As a member of the Learning About Israel in the Middle East project, Sam Taylor was shocked to hear that the New York Police Department was monitoring Muslim college students at Syracuse University for suspicious terrorist activity.

‘I knew it was happening, but I’m just so shocked,’ Taylor said. ‘I knew it was happening at other schools, but not here.’

The Associated Press reporters broke the news Saturday that undercover officers were sent by the NYPD to monitor Muslim student associations at Northeast colleges such as Syracuse University, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University and the State University of New York campuses in Buffalo and Stony Brook, among others.

LIME, an interfaith project to promote discussion on Israeli culture, works closely with the Muslim Students Association on campus. Taylor, a senior broadcast and digital journalism major, is familiar with the association and said he is surprised anyone in the MSA would have questionable ties to terrorism.

‘If there’s sufficient evidence, then of course the monitoring would be justified,’ he said. ‘But the MSA is not one of those organizations.’

An anonymous source reported a student informant was present on SU’s campus between 2006 and 2008. It is unclear whether the monitoring is still occurring. The NYPD, along with the CIA, developed secret programs to watch Muslims in their daily activities, including their eating locations and frequency of worship.

Detectives browsed Muslim student websites, and officers were sent on student trips to monitor the participants, frequently recording personal information for police records. The anonymous source who reported the undercover officer on SU’s campus is familiar with the NYPD’s program, but chose to remain anonymous due to a lack of authority to discuss the issue.

Mohamed Ahmed, a senior bioengineering major, said for him, the monitoring is a ‘reality.’ Ahmed is of both Egyptian and Portuguese descent and said he is often racially profiled at airports because his last name matches names on no-fly lists.

And although he said he was tolerant when pulled aside the first time, he loses tolerance each time his name is associated with the list.

‘There sometimes is justification, but sometimes monitoring is taken to an extreme level,’ he said. ‘In this case, NYPD basing monitoring on religion is ridiculous.’

Ahmed said he questions why the MSA is receiving unequal treatment in this situation compared to a student association of Christians or Jews. He said he believes it’s unfair for MSA students, and that everyone has the right to practice their own religion. Ahmed suggested conversation as an alternate solution.

‘It’s really better to have a dialogue than going ahead and monitoring them,’ he said.

Yusuf Abdul-Qadir, former MSA president from 2005 to 2008, said the monitoring deals with a serious breach of the exact ideal for which pilgrims left England to travel to America: the freedom of religion, expression and the right to assemble, among other attributes. He said America is a nation of law and order based on unalienable principles.

‘We cannot let such breaches of our civil society go unanswered and must take recourse and exercise our right to ‘petition the government for a redress of grievances,” he said in an email.

The monitoring first started in 2006, when officers browsed Muslim student websites and collected information as part of a ‘daily routine’ for a year, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne in an article published Saturday by the AP.

The NYPD became interested in Muslim student associations due to the population of young men within them, as terrorist groups often pick members from that demographic, according to the article. It was believed that lecturers and activities such as paintballing could be used as terrorist training.

Mark Pawliw, a senior geography major, said he thinks the monitoring was a little extreme and that if it were him being monitored, he would feel uncomfortable. But sometimes, he said, the monitoring is necessary.

‘Sometimes you need to go to extremes for national security, even if it goes against the rights of citizens,’ he said.

But sophomore biotechnology major Myuran Ratnaseelan said he finds the monitoring disconcerting.

‘It’s been a few years since we’ve seen that kind of tracking,’ he said. ‘And to still see it now years after 9/11 continues to surprise me.’

meltagou@syr.edu 

Published on February 20, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Marwa: meltagou@syr.edu | @marwaeltagouri