Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Citizens Union

Kamelia Kliawan

Kamelia Kliawan has not set their biography yet

Posted by on

Community organizers and religious leaders from various faiths came together in front of City Hall to mark International Human Rights Day by calling for increased oversight of the New York Police Department.

Advocates say that the use of controversial police practices such as stop-and-frisk and monitoring of Muslims demonstrate the need to reform public safety in communities of color.

They have called for the passage of a package of legislation called the Community Safety Act that includes a measure that would create a new inspector general to oversee the NYPD who would make recommendations about policy.

The police have said that their tactics make the city safer. Mayor Michael M. Bloomberg is firmly opposed to the Community Safety Act.

“The Muslim community is under siege,” said Imam Ayub Abdul-Baki, of the Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York, at today’s rally. “We are insecure about dealing with police officers in our community ... We are not sure if they are protecting or victimizing us.”

Faizah N. Ali, a 27-year-old coordinator for civic engagement from the Arab American Association of New York, said she became motivated to work on police accountability after news reports last year that the NYPD was monitoring Muslims.

“In a democratic society, part of our job is to hold our leaders accountable,” she said.

Ali explained that the unity among the various religious and ethnic groups at City Hall was part of an effort to emphasize the need for social justice in police practices. “We are a set of diverse New Yorkers looking for the police to treat everyone with dignity and respect," she said.

___

Image courtesy eyewashdesign: A. Golden, used under Creative Commons license.

More about:

Posted by on

The public advocate wants the city agency responsible for overseeing the construction of affordable housing to make sure it doesn’t contract with potential crooks.

Bill de Blasio announced earlier today that he had sent the commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development a letter urging the agency to review all current contracts and suspend any involving companies that might be under investigation.

De Blasio said he was spurred to write the letter following reports that an executive at a company bidding for projects with HPD is under investigation for bribery.

“We need to take commonsense precautions any time there is a chance a company bribed its way to city business,” De Blasio said in a statement earlier today.

Catie Marshall, an HPD spokeswoman, said the agency does extensive background checks on all developers and contractors to identify whether they may have been convicted or have been involved in any violations.  

...
More about:

Posted by on

Members of the city’s Sikh community are calling on the New York Police Department to lift its restrictions on the type of turbans that officers can wear and the length of beards they can keep.

Sikh organizations held a news conference at the offices of City Comptroller John C. Liu today announcing an initiative to bring pressure on the NYPD to change their rules.

The NYPD currently allows Sikh officers to wear a dark-blue “patka” — a head garment commonly worn by younger male children of the faith — underneath their official police hats.

“I know lots of Sikhs who want to join the NYPD, but don’t because of this regressive policy,” said Prabjhot Singh Narula, the co-founder of the Sikh Coalition, in a statement.

Liu has said he would also petition the police to change the regulations.

...
More about:
Tagged in: John Liu NYPD Sikhism Sikhs

Posted by on

Riko Guzman said today on the steps of City Hall that when he was 11 years old he was with friends on his Bronx neighborhood sidewalk “doing nothing” when a police officer stopped and frisked him.

“I was approached by my own heroes,” said the Bronx member of the Justice Committee, a Latino-led organization that works on police accountability.

Guzman joined with other Latino and African American local elected officials, community leaders and reformers earlier today to urge passage of a package of City Council bills that could change the way the New York Police Department does its job.

U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez said the police use of stop-and-frisk is doing little for public safety. Instead, community members “view the police as a threat and enemy, not as an ally to make their community safer,” she said.

The bills, known collectively as the The Community Safety Act, are sponsored by City Councilman Jumaane Williams of Brooklyn, who noted that advocates of the bills are “not anti-police.”

...
More about:

Posted by on

In a heated district leader race in northern Brooklyn, reform candidate Lincoln Restler trails behind longtime Greenpoint activist Chris Olechowski, the candidate backed by disgraced party boss Vito Lopez.

The race in Lopez’s 50th Assembly District may come down to a counting of affidavit and absentee ballots. Restler is behind Olechowski by a margin of 136 votes, with Olechowski receiving 5,820 votes to Restler’s 5,684.

Valerie Vazquez, a spokeswoman for the city Board of Elections, said in an email today that affidavit and absentee ballots will be counted starting on Friday, Sept. 21, and may continue through Sunday.

More than 11,000 people voted in the high-profile district leader race, with a large flow of members of the Satmar-Hasidic community filling into poll sites ready to cast their vote for Olechowski. The New York Times reported that “it made it seem as if the election would determine the nation’s president rather than the low-profile position of the district leader of a few Brooklyn neighborhoods." The Times said the turnout reflected the group’s loyalty to the Brooklyn party boss.

Restler, 28, whose win as district leader in 2010 represented a major success for anti-machine Brooklynites, is depending on the count of absentee ballots and voting procedure challenges to close in on the margin of votes needed for his re-election.

...
More about: