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Muslim boy forced to falsely admit terrorist act, lawsuit says
East Islip Middle School in Islip Terrace on Dec. 27, 2015. (Credit: Ian J. Stark)
The family of a 12-year-old Muslim middle school student has filed a $25 million federal lawsuit against the East Islip school district, claiming the seventh-grader’s civil rights were violated when school officials forced him to sign a false confession saying he was a terrorist.
The family of Nashwan Uppal, a Pakistani special-needs student from Islip Terrace, filed the suit Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Central Islip, claiming school officials forced him to confess, under extreme duress, to a terrorist act and crimes he did not commit, and “that he was a member of ISIS, a vile and infamous terrorist organization.” School officials also ignored repeated and severe incidents of bullying against Nashwan from older students, the court papers stated.
Named as defendants in the suit are East Islip Superintendent John Dolan, East Islip Middle School Principal Mark Bernard and Assistant Principal Jason Stanton. The district declined to comment Tuesday, citing the ongoing litigation.
“This was understandably an extremely traumatic event for Nashwan, his mother and his entire family,” said the family’s attorney David Antwork, of Merrick. “Nashwan, a child with social, language and learning disabilities, was confined, berated, interrogated and forced to falsely confess to horrible things by the school administrators who were supposed to be caring for him and protecting him.”
According to the suit, Nashwan was bullied and harassed on Jan. 6 in the middle school cafeteria by older students who called him a terrorist and asked him when he was going to blow up the school.
The suit said that cafeteria workers failed to notice the bullying and, after being repeatedly harassed, Nashwan said he was a terrorist and “was going to blow up the school fence.”
But court papers say that due to his learning disability, he was mimicking what the older students were saying.
The next day, Jan. 7, while he was in gym class, Nashwan was called to the principal’s office. The suit claims that Stanton “began yelling and screaming,” and he and Bernard interrogated Nashwan, including asking him if he was “part of ISIS.”
School officials searched his belongings and his locker, and did not call his parents, the court papers said. Stanton ordered him to write a confession, saying that “he was part of ISIS and knew how to make bombs.”
Nashwan, pressured under extreme duress, the court papers said, made a written confession “that he was a terrorist.”
School officials also called Suffolk police to the school, according to the lawsuit. Nashwan’s mother, Nubiasha Amar, was told that Nashwan would be suspended for one week of school for “criminal activity,” court papers said. But the court papers said he was out for a month.
Suffolk police also searched the family’s home and Nashwan’s computer but found nothing, according to the suit.
Police declined to comment Tuesday.
Court papers said the Nashwan and his parents have “suffered severe and extreme emotional distress, including, but not limited to nightmares, sleeplessness, crying, fear, humiliation and stress.”
The suit claims the school district violated Nashwan’s civil rights, discriminating against him based on his race, ethnicity, religion and national origin. It says he was also discriminated against due to his disability, was subject to unlawful search and seizure, and deprived of his rights against self-incrimination, due process and equal protection under the law. School officials also violated the Dignity for All Students Act, intentionally inflicted emotional distress and defamed him, according to the court documents.
According to the suit, Nashwan was bullied and harassed on Jan. 6 in the middle school cafeteria by older students who called him a terrorist and asked him when he was going to blow up the school.
This. So he said out loud he was going to blow up the school.
According to the suit, Nashwan was bullied and harassed on Jan. 6 in the middle school cafeteria by older students who called him a terrorist and asked him when he was going to blow up the school.
This. So he said out loud he was going to blow up the school.
HUH? Other kids asked him, and that's means he said it? And then bullied him until he repeated it and he got in trouble? That's crap.
Regardless, school administrators should not have been interrogating him like a criminal without his parents there. He should win. Maybe not $25 million, but enough to teach the school a lesson.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
A flock of flirting flamingos is pure, passionate, pink pandemonium-a frenetic flamingle-mangle-a discordant discotheque of delirious dancing, flamboyant feathers, and flamingo lingo.
Seriously, Gaga, when you accuse a child of being a terrorist based on nothing, then you lose any credibility at all. This is America, and freedom of religion matters. It's what makes us different and better.
And it scares me that you sit on a school board.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Ok. If what he said happened actually happened the school should not only pay the money but everyone involved should be fired. If that's not the way it happened then the kid's a liar and a terrorist.
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“Until I discovered cooking, I was never really interested in anything.” ― Julia Child ―
Frankly i am amazed at how quickly some of you are all in to a ginned up media story before all the facts come out.
