Iranian couple in West Virginia still fighting to clear name

The Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette reports on a disturbing case involving two employees of Iranian descent at the National Institute for Occupational Safety Health, whose lives were destroyed two years ago in what critics say is a blatant case of ethnic profiling:

For 18 years, Ali and Shahla Afshari did everything America asks immigrants to do. The couple educated themselves and their three children. They served their new country through research to prevent workplace diseases.

None of that mattered on May 5, 2004 - what Ali Afshari calls "the worst day of our lives." With no warning or explanation, both were fired from their positions at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown. [...]

More than two years later, the Iranian natives say they still don't know why they were fired from the jobs they had held for years, except that they "failed to pass a background check."

But since then, they've learned some things, thanks to a lawsuit filed by Morgantown lawyer Al Karlin and several others:

*** A government official has recanted her sworn testimony about the couple. The official once said she received a briefing from security officials and then recommended their termination. Now, she says that her earlier sworn testimony was "not consistent" with her current "recollection of matters."

*** Long before they were fired, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had conducted a routine check on the couple, decided they were not a security threat and closed their file.

*** The government officials in Atlanta who recommended their firing never interviewed their neighbors, co-workers or supervisors in Morgantown.

The Afsharis' work had nothing to do with state secrets or national security. For example, Ali Afshari helped design experiments to test how asphalt fumes hurt the lungs.

There are many more inconsistencies in the government's case, including the fact that many of the government officials involved in the Afsharis' case never saw the supposed evidence against them.

The Afsharis are asking to be reinstated and recoup their legal fees, although the damage has been done:

But no settlement could make up for what they have suffered, Ali Afshari says. That day shook the family to its very core, he said. It shook their faith in themselves and in the United States but did not destroy it, he said. For even as the U.S. government fought them in court, they decided to start the process to become permanent citizens.

"The foundation of this country is strong," he said. "What a few individuals did, that does not undermine what this country is.

"Freedom is not an easy thing," he added. "Sometimes we must fight for it."