[Seattle-editorial] FEATURE PROPOSAL: Somali Victory

[Jason Reep]

Yes!


At 10:14 AM 7/17/2002 -0700, jonathan lawson wrote:
>SUBTITLE: USDA OVERTURNS REPRESSIVE RULING
>TITLE: Victory for Somali Grocers
>
>On Tuesday, the USDA overturned a previous ruling which banned three 
>stores in Seattle's Somali community from accepting food stamps. The 
>ruling is good news for Somali Muslims who rely on the stores for halal 
>meats and other dietary staples.
>The ban, instituted in March, followed an incident <a 
>href="http://seattle.indymedia.org/archive/features/2001/11/2001-11.html#2107">last 
>November</a> in which federal agents raided the Maka Mini-Mart and 
>confiscated its inventory, claimng that an adjoining money exchange 
>business was funneling money to terrorist organizations (the market's 
>owner later recovered damages in a court settlement).  Local Somalis and 
>community activists charged that both the raid and the food stamp ban were 
>fueled by post-9/11 prejudices against immigrant communities.
>"We are not protecting the American way of life by suspending the civil 
>rights of our own people," says <a href="http://www.hatefreezone.org">Hate 
>Free Zone</a> organizer Pramila Jayapal. "This was never the way to go 
>about fighting terrorists."
>
><a href="http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=16093">Read 
>the full story</a>.
>
>
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