a voice for the people
a voice for the people Talks underway to establish civil rights org By Eric Younan Preliminary discussions are underway to bring a civil rights organization for Chaldeans into fruition. Community leaders mulled the pros and cons of establishing such a group in the August 2012 edition of the Chaldean News. One said it was necessary while another said it may be divisive. Despite the division of the community on this issue, a steering committee has met several times to flush out ideas. Members are Mazyn Barash, Salim Gasso, Saad Hajjar Jon Karmo, Martin Manna, Naseem Shayota, Nolan Yaldo, Eric Younan and Al Zara. While Gasso, Manna and Younan work for the Chaldean Community Foundation, the organization will be a separate autonomous entity. Although details are to be determined, the organization’s main mission of protecting the civil liberties of Chaldeans has already been established. “I would like [the organization] to become a voice for our people,” Shayota said. “If other communities see that we stand together with our people and will not allow instances to go unnoticed when Chaldeans are wronged, they will think twice before haphazardly depriving our people of their rights.” Barash and Shayota have personally experienced racial injustice in highly publicized cases. Barash was a victim of racial harassment when he worked as a bus mechanic for the SMART bus system. The abuse started after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and escalated after the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq. While he sued and was awarded 5,000, the case has dragged on for eight years and is currently being appealed by SMART. Shayota was the casualty of an overzealous prosecutor who was determined to make an ethnic intimidation charge stick after a fight with Stephen Harris, an African-American male. While the judge cited 27 inconsistencies with Harris’ testimony and called him “the least credible witness the court has ever seen,” the prosecutor moved forward with the charge as a result of pressure of the NAACP, which was firmly in Harris’ corner. The ethnic intimidation charge was eventually dropped. Both men say a civil rights organization would have helped them tremendously during their cases. Shayota believes media relations would’ve changed the course of his hearing. “I think the committee would have helped to counteract the negative media in my case,” he said. “The media was one-sided and failed to fairly report what the evidence in my case actually brought out. The judge wrote a written opinion where he listed over a dozen instances where the complaining witness testimony misled the court, and he found his testimony to be untruthful. However, every single newspaper report was one-sided based on the alleged complainant’s story. If I had the committee to turn to, I could have exposed the lies and helped salvage my reputation.” Committee members recently met with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the civil rights organization of the Jewish community, to learn best practices and receive guidance. The talks are ongoing and the committee will reconvene to determine next steps. With the aforementioned cases and the recent disparaging public comments made by Mark Lewis, former mayor of El Cajon, California (see related story), it’s surprising to some that a Chaldean civil rights organization doesn’t already exist, especially when the community is closely knit in other ways. “The people in our community are always helping each other in business, prayer groups and even helping politicians with donations and getting them elected,” said Zara. “But it is time to help bring justice to every Chaldean who is clearly being treated in a prejudiced way.” Barash thinks the reason is cultural. “We have been too naive and have relied on the current system to represent and protect us,” he said. “Coming from Iraq, the government publicly discriminated and abused us because we were Christians and that was the reason we all fled. The fear of questioning authority had been instilled in us since childhood because in Iraq, that was punishable by death.” 32 CHALDEAN NEWS DECEMBER 2013
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