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April 29, 2008
Dr. Al-Arian suspends hunger strike after 8 weeks
VIRGINIA – On the 57th day of his hunger strike, Dr. Sami Al-Arian yesterday suspended his fast, at the urging of his family, friends and supporters, Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace, announced on April 29.
Dr. Al-Arian, who has lost more than 40 pounds, began the hunger strike on March 3 to protest continued harassment and abuse of power by the Justice Department. Early last week, as his blood pressure and blood sugar reached dangerously low levels, Dr. Al-Arian collapsed and lost consciousness at his cell in Hampton Roads Regional Jail and was then examined by a doctor. Dr. Al-Arian drank no water for the first 18 days of his fast. During his hunger strike, he was moved to five different facilities a half dozen times.
Dr. Al-Arian was supposed to have been released on April 7. Since April 14, he has been in total segregation, and living under harsh conditions. He is not allowed any visitors and is given only two phone calls a month. Though officials at Hampton Roads Regional Jail told Dr. Al-Arian his conditions would improve and he would be moved into the general population as soon as he began eating again, this has proven to be a lie. Dr. Al-Arian remains in segregation although he has been cleared medically. Please see the Action Alert below to demand that he be treated humanely.
"Today Dr. Sami Al-Arian is an internationally recognized political prisoner in America Over the last two decades, his legendry struggle for the independence of Palestine has included five years of incarceration, which continues, and two extended hunger strikes for sixty days and fifty-seven days, respectively, " said Dr. Agha Saeed, chair of the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections. "Just as Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X symbolized the struggle for human rights in the fifties and sixties, Dr. Sami Al Arian has come to symbolize the current struggle for human rights. I am one of those who had beseeched him to end his hunger strike and I am personally indebted to him for accepting our request."
"Sami Al-Arian has put his own life on the line for human dignity, freedom, justice and peace," said Muhammad Salim Akhtar, chairman of American Muslim Alliance Midwest Region. "His resilience at the cost of his own physical and mental suffering has become a source of strength
for people of conscience and high morals to unite across borders."
For the past three weeks, ICE has been claiming that the deportation process has been slowed down because of Dr. Al-Arian's hunger strike. Following passionate appeal from his family, friends, and supporters, and on strong advice of his counsel, Dr. Al-Arian has also suspended
his hunger strike so as not to allow any further delays or excuses in his deportation.
"The political persecution of Dr. Al Arian will forever be a dark stain on our nation's history; a stain reminiscent of the Palmer Raids, the McCarthy era and COINTELPRO," said Mahdi Bray, executive director of MAS Freedom. "Never convicted of a crime by a jury of his peers and
after an agreement with the US government for deportation, Dr. Al Arian still remains inhumanely incarcerated. Who within our government has the courage to right this cold and calculated injustice?"
"Anybody can understand that this about basic fairness. You don't just keep adding jail time arbitrarily, " said Warren Clark, pastor of First United Church (UCC) of Tampa. Referring to the prison's ban of letters to Dr. Al-Arian, Clark said, "They are disallowing people of faith that
want to accompany him. That is disrespectful of humanity. We call upon our government to be respectful of these basic core values of humanity."
Peter Erlinder, former president of the National Lawyers Guild said: " On May 1, 2006, the Bush Justice Department publicly recommended that Dr. Al Arian be released and deported without delay, in order to claim a legal victory. The continued detention of Dr. Al Arian under inhumane
conditions is psychological and physical torture, intended to break the spirit of an American civil-liberties and human rights hero. Free Sami Al Arian, NOW!"
On April 15, a national press conference to demand the immediate release of Dr. Sami Al-Arian was held at the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center in Harlem.
Speakers at the press conference for Al-Arian represented prominent Muslim and civil rights organizations. They included Laila Al-Arian, his daughter; Malaak Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz; Ramsey Clark and Sara Flounders of the International Action Center; Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid and Aliya Latif of the Council on American-Islamic Relations; Heidi Boghosian of the National Lawyers Guild; Ghazi Khan Khan of the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights; Mahdi Brey of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation; and Muhammad Salim Akhtar of the American Muslim Alliance.
Al-Arian, a tenured professor at the University of South Florida, was arrested in 2003. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft trumpeted it as the “arrest of the most dangerous financier of Islamic Jihad in the Western world.”
