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“font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;”>Akbar Muhammad just learned the hard way that all politics is local, even if local politics can generate instant international news.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>While visiting Georgetown, Guyana (the capital city of the small South American republic) last week, he was detained on suspicion of involvement with drugs and terrorism – charges with no basis in evidence or fact, but rather local political rivalry.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Muhammad – the St. Louis-based international representative of Min. Louis Farrakhan – answered police at his Georgetown hotel early last Thursday morning only when they threatened to bust down the door.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>He was taken to the headquarters of Guyana’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which he described as “their equivalent of the FBI.” Though he had been shocked to hear he was suspected of involvement with drugs and terrorism, when the interrogations got underway, police were more interested in local politics than international criminal conspiracies.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“They sit me in this chair, and all of them ended up asking this one same question: ‘What political party have you met with in Guyana?’” Muhammad told The American.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>He answered, “None.”
Only when investigators told him they knew he had visited the mayor
of Georgetown, Hamilton Green, did Muhammad begin to understand
what was happening to him.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“At the time, I wasn’t even sure what political party the mayor belonged to – I was not into political parties,” Muhammad said. His connection to Green was personal. Georgetown and St. Louis have a formal sister-city relationship, and Muhammad had met Green when the mayor previously visited St. Louis.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“Since, I have learned the mayor is with the PNC party, and the party in power is the PPP.” The PNC, or People’s National Congress, has a black base, while the PPP, or People’s Progressive Party, is dominated by Guyanese of Indian descent.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Muhammad had been caught unwittingly in the crossfires of Guyanese’s race-based partisan politics, with national elections scheduled for August and already generating local allegations of fraud. A black American Muslim visiting a black Guyanese PNC politician had been used by Guyana’s PPP government in an attempt to make blacks look like terrorists and their own administration look tough on terrorism.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>He was placed in a
filthy, overcrowded prison cell. “I have been in jails to speak to
prisoners in Africa, and this is the worst I have ever seen,”
Muhammad said. “There were 20 men to a cell, more mosquitoes than I
have seen in Africa, a toilet you couldn’t use.” He would spend 15
hours there.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Fortunately, Muhammad had powerful resources. He contacted his friend, St. Louis activist Anthony Shahid, who contacted U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay on his behalf. When Clay intervened, representatives from the U.S. Embassy in Guyana were on the scene at the CID the next morning. A local television station that had been working with Muhammad on an appearance put him touch with a local attorney, Nigel Hughes.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Farrakhan learned of the incident at a more decent hour – “I didn’t want to call him at 5 in the morning,” Muhammad said. When Farrakhan heard of his colleague’s condition, he called the president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo. Within hours, Muhammad said, he was released. (Police also had detained and then released a Canadian-Guyanese citizen, Phillip Muhammad.)
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>To his amazement, however, Muhammad’s baseless arrest already had gone out on the international newswire, tarnishing his name by association with drugs and terrorism. His local daily newspaper, the
“mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>Post-Dispatch wire story and added some local details.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“That’s the reason I am taking the time to come to
“mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>The American story,” Muhammad said.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“It’s for the people who live in my building, my neighbors. They picked up the
“mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>Post detained in Guyana as a terrorist and drug runner. That’s very painful.”
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>He also wanted to correct the record for his 10 children, 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. He said one 18-year-old grandson saw a newsflash on TV and called his mother, Muhammad’s oldest daughter, to tell her he had seen grandpa on TV.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“Imagine what is running through his mind,” Muhammad said. “This is the painful part.”
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Ironically, given the charges trumped up against him, Muhammad spoke at the University of Guyana last week, as he often does around the world, about the dangers of drugs. Last Thursday, on the anniversary of Malcolm X’s birth, he would have been speaking on Guyana TV about how Malcolm “came out of a thug life of guns, dope and prostitution and turned his life around.”
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“mso-spacerun: yes;”> because I was in jail,” Muhammad said.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Now, Muhammad demands an apology that will resonate as loudly as the false criminal allegations about him.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“I need an apology. If the CID apologizes, it will be a blurb in paper. I need the head of state, the president, to apologize. That would be a news item that would go around the world,” Muhammad said.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“I want their apology to go out with the same fervor of the announcement that I had been detained for terrorism and drugs. If it’s their political agenda to show they are tough on terrorism with elections coming, and they used me to that end, then as God is my witness, they picked on the wrong person.”
