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One also where authorities persecute residents for their race, faith, ethnicity, or immigration status. One where thousands targeted are arrested, charged, convicted, wrongfully imprisoned, and at times deported after weeks, months or even years of harsh incarceration.
At age 16, Tashnuba Hayder was victimized, deported in May 2005 to Bangladesh after weeks in federal detention.
Reporting on June 17, 2005 from Dhaka, New York Times writer Nina Bernstein headlined, "Questions, Bitterness and Exile for Queens Girl in Terror Case," saying:
America was her home since kindergarten. Now in an unfamiliar country, unconversant with its language and customs, she was "forced to leave the United States (after) the FBI (falsely) identified her as a potential suicide bomber." Stunned, she said:
"I feel like I'm on a different planet. It just hit me. How everything happened - it's like, 'Oh, my God.' "
In recent memory, she was the first minor investigated for terror, "stoking the debate over the right balance between government vigilance and the protection of individual freedoms."
The daughter of Muslim immigrants, her case was shrouded in secrecy, and remained so under the FBI's requested court-ordered seal. It barred participants from disclosing information authorities want to keep secret. Bernstein said they "declined repeated requests to present (their) side."
Deported on immigration, not terrorism, charges, they remained tight lipped on her case. It wasn't entirely clear why she was targeted. She denies federal accusations, saying FBI agents apparently learned she'd visited an Internet chat room where speeches of Sheik Omar Bakri Muhummed, a London-based Muslim cleric, were posted.
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