Abdel-Muhti [was] a stateless Palestinian, born in Ramallah district in the West Bank in August 1947. Because he left the West Bank before the Israeli takeover in 1967, he cannot receive travel documents from Israel, the Palestinian National Authority, or Jordan that would enable him to return. Abdel-Muhti has lived without status in the United States for over 30 years.
Abdel-Muhti was arrested on April 26, 2002, in Queens, New York, by the Absconder Task Force, a joint federal-state immigration enforcement unit which has primarily pursued Muslim men of Arab or South Asian extraction. His arrest came a month after he began working regularly at the New York radio station WBAI-FM, arranging interviews with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
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After addressing the Philadelphia Ethical Society on the issue of �Detentions and Torture: Building Resistance" on the evening of July 21, 2004, Farouk Abdel-Muhti put his head down on the panel table. He died by the time he reached the hospital. While we do not yet know what the doctors will declare as his �cause of death,� those who knew Farouk believe that by illegally holding him in immigration detention where he was beaten, harassed, and denied proper medical care for over two years, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement sentenced him to death.
Center for Constitutional Rights
Abdel-Muhti was arrested on April 26, 2002, in Queens, New York, by the Absconder Task Force, a joint federal-state immigration enforcement unit which has primarily pursued Muslim men of Arab or South Asian extraction. His arrest came a month after he began working regularly at the New York radio station WBAI-FM, arranging interviews with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
After addressing the Philadelphia Ethical Society on the issue of �Detentions and Torture: Building Resistance" on the evening of July 21, 2004, Farouk Abdel-Muhti put his head down on the panel table. He died by the time he reached the hospital. While we do not yet know what the doctors will declare as his �cause of death,� those who knew Farouk believe that by illegally holding him in immigration detention where he was beaten, harassed, and denied proper medical care for over two years, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement sentenced him to death.
Center for Constitutional Rights
