Graphic novelist says CBP overreacted to Arabic writing
- By Jonathan Clark
Nogales InternationalA Chicago-based graphic novelist says she and two friends were detained and interrogated by federal officers in Nogales for nearly four hours after the officers became suspicious of her sketchbook, which contained Arabic writing.
Leila Abdelrazaq, a Palestinian-American artist and author whose recent work “Baddawi” told the story of her father’s childhood experience in a refugee camp in Lebanon, said she came to Nogales to research her next art project.
“I had never seen the U.S.-Mexico border before, and since my next project is about immigration and borders, I just wanted to see it for myself,” Abdelrazaq said in a statement posted to the website of Palestine Legal, an organization that advocates for the rights of people in the United States who speak out for Palestinian independence. “Alongside my sketches, I included notes in both Arabic and English that poke fun at my choppy Arabic. I didn’t realize self-deprecation would get me in trouble.”
The statement says that on Dec. 2, Abdelrazaq and her friends “were near the border for only a few minutes, soaking in the surroundings and sketching the scenery in a notebook” when they were approached by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, who asked them to leave.
However, as they were preparing to leave, the officers reportedly became suspicious of Abdelrazaq’s drawings, and ordered her to hand over her sketchbook. She “initially objected for personal and privacy reasons, though she ultimately complied,” the statement says.
The officers noted the Arabic writing among her sketches and subsequently detained Abdelrazaq and her friends before returning the sketchbook and letting them go nearly four hours later, the statement says.
The NI contacted Abdelrazaq to request an interview, but she deferred to the statement. It describes the incident, which reportedly occurred near the Mariposa Port of Entry, as a reflection of “the growing scrutiny Muslim and Arab Americans face from law enforcement.”
CBP spokesman John Lawson confirmed that Abdelrazaq and her friends were detained, saying: “They were detained, they were released and they were never arrested.”
“They didn’t commit any violation other than that you’re not supposed to film or take pictures or sketch a port of entry unless you’re a media person,” he said, adding that: “Anybody who’s doing that, regardless of their nationality, would be asked to leave as part of the GSA (General Service Administration) policies.”
CBP in Nogales has long been sensitive about people taking photos of the ports of entry, unless they are pre-cleared. A story published in October by Arizona Sonora News, a service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism, detailed an incident in which a student seen taking photos of people crossing through the Morley Avenue pedestrian gate was admonished by a CBP officer, who reportedly took her phone to see her photos and told her to delete them. NI Publisher Manuel C. Coppola and columnist Hugh Holub had similar run-ins when they took photos at the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry in May 2010 without prior CBP approval. They were never detained, however.
‘Dangerously smeared’
In Abdelrazaq’s case, someone at CBP leaked a report of her detention to the right-wing news website Judicial Watch, which published a story under the headline “Team Led by Middle Eastern Woman Caught Surveilling U.S. Facility on Mexican Border.” Other like-minded websites picked up the story and sensationalized it further, including one that ran it under the headline “ISIS-Loving Muslim Spies Caught At The Border!”
The statement on Abdelrazaq’s behalf notes that the details of her detention had “been picked up and sensationalized by right-wing media and blogs, which have dangerously smeared her with false accusations of support for terrorism.”
“Islamophobia, fueled in large part by hateful, bigoted rhetoric by presidential candidates and right-wing media, is on the rise in this country,” said Rahul Saksena, a staff attorney at Palestine Legal, in the statement. “Last time I checked, sketching near the border and writing in Arabic were not crimes.”
Judicial Watch named Abdelrazaq and her two friends, as well as listed their ages. The NI is not naming the friends because they were never arrested or accused of a crime. Neither was Abdelrazaq, though she identified herself in the statement posted to Palestine Legal. The friends were not named in the statement.
Source: www.nogalesinternational.com