Re: Another case from the "subhuman files"

You don't support someon'es religion?

You f*cking fascist.


"It's Americans OR Democrats" <rander3127@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:edd3ed39-9be3-41c1-bc55-cc8ed7e11deb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
NEW YORK (AP) -- From her baptism in Liberia to Christmas years later
in her adopted New York City, Mamie Manneh never lost the longing to
celebrate religious rituals by eating monkey meat.

Now, the tribal customs of Manneh and other West African immigrants
have become the focus of an unusual criminal case charging her with
meat smuggling, and touching on issues of religious freedom,
infectious diseases and wildlife preservation.

The case "appears to be the first of its kind relating to that
uniquely African product," defense attorney Jan Rostal wrote in a
pending motion to dismiss. "Unfortunately, it represents the sort of
clash of cultural and religious values inherent in the melting pot
that is America."

At the center of the case in federal court is a modest woman with nine
children and a history of domestic discord.

The case dates to early 2006, when federal inspectors at JFK Airport
examined a shipment of 12 cardboard boxes from Guinea.

They were addressed to Manneh and, according to a flight manifest,
contained African dresses and smoked fish with a value of $780.

Instead, stashed underneath the smoked fish, the inspectors found what
West Africans refer to as bushmeat: "skulls, limbs and torsos of
nonhuman primate species" plus the hoof and leg of a small antelope,
according to court papers.
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Three days later, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents were at
Manneh's door, where she told them she ran a smoked fish importing
business.

According to the agents, she initially denied ordering any bushmeat
from Africa or ever eating it while in the United States.

But after she consented to a search, the agents came across a tiny,
hairy arm hidden in her garage.

"Monkey," she explained, claiming the arm was sent to her out of the
blue "as a gift from God in heaven."

Federal prosecutors hit Manneh with smuggling charges that accused her
of violating import procedures and suggested she was a menace to man
and beast alike.

A criminal complaint cited evidence that the illegal importation of
bushmeat encourages the slaughter of protected wild animals.

More ominously, the complaint warned of "the potential health risks to
humans linking bushmeat to diseases like Lassa fever, Ebola, HIV, SARS
and monkeypox."

Defense attorney Rostal has countered by accusing the government of
picking on a poorly educated immigrant.

Her client's only offense, she said, was her inability to grasp
Western attitudes and highly technical regulations regarding bushmeat.

Defense papers also argue that the U.S. demand for the meat involved
in the Manneh case -- from Africa's green monkey population -- is "too
small to have any significance for conservation."

Manneh, 39, testified last year that before arriving in the United
States more than 25 years ago, monkey meat was critical to her
religious upbringing.

At age 7, "I was baptized and they used that for the baptizing
ceremony," she told a judge.

Manneh is already serving a two-year sentence in state prison for
trying to run over a woman she suspected of sleeping with her husband,
Zangar Jefferson. If convicted of the federal charges she faces up to
five more years in prison and deportation.

"The government's taking a woman away from her children," complained
Jefferson, who's struggling to raise the children alone. "It's very
depressing, especially with the holidays right around the corner."

The prosecution also has dampened spirits at the church in Staten
Island where Manneh and other African immigrants once packed the pews
to practice a religion blending Christianity and tribal customs.

One of the few worshippers left, Leona Artis, says the congregation's
appetite for monkey meat is deeply misunderstood.

Take Thanksgiving.

"Where some people have turkey, we'll have monkey meat," Artis said.
"I've been eating it all my life. It's delicious."

Baptisms, Easter, Christmas, weddings -- all are occasions for eating
monkey, Manneh's supporters said in a sworn statement filed with the
court.

The statement was vague about how the meat is obtained, but explains
that it always arrives dried and smoked. Once blessed by a pastor, "we
usually prepare it by cooking it for several hours into a stew," they
said.

For them, the exotic import is more than just food.

"We eat bushmeat," they said, "for our souls.


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