Give me a break. You do it all the damn time, but you just like to argue. You just don't care in this case b/c he's Muslim. Remember - you take their religious freedoms away, Christians are next.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Ok. If what he said happened actually happened the school should not only pay the money but everyone involved should be fired. If that's not the way it happened then the kid's a liar and a terrorist.
Yeah, God forbid, we read the article and the news presented.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
When someone says outloud " i am going to blow up the school" then the school must act. If he was bullied that is a seperate issue from saying he will blow something up. Then the school has every right to search him, call the police and detain him.
And you know what? This kind of crap can actually make someone hate the government that didn't before. He's in his damn formative years, and he was just bullied and treated like a terrorist. We'll all be lucky if he doesn't actually become one from this.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Ok. If what he said happened actually happened the school should not only pay the money but everyone involved should be fired. If that's not the way it happened then the kid's a liar and a terrorist.
Yeah, God forbid, we read the article and the news presented.
Seriously LL? It's HIS lawyer talking. You know the Schools lawyer cannot speak on this. Wow.
When someone says outloud " i am going to blow up the school" then the school must act. If he was bullied that is a seperate issue from saying he will blow something up. Then the school has every right to search him, call the police and detain him.
Yes, being forced to say it is exactly the same thing. He's twelve and has disabilities. This is crap.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Ok. If what he said happened actually happened the school should not only pay the money but everyone involved should be fired. If that's not the way it happened then the kid's a liar and a terrorist.
Yeah, God forbid, we read the article and the news presented.
Seriously LL? It's HIS lawyer talking. You know the Schools lawyer cannot speak on this. Wow.
And lawyers have an ethical obligation not to file suits they know are frivolous. So, unless a judge tosses it for being frivolous - where there is smoke, there is fire.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Ok. If what he said happened actually happened the school should not only pay the money but everyone involved should be fired. If that's not the way it happened then the kid's a liar and a terrorist.
Yeah, God forbid, we read the article and the news presented.
Seriously LL? It's HIS lawyer talking. You know the Schools lawyer cannot speak on this. Wow.
And lawyers have an ethical obligation not to file suits they know are frivolous. So, unless a judge tosses it for being frivolous - where there is smoke, there is fire.
So it is the "seriousness of the charge" not the actilual evidence that matters. Funny how i have heard that same statement from liberals.
Um yeah. That is what HIS lawyer says. Doesnt mean that it happened that way.
They have a written confession from a kid that was done when neither his parents or a lawyer were present. That is enough. Period. The schools employees are government employees - they violated his rights even if he was guilty.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Ok lol. What was bigoted about saying i want to hear all the facts.?
You are saying an entire article is baseless. You would NOT do that if this was a white Christian kid in the article accusing Muslim kids/teachers of the same type of harassment.
You post crap all the time and go on that based on Brietbart or whatever other conservative site you like with no corroborating facts. You are treating this article different specifically because it involves a Muslim student and family.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
And by the way - the police stated back when this happened there was no evidence of any wrongdoing on the kid's part. And even after that, the school suspended the kid.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
I will wait until the next story comes out where he was found to have been stockpiling weapons in his bedroom or his house blows up when his pipe bomb accidentally goes off.
This is more propaganda to "prove" muslims are peaceful and being wrongfully accused.
That being said, if he was bullied, then that needs to be addressed by the school. And if he really was forced to sign a statement without the presence of his parents, then the school was wrong, too. But my guess is there is a lot more to this story than this propaganda story is telling.
I will wait until the next story comes out where he was found to have been stockpiling weapons in his bedroom or his house blows up when his pipe bomb accidentally goes off.
This is more propaganda to "prove" muslims are peaceful and being wrongfully accused.
That being said, if he was bullied, then that needs to be addressed by the school. And if he really was forced to sign a statement without the presence of his parents, then the school was wrong, too. But my guess is there is a lot more to this story than this propaganda story is telling.
So I guess you missed the part where his home was searched and the police found nothing - which when you search other articles on the same story, the police stated.
If any of you think this stuff doesn't happen - you are flat out wrong. Otherwise we wouldn't actually need civil rights lawyers, or the Bill of Rights.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
I just pulled and read the Complaint. If even one of the allegations is true - that school and those administrators are in trouble.
