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NYPD Shuts Unit That Mapped Muslim Communities

Case: Raza v. City of New York - Legal Challenge to NYPD Muslim Surveillance Program
April 15, 2014 6:25 pm
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NEW YORK – The New York Police Department has shuttered the unit that created maps and collected other information on Muslim communities in the New York City area, according to a report today by The New York Times.

“The NYPD’s disbanding of a unit that targeted New York Muslims and mapped their everyday institutions and activities is a welcome first step for which we commend Commissioner Bratton,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “We hope that the Demographics Unit’s discriminatory activities will not be carried out by other parts of the NYPD.”

“The Demographics Unit was only one component of a huge, discriminatory surveillance program that has sent informants and NYPD officers to spy on mosques, charities, student groups, and other mainstays of New York Muslim life,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “We look forward to an end to all aspects of the bias-based policing that has stigmatized New York’s Muslim communities and done them such great harm.”

Shamsi is counsel in a federal lawsuit challenging the spying program filed on behalf of Muslim New Yorkers and organizations represented by the ACLU, the NYCLU, and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project of Main Street Legal Services, Inc. at CUNY School of Law.

The lawsuit charges that the NYPD’s actions imposed an unjustified badge of suspicion and stigma on hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers. The suit seeks systemic reforms that will end the NYPD’s spying program in which entire communities of New Yorkers have been singled out simply because of their religious beliefs.

Information on the lawsuit is at:
aclu.org/national-security/raza-v-city-new-york-legal-challenge-nypd-muslim-surveillance-program

NYPD car

Raza v. City of New York - Legal Challenge to NYPD Muslim Surveillance Program

The ACLU, the NYCLU, and the CLEAR project at CUNY Law School filed a lawsuit in June 2013 challenging the New York City Police Department's discriminatory and unjustified surveillance of New York Muslims. We were later joined by the law firm of Morrison & Foerster LLP. The plaintiffs include three religious and community leaders, two mosques, and one charitable organization, all of whom were subject to the NYPD's unconstitutional religious profiling program. In January 2016, we announced a proposed settlement in the case with important reforms that include a bar against NYPD investigations on the basis of race, religion, or ethnicity, and the creation of a civilian representative position to oversee rules that safeguard against discriminatory and unjustified NYPD surveillance. That settlement was a joint one, with both the NYPD and the lawyers in Handschu v. Special Services Division, a long-standing class action that challenged the NYPD’s unlawful surveillance of political groups and activists. In October 2016, the federal district court judge presiding over the Handschu case held that he would approve the settlement if the parties agreed to three alterations, which would further strengthen protections. In March 2017, the courts in both Handschu and Raza approved the revised settlement.

Source: American Civil Liberties Union

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