of Palestinian refugees. His Saudi Arabian travel documents expired when he was unable to travel there during the Gulf War, and he could not renew them after their expiration Human Rights Watch telephones interview with Dahduli, and with automney Karen Pennington, Dallas, Texas, January 15. 2002.

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Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Mahtabuddin Ahmed Hanover. Virginia, on December 11, 2001: and letter from Mahtabuddin Ahmed's attorneys Thomas Elliot and Fabienne Chatain to INS Deportation Officer Sherryl Crenshaw, October 29. 2001 Alumed, who is twenty-seven-years-old, came to the United States when he was four years old. He was convicted of drug possession with intention to distribute and served his sentence in 1998-99. On October 22, 1999, he was picked up by the INS which initiated removal procedures against him, and moved him to Piedmond Regional Jail in Farmville, Virginia Ahmed said he was ordered deported in November 2000, but he is still in detention because the INS is waiting for travel documents from the consulate of Bangladesh

The criteria used to assign a detamce to administrative segregation are unclear. Many detainces were never told why they were subjected to such extreme conditions of detention,265 When asked, some jail officials reportedly told detainees that they were kept in isolation for their own protection While Human Rights Watch recognizes that some detainees may have needed protection from other inmates, such protection could be provided without depriving the detainees of access to phones, visits, reading material, radios, and the ability to interact with other non-criminal detainees.

The apparently arbitrary placement of some "special interest detainees in segregated confinement is evidenced by the treatment of three pairs of "special interest" detainees at three dif ferent jails In cach case, the detainees were nationals of the same countrics and were charged with the same immigration violations, but were nonetheless held under different detention conditions Onc detainee kept in isolation and the other one held with the general prison population. One of the cases involves Osama Elfar, an Egyptian citizen, who was being held in solitary confinement for a week at Jennings Jail in Missoun, while another Egyptian citizen, Ibrahim Bayoumi, was not Both were charged with

> The INS's Detention Standards state that a copy of the Administrative Segregation Order, which details the reasons for placing a detainee under such a detention regime, shall be given to the detainee within twenty-four hours of placement in administrative segregation Reviews shall be conducted seventytwo hours after the detainee was segregated, every weck for the first month, and at least thirty days thereafter The Detention Standards further state that a copy of the decision and justification for each review shall be given to the detainee

These procedures were not followed in the cases of the detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch, none of whom received the detailed written communications the Detention Standards prescribe

Another case involves Elyes Glaissia and his roommate, both from Tunisia, who were incarcerated at the Scattle, Washington, INS Detention Center on charges of overstaying their visas. Glaissia was held in solitary confinement for ten days, while his roommate was held with the general population. Glaissia's cell had the lights on twenty-four hours a day and he was not allowed to go outdoors at all, accord

overstaying their visas Elfar said that when he asked a correctional officer why he was held in isolation, he told him that the INS had ordered it for his own safety. However, this did not spare him from being harassed and verbally abused by inmates and correctional officers, who called him a terrorist and a member of Osama bin Laden's organization Elfar was not allowed to take a shower for five days or leave his cell at all for several days. Even though he was told that visits were permitted two days a week, jail officials apparently told his father and some friends who had come to see him that the INS had or

dered that Elfar not receive any visits 257

It appears that some "special interest" detainces were held in segregation not for their

ing to his attorney Glaissia reportedly was never told why he was kept under this regime. The men were arrested when another roominate accused Glaissia of making threatening comments against the United States. comments that Glaissia denied ever uttering Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with attorney Vicky Dobrin, who represented the two men. Scattle. Washington, November 20, 2001 and January 31, 2002.

Similarly, two Saudi Arabian brothers were arrested at the Denver International Airport in Colorado and charged with immigration violations. They were held at the INS Detention Center in Denver, where the older brother was placed in solitary confinement for eight or nine days without being told why while the younger one was held with the general population, according to their attorney Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Donna Lipinski, who represented the two brothers, Englewood, Colorado, October 23, 2001.

Elfar was transferred to another jail only after his attorney complained about the conditions of his detention. An immigration judge granted Elfar volunlary departure with safeguards meaning that he would leave the country straight from the detention facility-and gave an October 23 deadline to the INS for Elfar's removal. Elfar was only allowed to leave the country on December 4, 2001 after his attorney petitioned for an habeas corpus writ. He was arrested by Egyptian authoritics upon his arrival to the North African country, and spent four or five days in their custody Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Osama Elfar, November 21, and 26, 2001, with his attorneys, Dorothy Harper, October 22, and October 24, and Justin Mechan, October 22, 23, 24, 2001, and February 25, 2002.