: United States Penitentiary Terre Haute, Ind. where the first Communications Management Unit was installed, locking prisoners away from the outside world including physical contact with families. Muslims have been disproportionately targeted according to the Center for Constitutional Rights.

DEARBORN — A host of civil rights and legal organizations came together to shine the spotlight on a controversial issue involving federal prisons entitled “Experiments in Social Isolation: Communications Management Units (CMUs) and the Expansion of Unconstitutional Detention Policies in the post-9/11 Federal Prison System” at the Henry Ford Centennial Library early last month. 

Currently in the United States, there are two known CMU’s in federal prisons in Terre Haute, Indiana and Marion, Illinois.

The units house prisoners that are categorically denied any physical contact with all visitors including family members.

One of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the practice is Hedaya Jayyousi from metro Detroit, whose husband Kifah was moved to a CMU without explanation according to Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Staff Attorney Alexis Agathocleous .

The New York-based organization said they suspect that between 70 to 80 people are being held in CMU’s which have been described as being worse than maximum security prison by Hedaya Jayyousi.

Agathocleous said that the CCR has found that the circumstances surrounding assignments to CMU’s are questionable.

“Normally a designation to a unit comes without explanation, generally speaking the Bureau of Prisons doesn’t disclose why,” he said.

“There’s no meaningful review process or explanation of how long someone is going to be there or how they can get out.”

The CCR also found that somewhere between 65 to 72 percent of CMU detainees are Muslims; only six percent of the national average of prisoners is Muslim.

The organization also found that environmental and even animal rights activists have been sent to the units as well adding to concerns that they are being used as holding grounds for political prisoners.

Agathocleous said that some indications have been given that CMU prisoners are placed in the units for fears that they may conduct recruitment and radicalization practices  without indications of what led to those determinations or what such practices would entail.

 Some of the prisoners have been convicted of providing material support to organizations deemed to be associated with terrorism while other prisoners’ convictions were unrelated to terrorism according to Agathocleous.

Studies acknowledged by the BOP show that the chance to see family and friends and to interact with them is the single most important predictor of a successful transition back to society according to Agathocleous as well but prisoners in CMU’s live their lives almost entirely in solitude with little hope of getting out or seeing loved ones.

“There seems to be a total lack of due process involving these units,” Agathocleous said.

Visits take place behind glass and phone calls are also severely restricted as Agathocleous described at the event.

A lawsuit filed by CCR against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the BOP alleges that the lawful practice of allowing public comment by public organizations before opening the two centers in 2006 and 2008 was bypassed.

It includes five CMU detainees including two of their spouses (Hedaya Jayyousi being one of them) and said that all prisoners  have been classified as low or medium security risks, including Kifah Jayyousi who was classified as a low security risk before being moved to a CMU despite a clean disciplinary history.

Kifah Jayyousi was originally convicted on a conspiracy to provide material support charge involving financial contributions to a charity that was found to have ties to terrorism. The original sentence was 12 years and eight months.

His wife Hedaya Jayyousi spoke at the event, saying that her husband was an upstanding citizen who served in the United States navy.

She said that the communication restrictions and uncertainty surrounding her husband’s status have placed an incredible strain on her family.

“This is a very bad situation for the family,” said Hedaya Jayyousi.

“There is no understanding, no explanation, we try to fight the situation to ask them to put him in a regular place,” she said.

Her husband is now in the Marion, Illinois facility which she says is a 14-hour drive that is not feasible for the family.

Agathocleous said that his organization has heard about other Muslim leaders from other prisons suddenly being transferred to CMU’s  and isolated as well despite a lack of charges relating to communication infractions or convictions on anything terrorism-related.

He hopes that people will do their best to tell their representatives and media members about the units in order to spread awareness.

“I encourage people to reach out to elected representatives if they are concerned about this policy, there are due process violations occurring at two CMU’s and we’re concerned about vast over-representation of Muslims and political prisoners,” he said.

“We’re hoping to push them to ask BOP elected officials to explain why this policy was put in place and to ask for greater transparency.”

For more information on the CCR, visit www.ccrjustice.org.