Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 9 August 2002 — Page 6

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THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, AUGUST 9,2002

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Bush appointee to civil rights panel draws fire

By HAZEL TRICE EDNEY NNPA Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON (NNPA) — PeterN. Kirsanow has been a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for less than three months, but there already are calls for his resignation. However, President Bush says he will not remove Kirsanow even though the Cleveland labor lawyer and former board chairman of the conservative Center for New Black Leadership raised the possibility of internment camps for the detention of Arab Americans, similar to the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. “I believe no matter how many laws we have, how many agencies we have, how many police officers we have monitoring civil rights, that if there’s another terrorist attack and if it’s from a certain ethnic community or certain ethnicities that the terrorists are from, you can forget civil rights in this country,” Kirsanow, said at the commission’s July 19 meeting in Detroit. “I think we will have a return to Korematsu and 1 think the best way we can thwart that is to make sure that there is a balance between protecting civil rights, but also protecting safety at the same time.” Kirsanow was referring to Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American who filed suit against the United States claiming racial discrimination and constitutional rights vio-

lations when he refused to report to an internment camp during World War II. The commission met in Detroit to explore civil rights problems faced by Arab Americans and Muslims in Midwestern states. When a reporter for the Detroit Free Press asked Kirsanow to clarify his statements, he was quoted as saying, “Not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops, more profiling, there will be a groundswell of public opinion to banish civil rights. So the best thing we can do to preserve them is by keeping the country safe.” ' Though Kirsanow clearly did not advocate such detentions or racial profiling, he just as clearly did not state that they were emphatically wrong. “His comments were reckless and inflammatory and we believe that they contributed needlessly to intolerance directed against Arab-Americans, Muslims, South Asians and others who have been unfairly targeted for hate crime violence in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedy,” says Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, who issued a letter to the president on behalf of its 185 member organizations. Ziad J. Asali, president of the Ameri-can-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, also signed the letter. "Moreover, as a member of the

Civil Rights Commission, Kirsanow has a responsibility to advocate the protection of civil rights, particularly in times of crisis. We don’t need members of the commission who are willingly contributing to the diminution of the very rights they are charged to protect,” Henderson says in an interview. Henderson and Asali’s letter praises the president for his handling of the terrorist attacks, then asks him to remove Kirsanow from the commission, an anti-bias panel established by Congress in 1957 as an independent and non-partisan agency. “We thank you for sending a clear message to the American people that collective blame and stereotyping are unacceptable and un-American,” they wrote. “It is in the spirit of these vital moral principles that we ask that you repudiate and disavow the remarks made by Peter Kirsanow ... and take steps to remove him from this important position.” But, the president says the explanation that the commissioner gave in response to the controversy was sufficient. “Mr. Kirsanow has assured the White House that he was discussing the importance that ensuring the security of the American people plays in guaranteeing their civil liberties,” says White House spokeswoman Mercedes Viana. “No, we will not ask for his resignation.”

Hearing set for Aug. 16 in Martinsville slaying

MARTINSVILLE, Ind. (AP)— .A judge has set an Aug. 16 hearing to determine whether a 70-year-old man recently^harged in,the 1968 killing of a Black encyclopedia saleswoman is mentally competent to stand trial. Morgan Superior Court Judge Christopher Burnham has received reports from two psychiatrists on whether Kenneth C. Richmond is capable of understanding the charges against him and of assisting in his defense. The reports will not be released, but the two doctors will testify at the competency hearing, Burnham said. Court-appointed defense attorney Steve Litz filed the motion to

determine Richmond’s competency on July 9, saying his client had been hallucinating. Litz also said Richmond did not recognize him during his jail visits. In a hearing on Aug. 2, Burnham allowed Prosecutor Steve Sonnega to give Richmond’s evaluations to an independent mental health expert for more analysis. Richmond, of Indianapolis, is accused of stabbing Carol Jenkins, a 21 -year-old Rushville woman, as she sold encyclopedias door-to-door in Martinsville in 1968. Prosecutors say the killing was racially motivated. Richmond was implicated by his own daughter, Shirley Richmond McQueen of Indianapolis,

who was only 7 years old at the time of the killing. McQueen told investigators she was in a car with her father and another white man and saw them stop and chase a Black woman. McQueen said Richmond stabbed the woman in the chest. He has pleaded innocent to the murder charge. Richmond, who is suffering from hepatitis, incontinence, seizures and bladder cancer, was moved to the medical ward at the Plainfield Correctional Facility on July 22. He was not in court Aug. 2, but Burnham has ordered that Richmond be transported to Morgan County for his competency hearing.

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