Abdul Ameer Yousef Habeeb

Abdul Ameer Yousef Habeeb is an Iraqi-born journalist currently living, with refugee status, in the United States.

Habeeb's brother Abdallah was executed in 1982 by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, and he himself was imprisoned twice in Iraq, most recently in 1997; his hands and face were scarred by torture in Iraqi prisons. His father, a monarchist and a leader of the Rabia tribe, died in a suspicious car crash in 1999. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees determined that he had a well-founded fear of political persecution in Iraq; in July 2002 he settled in Kent, Washington (slightly south of Seattle) with refugee status.

On April 1, 2003, while "en route" by train from Seattle to Washington, DC to begin a new job with an Arabic-language newspaper, Habeeb was arrested in Havre, Montana by two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, Thomas Castloo and Darryl Esting. The basis for the arrest was that he had not registered in the Special Registration program that the United States had initiated in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, although as a refugee, he was exempt from this program.

Habeeb was questioned by other customs and FBI agents, and detained. Deportation proceedings were initiated. He spent three nights in Hill County Jail in Montana, where, by according the account given by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "he was forced to strip naked in front of a government agent and was humiliated by other detainees who called him 'Saddam'". He was transported—in handcuffs—to Seattle and detained four more nights. The deporatation proceedings were formally dropped May 16, 2003.

With the assistance of lawyers from the Washington and Montana chapters of the ACLU, Habeeb is currently bringing a lawsuit against the two federal agents who detained him in Havre.

References

* "Federal Agents Sued for Detention of Iraqi Refugee", "Civil Liberties" (the official publication of ACLU-WA), volume 37, no.2, Spring 2005, p. 1, 8.