Here's an interesting fact from the Complaint that someone would have to be stupid beyond belief to claim if not true because it would be easily verified. The boy was in the Special Education Department of the school. The school evaluations and reports themselves reported that the child has -
"severely impaired language skills" "has difficulty with understanding spoken language and exhibits weak vocabulary" "poor linguistic abilities when compared to same age peers" "significant weaknesses in cognitive and speech and language development" "weakness within the area of vocabulary significantly impacts his academics, particularly his reading comprehension" "ability to define words presented in isolation was found to be below average" "immature sentence length and structure, frequent hesitations and word finding difficulties" "continues to struggle with the production of grammatically correct sentences, the understanding and use of age appropriate vocabulary, organizing his thoughts and ideas and in producing fluid speech" "difficulty naming common objects" "continues to struggle formulating grammatically correct sentences, demonstrating an understanding of vocabulary and retaining information presented orally. His immature sentence length and structure and his limited vocabulary interfere with his ability to be an effective communicator" "vocabulary is an area of weakness" "socialization development is delayed. He does not use language effectively in social interaction"
Additionally - he always tested low with respect to being able to understand relationships between words - and he was tested often as a special needs child - BY THE SCHOOL. They are the ones that knew best of his disabilities.
His teachers included on the reports that he is "very sweet and cooperative", "a kind boy and gets along well with his peers", "is very police, well mannered and enjoys playing with others" "has respect for his teachers" "a cooperative youngster" "he has always been a very nice, polite and well adjusted young man".
Additionally, his mother states that she was outside waiting for him after school, and calling him repeatedly on his cell phone, worried because he didn't come out. She didn't know where he was for 2 hours and the school did not call her. And she signed the verified complaint under oath.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
While I feel for those who have no desire to eliminate the Western culture and attempt to assimilate to our way of life, like it or not, our lives, our country, and our culture is under attack. Threats to blow up a school are not taken lightly, even if allegedly made under duress by a student with "special needs."
Personally, growing up there were children with "special needs" at my school. In fact, when I was in 6th grade, I tutored them. I had a boy who had a hook for a hand, and was mentally challenged. I had a deaf girl who could not speak very well, too. I had some other children who were classified as "retarded", a word which is now banned from the English language. I worked with them daily for that entire school year. As a 6th grader, this was a big responsibility, and I felt honored to have been asked to do this.
These children were kept in their own row of classrooms, and had their own lunch hour, recesses, etc. This was for the safety of these children, and it protected them from the type of teasing that the average healthy, "normal" children do. (Let's face it, kids can be cruel.)
So flash forward to today. If schools even mentioned separating special needs children from the rest of the school, parents would get in an uproar that they were treated "differently." Singled out, discriminated against, etc. Great. Put them in with everyone else. Treat them equally, rather than granting them their special needs. but don't be surprised when they get bullied. School administration can only do so much, and much of the time their hands are tied.
I suspect that because of recent world events, schools aren't taking any chances when it comes to threats. I just hope this lawsuit doesn't tie the school administration hands even tighter.
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The suit said that cafeteria workers failed to notice the bullying and, after being repeatedly harassed, Nashwan said he was a terrorist and “was going to blow up the school fence.”
The School HAS to act. The school doesn't do all the investigation . They have to presume that any reported threat is real. If it turns out not to be true then it turns out not to be true.
Where does it say he threatened to blow up the school? I see where kids accused him of it but not where he actually said any such thing.
This is what the Complaint states -
On January 6, 2016, Nashwan was subjected to sever bullying and harassment from an older group of students while in the cafeteria of EIMS.
This older group of students repeatedly bullied, harassed and berated Nashwan and asked him where he was from. When Nashwan answered "Pakistan" the students continuously called him a "terrorist" and repeatedly asked him what he was going to blow up next.
This bullying and harassment endured for ten to fifteen minutes and when Nashwan moved his seat to another table in the cafeteria in an attempt to get away from these students, the bullies followed, incessantly repeating that Nashwan was a "terrorist" and asking him what he was going to blow up next.
Then, in a final attempt to stop the undying bullying and harassment which incredibly went unnoticed or ignored by patrolling teachers, cafeteria aids and/or monitors who did not intervene, and after having the word "terrorist" and the question "what are you going to blow up next" repeatedly ingrained into his head by the bullies, Nashwan told the bullies that he is a terrorist and he is going to blow up the fence.
Due to Nashwan's extensive social, language and learning disability, at the time he made this statement, he did not know what a "terrorist" was and was only mimicking and capitulating as to what the bullies relentlessly called him. In fact, at the time, Nashwan thought a "terrorist" was someone who "travels from place to place," more akin to a "tourist." Furthermore, Nashwan answered the bullies' recurrent question with "fence" because that was the first thing he saw when he peered out of the cafeteria window.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
The School HAS to act. The school doesn't do all the investigation . They have to presume that any reported threat is real. If it turns out not to be true then it turns out not to be true.
The school's first ACT should have been to call his parents.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.