Criminal
12-04-2004, 09:33 AM
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc/securityibrahimparlak3.htm
HARBERT -- Follow the Red Arrow Highway up the lip of Lake Michigan, past the diners and the u-pick-'em blueberry patches, and you will find the place where for the last decade a Turkish immigrant has run a cafe with exotic aromas in the kitchen and grainy photos on the wall of a faraway land he calls Kurdistan.
Or so it was for owner Ibrahim Parlak until July 29, when a phone call from the FBI revived an old life he thought he had left behind and unraveled the new one he had built.
The tale of how this popular small-town restaurant owner became ensnared in the global war on terror is fueling debate beyond this corner of southwest Michigan, a weekend home to many Chicagoans, and crystallizing some of the post-Sept. 11 era's most polarizing questions about the balance of individual rights and security. His case illustrates how the past three years have refocused American suspicions and sympathies, shaping the way the United States treats those who arrive seeking refuge.
"It never crossed my mind that after all those years, this could happen," said Parlak, owner of Cafe Gulistan and now inmate No. 194847 at the Calhoun County Jail in Battle Creek, Mich., accused of lying to the U.S. government about his criminal history and engaging in terrorist activities 17 years ago in Turkey. "It doesn't make any sense to me."
"(I)t shows the way our traditional American rights and freedoms are being compromised," said film critic Roger Ebert, a cafe regular who vacations in the area. "This man was granted political asylum in America for the same reasons he is now threatened with deportation."
U.S. immigration officials contend that Parlak should be denied citizenship and deported. They accuse him of disguising his role in the killing of two Turkish border guards in 1987 and call him a terrorist for his links at that time with the PKK, an armed Kurdish resistance group opposed to the Turkish government's treatment of ethnic Kurds. They were alerted to his case in March by a legal notice from the Turkish government.
"I'm sure he's a great host and he makes a great meal, very gracious in the community, but he is in fact a murderer," said Robin Baker, Detroit field office director for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Parlak and his supporters dispute that.
He maintains his innocence despite his conviction in a Turkish court. He said he abandoned his ties to the PKK a decade before the organization was added to the U.S. list of terror groups and that he truthfully disclosed his past to U.S. immigration authorities who reviewed his claims of torture in Turkish jails and granted him asylum in 1992.
His arrest has ignited an outcry from local residents who call him a pillar of their tiny community. More than 50 supporters rented a bus to attend a court hearing in Detroit, and now "Free Ibrahim" roadside signs beside farms and beach cottages stand in testament to the clash of security and civil liberties unfolding deep in the American heartland.
Civil liberties advocates say the case is part of a trend in which Muslim immigrants have been increasingly subject to aggressive immigration cases.
HARBERT -- Follow the Red Arrow Highway up the lip of Lake Michigan, past the diners and the u-pick-'em blueberry patches, and you will find the place where for the last decade a Turkish immigrant has run a cafe with exotic aromas in the kitchen and grainy photos on the wall of a faraway land he calls Kurdistan.
Or so it was for owner Ibrahim Parlak until July 29, when a phone call from the FBI revived an old life he thought he had left behind and unraveled the new one he had built.
The tale of how this popular small-town restaurant owner became ensnared in the global war on terror is fueling debate beyond this corner of southwest Michigan, a weekend home to many Chicagoans, and crystallizing some of the post-Sept. 11 era's most polarizing questions about the balance of individual rights and security. His case illustrates how the past three years have refocused American suspicions and sympathies, shaping the way the United States treats those who arrive seeking refuge.
"It never crossed my mind that after all those years, this could happen," said Parlak, owner of Cafe Gulistan and now inmate No. 194847 at the Calhoun County Jail in Battle Creek, Mich., accused of lying to the U.S. government about his criminal history and engaging in terrorist activities 17 years ago in Turkey. "It doesn't make any sense to me."
"(I)t shows the way our traditional American rights and freedoms are being compromised," said film critic Roger Ebert, a cafe regular who vacations in the area. "This man was granted political asylum in America for the same reasons he is now threatened with deportation."
U.S. immigration officials contend that Parlak should be denied citizenship and deported. They accuse him of disguising his role in the killing of two Turkish border guards in 1987 and call him a terrorist for his links at that time with the PKK, an armed Kurdish resistance group opposed to the Turkish government's treatment of ethnic Kurds. They were alerted to his case in March by a legal notice from the Turkish government.
"I'm sure he's a great host and he makes a great meal, very gracious in the community, but he is in fact a murderer," said Robin Baker, Detroit field office director for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Parlak and his supporters dispute that.
He maintains his innocence despite his conviction in a Turkish court. He said he abandoned his ties to the PKK a decade before the organization was added to the U.S. list of terror groups and that he truthfully disclosed his past to U.S. immigration authorities who reviewed his claims of torture in Turkish jails and granted him asylum in 1992.
His arrest has ignited an outcry from local residents who call him a pillar of their tiny community. More than 50 supporters rented a bus to attend a court hearing in Detroit, and now "Free Ibrahim" roadside signs beside farms and beach cottages stand in testament to the clash of security and civil liberties unfolding deep in the American heartland.
Civil liberties advocates say the case is part of a trend in which Muslim immigrants have been increasingly subject to aggressive immigration cases.