Perched amid pink flamingoes and campaign advertisements, white signs printed with “Free Ibrahim” dot front lawns on Hinman and Judson avenues at Dempster Street.
The signs are about Ibrahim Parlak, a Kurdish man held as a deportable alien in a Michigan jail for the last eight months. Parlak hails from Turkey but met his girlfriend and lived for five years in Evanston before moving to Michigan.
Parlak’s 2004 arrest stems from what U.S. immigration officials say is an incomplete asylum application and a recent review of his conviction for Kurdish separatism by Turkish courts.
After a year of living in the United States, Parlak was granted asylum in 1992, said attorney Jay Marhoefer, of Latham & Watkins, LLP., the firm representing Parlak for free. Parlak told his immigration officer he was imprisoned and tortured in Turkey for being active in the separatist Kurdish Worker’s Party, which has since been classified as a terrorist organization.
Following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. government began applying its terrorism laws more strictly, he said. The changed security atmosphere led to rejection of Parlak’s U.S. citizenship application in 2001, Marhoefer said.
Parlak’s attorneys are now waging a legal battle against the government to determine if the man is a former terrorist who must be deported, or a refugee who lived the American dream until ensnared by a changing U.S. security climate.
EVANSTON ROOTS
In the summer of 1991, Parlak met then-Evanston resident Michele Gazzolo on a blind date at the Blind Faith Cafe, 525 Dempster St. Soon after, they moved in together on Noyes Street.
The couple moved to Harbert, Mich., in 1996, where they had a daughter, Livia, Gazzolo said. They since have split up but remain good friends.
Gazzolo, 45, said the “Free Ibrahim” campaign began in July, on the afternoon of Parlak’s arrest. Although the first supporters were Harbert residents, the issue soon ballooned into Evanston.
Barbara Gazzolo, Michele’s mother, who lives on the 1200 block of Hinman Avenue, distributed the “Free Ibrahim” signs in her neighborhood.
Evanston resident Sue Schell, 48, who lives on Barbara Gazzolo’s block, said she posted a sign on her lawn even though she never met Parlak.
“On 9/11, not only did we have the 3,000 people who died, but also Ibrahim was a victim without knowing it,” she said.
A BREWING STORM
According to Parlak’s attorneys, immigration officers said Parlak did not mention in his asylum application that he was involved in the deaths of two Turkish soldiers. But Parlak, who spoke little English at the time, said he didn’t know his translator omitted the information.
Another complication arose in 2004, when the Turkish government reviewed Parlak’s term in jail in the 1980s for Kurdish separatism. Although the court determined Parlak had served his sentence, the review of his felony case could still be grounds for deportation under U.S. immigration law, Marhoefer said.
Parlak was arrested in Michigan on July 29, 2004. He is being held without bond in Michigan’s Calhoun County Jail.
IN COURT
The case to deport Parlak might eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court, Marhoefer said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit and the Office of Immigration and Litigation refused to release Parlak on bond, citing mandatory detention laws, as well as their right to hold any alien according to their discretion.
Marhoefer said holding Parlak without bond is unconstitutional.
“Unless you have some real evidence that someone is a flight risk or a threat to his community or to national security, you can’t just hold them in jail without bond,” he said.
Marhoefer said his law firm filed complaints challenging Parlak’s detention and possible deportation. He expects to take both issues to court.
GATHERING MOMENTUM
About 400 people nationwide receive e-mail updates on Parlak’s case, Michele Gazzolo said.
Fund-raising events are also spreading. Parlak’s supporters organized a Chicago benefit viewing for late May of the play “Homeland Security,” written by Evanston Township High School graduate Stuart Flack.
The elder Gazzolo, a 40-year Evanston resident, said Evanston’s response to Parlak is not surprising.
Gazzolo said her neighborhood is historically vocal about public affairs. On July 4, 1970, she said, the 1100 and 1200 blocks of Hinman Avenue unofficially seceded from the United States for an afternoon following the shootings of students at Kent State University.
“There are enough politically active and informed people here — people who read the news, who read books,” she said. “They know how they feel about justice issues. That’s what I like about this town.”
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