By Camille T. Taiara

It's been eight months since a federal court ordered the government to release Harpal Singh Cheema. Yet Cheema, who was first taken into custody in November 1997, remains imprisoned at the Yuba County immigration detention center.

An attorney and one of the world's most prominent Sikh nationalists, Cheema escaped his native India with his wife, Rajwinder Kaur, in the fall of 1993, after being subjected to a mock execution and, on repeated occasions, brutal physical torture. The couple applied for political asylum and settled in Union City (see "The American Inquisition," 7/23/03).

Now Cheema has spent nearly seven years behind bars in what's become a classic case of selective, politically motivated enforcement of immigration and terrorism laws.

Without enough evidence to file criminal charges, the federal government pursued its case against Cheema through the immigration courts, using secret evidence provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Cheema, who was forced to mount a defense with no access to the evidence against him, readily admitted to raising funds for the Sikh nationalist movement and acting as a communications link between leaders of different factions – including violent ones. But none of those activities were illegal at the time. None of the groups involved were on the State Department's terrorist list. And Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, one of the West's foremost experts on the Sikh nationalist movement, testified that Cheema has played an important role as a voice of moderation in the movement.

On Dec. 1, 2003, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that neither Cheema nor Kaur present a danger to national security. It ordered that Cheema be released, barred the government from deporting either of them, and ordered the Board of Immigration Appeals to reconsider their applications for asylum (see "Evidence Lacking," 12/3/03). But on June 24 the Ninth Circuit reversed itself and granted the government another chance to prove Cheema and Kaur pose a threat to the United States.

"At this point, the Ninth Circuit has already found there's absolutely no evidence at all that [Cheema] is a danger to the lives, property, or welfare of U.S. citizens," Emma Winger, a paralegal at the law office of Robert B. Jobe who is working on the case, told the Bay Guardian.

In the meantime, to date, Cheema has been presented with one of two choices: remain behind bars indefinitely or be deported to India, where he'd almost certainly be tortured and, possibly, killed.

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