Brooklyn College students oppose NYPD spying on campus
By
Josh Varlin
1 December 2017
Students at Brooklyn College, one of the four-year colleges in the City University of New York system, expressed opposition to police activity on campus after a screening of Watched, a documentary on surveillance of Muslim students at BC by the New York City Police Department.
Watched, which was first shown at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, details how the New York Police Department spied on BC Muslim students for four years—2011-2015. The NYPD sent “Mel” as an undercover informant, who became very close to students in the BC Muslim Student Association.
At an MSA-organized event like other “Ask a Muslim” events—where students can ask their Muslim peers questions about Islam in an open and collegial way—Mel took a declaration of Muslim faith.
Over the ensuing years, she ingratiated herself into the lives of BC students active in the MSA, even attending some of their weddings.
According to a Muslim BC student interviewed in Watched, Mel, unlike almost every other convert to a new religion, asked essentially no questions about how best to practice her new faith. Her first question, a year and a half in, was about suicide bombing.
This years-long, extensive surveillance of BC students has produced a chilling effect on campus, with many students concerned that similar police spying may resume—or may be continuing uninterrupted. According to the Excelsior, BC’s student newspaper, a student asked at the screening if “there could be an informant in this room,” to which the panelists simultaneously answered, “Yes.”
Two students attributed the recent inactivity of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) club to police surveillance and BC…