24 November 2007 - Human rights activist arrested in terrible mistake
Hillel Neuer, of UN Watch, was arrested earlier this month in Needham, MA by police who responded to hysterical calls from restaurant patrons who mistook him for a wanted man (who was, at the same time, being arrested somewhere else). The Boston Globe account makes it clear Neuer was lucky to escape alive. The picture below is from the Boston Herald. (Neuer was later released and the charges were dropped.)
You might recall that Neuer is the man who gave that stirring speech condemning the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year:
The next time anyone tells you that American police are part of some conspiracy to get Muslims or whatever, remember this: they arrested an Orthodox Jew--a Zionist, no less, in broad daylight, in middle America.
UPDATE: The post originally referred to Hillel Neuer as a representative of Human Rights Watch. This was a slip-up on my part; he is, of course, the Executive Director of UN Watch.
posted by Joel @ 1:43 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
the woman who shouted: He's got a gun!" should have been arrested for "disorderly conduct", not Neuer and should also be sent for observation to see if indeed she is suffering from a histrionic personality disorder and then sent for obligatory counselling. As for the arresting Police Officers: they should be tested for possible steroid abuse and if the use of undue force and poor judgment is validated by an independent asessor they should be enrolled in an anger management group.
Joel -
One small, but important, correction. Neuer is not from Human Rights Watch. In fact, I am not sure he would even want to be affiliated with them. Rather, he is the executive director of UN Watch, a NGO dedicated to monitoring the UN Charter which is an offshoot of the AJC. UN Watch has frequently attacked the UN, and especially the Human Rights Council, of focusing only on Israel, a claim which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been made by Human Rights Watch.
"The next time anyone tells you that American police are part of some conspiracy to get Muslims or whatever, remember this: they arrested an Orthodox Jew--a Zionist, no less, in broad daylight, in middle America."
It's obvious from the picture that to any average American, Neuer is suspicious precisely because "looks" Arab/Mizrahi. The fact that such racial profiling sometimes has ironic outcomes doesn't make it any less serious.
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