This case of a Palestinian who raised funds for orphans and charities back home is viewed as one of the most extreme examples of racist and anti-Muslim persecution. The Justice Department has spent $50 million prosecuting the case. After a six-month trial, a jury found no evidence that any crime had been committed.
Despite the verdict and in violation of the terms of release and deportation set by the Justice Department, the authorities have continued to refuse to release Al-Arian. Instead, they have demanded that he give testimony against others. This he has courageously refused to do. They are vindictively threatening to keep him in prison for years in a flagrant abuse of the grand jury system.
Now Al-Arian is being held in isolation and transferred from one holding facility to another in a seriously weakened state, without any medical monitoring. His daughter reported that even his family does not know where he is currently being held.
Supporters were urged to call, write and/or sign the on-line petition to demand Al-Arian’s release and that the departments of Justice and Immigration adhere to their responsibility for the health and life of prisoners held in their custody. The petition and more information are available at the Web site www.FreeSamiNow.com
New York Times - April 18, 2008
Professor in deadlocked terrorism
case could face a new indictment
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Sami al-Arian, a computer science professor imprisoned for more than five years after pleading guilty to a single terrorism-related charge when his trial deadlocked, is back in legal limbo this week. He faces either deportation or a new indictment that could extend his incarceration for years.
The Justice Department and some independent terrorism investigators have long accused Mr. Al-Arian of being the main North America organizer for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for some of the more deadly suicide bombings against Israeli targets and which the United States has designated a terrorist organization.
Mr. Al-Arian’s supporters, though, say that he is nothing more sinister than an outspoken Palestinian activist, and that the Justice Department has tried to exploit the post-Sept. 11 mood in the United States to punish him for that, using legal maneuvering to keep him behind bars.
“The government has shown a willingness to go to the most extreme lengths to prolong Mr. Al-Arian’s incarceration,” his defense lawyer, Jonathan Turley, said.
The treatment of Mr. Al-Arian, who taught at the University of South Florida, has drawn international condemnation, including a complaint in 2007 by Amnesty International that he has suffered a pattern of abuse in United States prisons.
Mr. Al-Arian maintains that a plea agreement he reached with the federal government in 2006, in which he accepted deportation in exchange for pleading guilty to one terrorism-related charge, included a verbal understanding that he would not have to testify in any other case. The government maintains that the plea agreement does not explicitly bar such testimony. The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, upheld the government’s stance in January. The government has thrice sought to compel him to testify before a long-running grand jury in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va.
If the government chooses to charge Mr. Al-Arian with criminal contempt for refusing to testify, his time in jail could be open-ended, Mr. Turley said. “It is an abuse of the grand jury system,” he said. “It is an effort to secure by abusive means what the government could not secure from a jury.”
A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, pointed to the 11th Circuit’s decision as affirming that the government’s stance is correct. Jim Rybicki, spokesman for the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia, would not comment.
Mr. Al-Arian, 50, has been in jail since February 2003, somewhat longer than his 57-month sentence because of the wrestling over his grand jury testimony. The sentence expired last weekend, though, so he is now in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which would be in charge of his deportation should it occur.
He has been moved repeatedly from jail to jail, Mr. Turley said. A slight man, Mr. Al-Arian has been on a hunger strike since March 3 and has lost more than 30 pounds, he added. A Palestinian born in Kuwait, Mr. Al-Arian was a legal resident of the United States, but not a citizen. His trial is the subject of a documentary, “USA vs. Al-Arian,” that can be watched at linktv.org/programs/usavs.
In February 2003, a 121-page indictment trumpeted by the United States attorney general, John Ashcroft, painted Mr. Al-Arian as a linchpin of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or P.I.J., funneling money, support and logistical advice to suicide bombers. But after a six-month trial in Federal District Court in Tampa, Fla., Mr. Al-Arian was acquitted on eight counts and the jury deadlocked on the remaining nine. The hung jury was considered a major embarrassment for the Bush administration by critics who saw it as another example of the administration’s overreaching on terrorism cases.
Rather than face another trial, defense lawyers said, Mr. Al-Arian pleaded guilty to one conspiracy count of helping individuals associated with P.I.J. on immigration and other court matters….
