Civil rights groups demand answers in NYPD probe

New Haven, Conn. (WTNH) - Two civil rights groups want to know the extent of the New York City police department's surveillance of Muslim organizations in Connecticut.

The call for action follows recent revelations that the NYPD has monitored the actions of a Muslim student group at Yale University. [Read the story here]

These groups have filed Freedom of Information requests to a number of police departments in the state and the Yale police department. They want to know how much the departments knew about any surveillance being done on Muslim groups.
              
Muslim students at Yale University are reacting strongly to reports that the NYPD has monitored the activities of the school's Muslim Student Association.

"I feel extremely afraid wherever I go that eyes are looking at me," said Wazhma Sadat, a student at Yale.

One of the association's board members says group members feel violated.

"We have mixers, we go ice skating we have ping pong tournaments. We are another student organization at Yale University that the NYPD felt obligated to survey us without any evidence of wrongdoing and preemptively," said Zhina Zayyad.

The Connecticut chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) believes the NYPD's prying eyes and ears go beyond the Yale campus.

The group has made Freedom of Information requests to police departments in Stamford, Waterbury, Bridgeport and the Yale police to determine what, if any, knowledge they had about the New York police conducting surveillance on local Muslim groups.

"We read in these reports the same as you, something that sounds suspiciously un-American. Surveillance of people without probably cause is in violation of any number of amendments to the Constitution," said Sandra Staub from the ACLU.

The head of the Council on American-Islamic relations, Mongi Dhaouadi, also believes the NYPD is running rough-shot over people's constitutional rights and want to know who they answer to.

"I think the surprise is the extent of the NYPD getting involved in the state of Connecticut, towns, spying on organizations and coffee shops, MSA's, student activities, recording names of people who pray five times a day or sit down and have a meal together is absolutely ridiculous," Dhaouadi said.

The Connecticut ACLU and CAIR are promising to keep up the pressure until they receive those documents from area police departments and get some answers.