Sami Al-Arian’s story starts with a door knock. How it ends has thousands holding their breath.
Since 2003, the University of South Florida professor has been held at the government’s whim in jails all across Florida for allegedly spearheading a militant Palestinian “super-group.”
Super double-speak, yes?
This is a man Newsweek once called, “the premier civil rights activist in America for his efforts to repeal the use of secret evidence.” This is also a man that has personally met George W. Bush for his tireless civil rights advocacy.
With over 11 years of FBI wiretaps and searches, over $50 million spent on trial, 80 witnesses, 400 transcripts of intercepted phone conversations and faxes, and a result that failed to return a single guilty verdict on any of the 53 criminal counts, Arian is still being prosecuted by the American government.
Yesterday morning, prosecutors indicted Al-Arian for again declining to appear before a grand jury probing an Islamic charity in Northern Virginia. He has already spent an additional eighteen months in prison for refusing to testify.
As his lawyer, George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley said, “Dr. Al-Arian was held for a year on civil contempt for refusing to cooperate in a grand jury investigation. Under federal rules, the government is not allowed to use civil contempt confinement against a witness who clearly will not cooperate.”
Despite Al-Arian’s refusals and a global campaign supporting his non-compliance with the Justice Department, prosecutors insisted that Dr. Al-Arian would crack under pressure as a way to keep him incarcerated.
As of January 22, 2007, Al-Arian began a hunger strike that caused him to lose 55 pounds, endure kidney problems and other physical ailments until acquiesed to his family’s pleas after two months without food. In May 2007, Dr. Al-Arian was told by doctors that he was diagnosed with a hernia and that surgery was mandatory.
Al-Arian has now survived two grand juries. After the court granted a motion to lift the last contempt order, he began serving the remainder of his time from the plea agreement. This time was suspended during his civil contempt period – a fabulous way of extending his punishment.
As Turley said, “I wanted to express our great disappointment in the decision of the Justice Department to continue this effort to mete out punishment that it could not secure from a jury. Having lost the case in Florida, the Justice Department has openly sought to extend his confinement by daisy-chaining grand juries…”
“As in other cases, the government has given Dr. Al-Arian the choice of an obvious perjury trap or a contempt sanction. It is a choice that is obnoxious to our legal system and contrary to any standard of decency. The mistreatment of Dr. Al-Arian remains an international symbol of how the Bush Administration has discarded fundamental principles of fairness in a blind pursuit of retribution against this political activist.”
Read Sami Al-Arian’s 2007 plea to the Nobel Peace Center:
During the week of February 18, Dr. Sami Al-Arian’s family visited Oslo, Norway to attend the premiere of “USA vs. Al-Arian,” a critically-acclaimed documentary about Dr. Al-Arian’s case. On the second night of the week-long trip, Amnesty International-Norway held a special screening of the film, followed by a reception at the Nobel Peace Center, where Nahla Al-Arian spoke and read the following statement on behalf of Dr. Al-Arian:
February 19, 2007, Oslo, Norway
My name is Sami Al-Arian. I am a 49-year-old Palestinian, who has been living in the United States for 32 years. I’ve been persecuted and detained for the past four years because of my political beliefs and activism on behalf of the Palestinian cause.
The great Palestinian people have been victims of one of the cruelest crimes of the 20th century through no fault of their own. Unfortunately, this tragedy has continued through the 21st century as well.
Millions of Palestinians have been uprooted from the land of their ancestors while millions of others have been living under the brutal Israeli occupation for many decades.
At the heart of this appalling, systemic injustice is an exclusive and apartheid-like ideology that has exploited the suffering and persecution of European Jews.
I deeply believe that the path to enduring peace in the holy land is in the establishment of a non-sectarian, democratic, and binational state that is inclusive, where Palestinians and Israelis, Muslims, Christians, and Jews live in a pluralistic society that guarantees freedom, equality and justice for all.
Such a vision may be viewed by some as unrealistic because of the imbalance of power between the Palestinians and their occupiers. But I also firmly believe that might does not make right– and that the just and moral Palestinian struggle, when supported by the great majority of the peoples of the world, will ultimately prevail over injustice, oppression, and military power.
On behalf of the Palestinian people, I humbly offer my deepest thanks and appreciation to the noble and courageous Norwegian people, who, among all nations, have been at the forefront in their defense of universal values: human dignity, liberty and equality. I urge you to continue your solidarity, friendship, and support of the Palestinian people in their decades-long struggle for freedom, justice and peace.
Deprived of my own freedom, and from my cell in a U.S. prison, I foresee the day when true fraternity and a bond of humanity will overcome the ugliness of exclusiveness, injustice, and occupation. When Palestinians and Israelis live side by side, celebrate their common traditions and heritage and rejoice with the peoples of the world in the spirit of universal peace and understanding.
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Clearly the old Arabic proverb personifies our Justice Dept.,
“A foolish man may be known by six things: Anger without cause, speech without profit, change without progress, inquiry without object, putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends.”
