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Nashwan Uppal, special needs student bullied into false confession.
Nashwan Uppal, special needs student bullied into false confession.
Uppal, a special needs student, repeatedly tried to get away, but in an effort to get the children to stop, he acquiesced and is alleged to have told the them he was a terrorist and was going to blow up the fence, according to the lawsuit. The family stated that because of his learning disability, Uppal thought "terrorist" meant "tourist,"and the fence was the first thing he saw when he looked out of the window.
The next day, Uppal was taken to the assistant principal's office who interrogated him along with the school's principal, where he was asked repeatedly if he was a terrorist, if he made bombs, if he knew who "Osama" was, and if he was part of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), according to the complaint.
The school principal Mark Bernard and assistant principal Jason Stanton are alleged to have demanded he write a confession stating he was part of IS, knew how to make bombs and was going to blow up the school, according to the complaint. The family maintains that he was forced to write the confession under "extreme duress" and had his civil rights violated. His backpack and locker were also searched.
Comment: Sad commentary on the workings of propaganda and fear mongering to the extent 12 year-olds with disabilities are accused of terrorism and are subsequently traumatized into making confessions. This principal should have known that this child may not have had the capacity to understand the accusations. Instead, he bought into the taunts of bully students and embellished further with his own bias and hubris. Nashwan is a US citizen of Pakistani background.