July 23, 2003
In This Issue
THINGS LIKE THIS aren't supposed to happen in America. The people who wrote the Constitution specifically wanted to ban secret trials with secret evidence, to prevent the government from holding someone in prison without proper charges or a fair trial – you learn all about that in grade school.
So why has Harpal Singh Cheema been held behind bars in a Yuba County jail for some seven years – without bail, without a fair trial, without even knowing what the evidence is against him? It sounds insane, almost (to use a badly overused term that is, unfortunately, all too appropriate in this situation) Kafkaesque: Even Singh's lawyer can't find out who the witnesses are or what the evidence is that has convinced the federal government to keep his client incarcerated. It's all top secret.
And it gets worse: As Camille T. Taiara reports on page 16, Singh, an immigrant who has been active with the Sikh separatist movement in India, is charged with providing "material support" to a "terrorist organization." But there are no Sikh groups on the federal government's list of "terrorists." And even if he was, say, raising money for an organization that Washington now dislikes (and let's face it – the definition of "terrorist group" is and always was largely political), everything Singh did was legal at the time he did it.
Singh isn't a U.S. citizen – he arrived in this country in 1993, fleeing persecution and torture, and applied for political asylum. The Immigration and Naturalization Service thought he had a pretty good case and let him live in peace in Union City for almost five years. Now it's entirely possible that Singh will be deported to India (where he may very well be killed) largely on the basis of evidence that neither he nor his lawyer can see or challenge.
If the feds can treat an Indian immigrant this way, it won't be long before the rest of us face the same sort of problems. How many San Franciscans have, at some point, provided money or other "material support" (which could mean, say, helping fund a rally) to the likes of the African National Congress or the Irish Republican Army, both of which have been identified by the government as "terrorists"? Who might be named a "terrorist group" tomorrow – and can all of the people who support that group, legally, today go to jail for it later? Scary stuff.