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/washington/18professor.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
AMP Report – April 14, 2008
Dr. Sami Al-Arian put in solitary confinement
Dr. Sami Al-Arian, a former Florida professor currently on his second hunger strike in federal detention to protest unjust treatment by the U.S. authorities, has been placed in solitary confinement, with no medical monitoring, in a Maryland detention facility.
Dr. Al-Arian, who has already lost almost more than 30 pounds, began refusing food and water on March 3rd to protest a third attempt by prosecutors to compel his testimony in court.
According to the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace at 1 a.m. on April 12, Dr. Sami Al-Arian was moved by hostile prison guards from a regular holding cell at the Howard County
Detention Center in Jessup, Maryland, to the "Special Housing Unit."
The SHU is an extremely punitive and restrictive section of the prison where inmates are placed in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, usually in freezing temperatures. Prisoners are normally moved there for violating prison rules.
However, in the case of Dr. Al-Arian, he has always been placed there without reason or any explanation. In the SHU, prisoners are subjected to continuous, deafening alarm sounds and
have little contact with the outside world. With no medical supervision, this is an extremely dangerous place for Dr. Al-Arian to be during his hunger strike, which is on its 41st day.
Dr. Al-Arian was also held in solitary confinement for 37 months before and during his trial. This was a deliberate attempt by the government to break him down physically and psychologically and to prevent him from preparing for his trial.
Amnesty International has written several letters decrying the prison conditions of Dr. Al-Arian, calling his treatment "gratuitously punitive" and "inconsistent with international standards for humane treatment."
The Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace urged all conscientious individuals and organizations to contact the Howard County Detention Center and call for humane treatment of Dr. Al-Arian. “We also call on media outlets to cover these abuses, which so far have received no
attention.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a leading Muslim civil rights group, also called on American Muslims and other people of conscience to write letters - urging Al-Arian's release - to Judge Gerald Lee of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, to Attorney General Michael Mukasey and to congressional leaders.
Al-Arian began his first hunger strike last year after being given a sentence of up to 18 months for refusing to testify before a grand jury in Virginia. His attorneys say an earlier plea agreement freed him from further cooperation with the government. Supporters also say the government's actions amount to a form of harassment.
In December of last year, a judge decided to lift civil contempt charges against Al-Arian. The charges were dropped when the grand jury he was subpoenaed to testify before expired.
In 2005, a Florida jury rejected federal charges that Al-Arian operated a cell for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al-Arian later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was scheduled for release and deportation in April.
CAIR – April 18, 2008
250 turn out for screening of Al-Arian documentary
ANAHEIM, CA, April 18, 2008 - The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) said today that more than 250 people turned out for a screening of "USA vs. Al-Arian," a documentary highlighting the injustices faced by former Florida professor Dr. Sami Al-Arian.
CAIR-LA officials said the screening was a success despite efforts by "anti-Muslim bigots" who pressured the owners of the original venue to back out of a signed contract and who tried unsuccessfully to pressure the owners of the second venue into canceling the event.
Ayloush said, however, that last-minute cancellation by Starplex Cinemas generated more interest in the community, and the new venue, Edwards Cinemas, was able to accommodate more guests and provide a better facility.
"We thank all those who supported the right to freedom of speech and the right to seek redress from the government for the injustices suffered by Dr. Al-Arian," CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush. "Last night's event was a tremendous success despite the pressure exerted by anti-Muslim bigots and those who would censor the political views of others."
The screening was followed by a panel discussion. Panelists included Laila Al-Arian, daughter of Dr. Sami Al-Arian. The program was moderated by Sharaf Mowjood, government relations coordinator of CAIR-LA.
Laila Al-Arian said of the screening: "USA vs. Al-Arian" is a wonderful teaching tool for the American public to learn about civil liberties in post-9/11. “I am glad that this screening in Southern California was very successful. There was a tremendous turnout and response from the community,” she said.
The event was co-sponsored by the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, MSA-West, Islamic Center of Irvine, Orange County Islamic Foundation, Palestinian American Society, MSU-UCI and Visual Sound.
Ayloush also said Al-Arian's case was highlighted today in an article in the New York Times.
To watch "USA vs. Al-Arian," click here.
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