http://themilitant.com/2017/8148/814804.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 48 December 25, 2017
(front page)
Gov’t uses NY subway bombing to attack immigrants, workers’ rights
AP Photo/Andres Kudacki
Hundreds of cops converge on Port Authority and Times Square after
Akayed Ullah partially detonated pipe bomb. U.S. rulers are using attack
to undermine democratic and political rights.
BY TERRY EVANS
NEW YORK — Officials in Washington and local authorities here are using
the Dec. 11 reactionary terror attack in the New York subways, the
second attack in the city in two months, to ramp up calls to restrict
the rights of working people.
Taking advantage of the fact the attacker, Akayed Ullah, a U.S.
resident, was born in Bangladesh, President Donald Trump called for new
restrictions on immigration. Others called for increasing government
spying and surveillance, and used the incident to try and boost support
for further unleashing the cops. New York cops increased their heavily
armed presence around the city after the partially detonated pipe bomb
attack.
Ullah hoped to kill and maim hundreds of commuters at the Port Authority
station during the morning rush hour. He survived and told cops he acted
for Islamic State. His botched explosion injured three others.
President Trump called for an end to extended-family migration. Building
on anti-working-class measures by previous Democratic and Republican
administrations, this would block family members in another country from
joining their relatives living here.
This proposal, along with stepped-up deportations and moves by the
administration to end the Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and
Nicaraguans, is aimed at reinforcing the bosses’ efforts to deepen
divisions among working people. The propertied rulers use their
government to turn immigration on and off depending on the rise and fall
of capitalist production and trade.
New York Police Department spokespeople said they will increase the
deployment of heavily armed cops, expand checkpoints and haul more
people over for bag searches. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would double the
number of State Police troopers at transportation hubs. Mayor Bill de
Blasio used the blast to try and bolster the image of the cops, saying
workers here are “blessed with the finest law enforcement.” But the cops
are widely distrusted by working people, many of whom have had
experience with stop-and-frisk shakedowns and police abuse.
New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill blasted Silicon Valley bosses
for resisting demands that the cops have greater access to cellphone and
internet data for targeting “terror” suspects. Such measures would give
the cops greater cover for their spying and frame-up operations against
Muslims, mosques and others, including workers leading resistance to the
bosses’ assaults.
Pointing to the 23 people killed in May’s terror attack in Manchester,
England, Wall Street Journal editors criticized the 2013 closure of the
NYPD’s covert surveillance program targeting Muslims, urging expansion
of cop spying operations.
Ullah’s family issued a statement saying they were “heartbroken” by his
terror attack, but also condemned the cops’ abusive interrogation of
family members. They say a teenage relative was pulled out of high
school and questioned without a lawyer or his parents present.
Capitalist governments around the world have used terror attacks to
promote the false notion that workers and bosses share common interests
in fighting against such assaults, including for measures they seek to
impose that restrict workers’ rights — from increased spying to
expanding “conspiracy” laws to imprison people who haven’t committed any
crime.
French rulers used the killing of 130 people in terror attacks in Paris
in 2015 to declare a state of emergency and then ban a union-sponsored
protest. It was extended several times over two years, then replaced
last month with measures that give the cops greater powers to stop and
search suspects, use wiretaps, and close down mosques and other venues
that the authorities claim are a haven for “preaching hatred.”
Days prior to the attempted bombing in New York, the U.S. Supreme Court
ordered the enforcement of the government’s travel ban targeting the
citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela
and Yemen. Except for North Korea and Venezuela, the affected countries
are majority Muslim.
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home