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News & Observer – March 25, 2007
Vigil staged for Palestinian scholar
Jim Wise
BUTNER - About 60 people held a two-hour vigil beside Interstate 85 on Saturday for an imprisoned former college professor accused of conspiring with Palestinian terrorists.
Sami al-Arian is being held at the Federal Medical Facility near Butner for refusing to testify in a terrorism-related case before a Virginia grand jury. On Jan. 22, he began a hunger strike to protest his incarceration beyond the duration of his sentence.
After he collapsed Feb. 13, the Federal Bureau of Prisons transferred al-Arian to Butner from a prison in Virginia.
Al-Arian's wife, Nahla al-Arian, said her diabetic husband ended the hunger strike Friday, at his family's urging, and tried taking liquid nutrients. In his weakened condition, he was having difficulty digesting them, she said.
"The most important thing is [that] his psychological state is healthy and fine," she said.
Khalila Sabra, director of the N.C. Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, said, "He's experiencing a living death. ... Until he's free, none of us are really free." …..
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/557334.html
New York Sun – March 23, 2007
Al-Arian contempt order upheld
Josh Gerstein
A federal appeals court has upheld a contempt-of-court finding against a former Florida college professor who admitted to aiding Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian.
A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this afternoon that Al-Arian had no grounds to defy a subpoena from a federal grand jury investigating Muslim charities in Northern Virginia.
Judges William Traxler Jr., Diana Motz, and Dennis Shedd wrote that they were "unpersuaded" by Al-Arian's argument that a plea bargain he entered into after a six-month trial in Florida on terrorism support charges excused him from having to testify before a grand jury.
In a related development today, Al-Arian's supporters announced that he is dropping a water-only hunger strike he undertook and will now pursue a "liquid-only fast." He began the hunger strike on January 22 to protest his treatment. Last month, he collapsed and was moved to a federal prison medical facility in Butner, N.C. Web sites set up by Al-Arian's supporters indicate he is gaunt and has lost as much as 55 pounds.
A federal judge in Tampa, James Moody Jr., ruled in October that Al-Arian's plea agreement did not exempt him from grand jury subpoenas. Al-Arian's attorneys argued that their client, his lawyers, and prosecutors agreed that he would not have to testify in Virginia, but Judge Moody said that alleged promise could not be enforced because the written plea agreement contained no explicit provision to that effect. The judge's decision is the subject of a separate appeal pending before the 11th Circuit in Atlanta.
In May, Judge Moody sentenced Al-Arian to 57 months in prison in connection with his guilty plea to one count of providing services to a designated terrorist entity. With credit for time served prior to his trial, the former professor was expected to be released and deported later this year.
However, Judge Gerald Lee, who oversees the Alexandria, Va.-based grand jury, effectively extended Al-Arian's prison term by ordering him jailed for defying the grand jury. Al-Arian could serve up to 18 months in civil contempt before beginning to serve out the remaining months of his criminal sentence.
Muslim groups have initiated a campaign to lobby federal officials to drop the subpoena and deport Al-Arian immediately….
http://www.nysun.com/article/51094
The Nation comment – March 22, 2007
SAMI AL-ARIAN
Dr. Sami Al-Arian could die in jail. The Palestinian computer professor is withering away in a North Carolina medical prison, where he was moved on day 24 of a hunger strike he began January 22 [see Alexander Cockburn, "The Persecution of Sami Al-Arian," March 19].
In December 2005 a Florida jury declined to convict Al-Arian of any alleged terrorist activities despite an exhaustive six-month trial that cost the Justice Department an estimated $50 million. So the government has punished him through other means.
Last April Al-Arian pled guilty to one charge (a deal he said he accepted only to end the suffering of his family), and the government pledged to release him and let him leave the country. But a judge recently jailed him on contempt charges for refusing to testify in another case--precisely the scenario his plea agreement was supposed to protect him from.
The Justice Department must keep its word to Al-Arian and release him. If not, it is responsible for his fate.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070409/al-arian
Associated Press – March 20, 2007
Family of Dr. Sami Al Arian asks
for hunger strike to stop
Samuel Spies
A former University of South Florida professor is "very, very weak" and cold after spending two months on a hunger strike that his family believes threatens his life, his wife said Tuesday.
Sami al-Arian, 49, a Palestinian who taught computer science at the university, stopped eating Jan. 22 to protest a judge's decision to hold him indefinitely after he refused to testify before a Virginia grand jury.
Since then, al-Arian has lost 54 pounds, said his wife Nahla al-Arian, who has visited her husband at the Federal Medical Facility in Butner, most recently Monday.
"When I first saw him on Saturday I cried so hard because I couldn't believe he could look like this, no muscles, nothing," she said. "He's very weak, very very weak. He lost a lot of weight. He was cold all the time, shivering, because his body temperature is very low."
Authorities at the federal facility about 30 miles north of Raleigh have told Sami al-Arian they will force-feed him if his condition worsens, his lawyer said Tuesday, but his wife said that hasn't occurred.
When al-Arian began his water-only diet he weighed 203 pounds, and now weighs 149, she said.
Sami al-Arian's family fears for his life, said Nahla al-Arian, and is trying to convince him to stop the hunger strike. He has so far refused.
"We need him, we need his love, we need his presence in our lives. Even if he were in jail we still need him," Nahla al-Arian said.
During a six-month trial in 2005, prosecutors labeled al-Arian a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the United States calls a foreign terrorist organization. The trial ended in an acquittal on some counts and a hung jury on others.
But in a plea bargain last April, al-Arian admitted he conspired to aid individuals associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was sentenced to nearly five years in prison, although al-Arian received credit for the time he had already served. Al-Arian and his lawyers contend the plea deal also exempts him from testifying before the Alexandria, Va. grand jury, which is investigating a cluster of Islamic charities in northern Virginia.
Federal prison authorities declined to discuss al-Arian's health condition.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va. is expected to review the judge's decision to hold al-Arian in civil contempt this week, his wife said.
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/breaking_news/16941525.htm
Washington Post Ad – March 5, 2007
Why is Dr. Sami Al-Arian still in prison?
An Open Letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Dear Attorney General Gonzales,
We the undersigned Americans - individuals and organizations - respectfully request that you support the immediate release of former Florida professor Dr. Sami Al-Arian so that he and his family may resume their lives in another country. Here are our reasons for seeking Prof. Al-Arian's release:
In December 2005, after 10 years of federal investigation and a six-month trial, a Florida jury refused to return a single guilty verdict against Dr. Al-Arian, rejecting the government's argument that he operated a cell for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
On May 1, 2006, the Justice Department agreed that Dr. Al Arian should be released within 30 days, and further agreed to assist in his voluntary departure from the country without other conditions, in exchange for a guilty plea to one non-violent offense.
In violation of their agreement, the Justice Department changed its position by attempting to force Dr. Al Arian to testify before a grand jury. Despite the plea agreement that freed him from further cooperation with the government, Dr. Al-Arian was recently given a sentence of up to 18 months in prison for refusing to testify before a grand jury in Virginia.
On January 21, Dr. Al-Arian began a hunger strike to protest the government's actions and the conditions of his imprisonment. Family members report that he collapsed after the 23rd day and has been moved from Virginia to a medical facility in North Carolina, where he is kept in solitary confinement, in effect under twenty-four hour lockdown.
Recently the respected human rights monitor Amnesty International sent you a letter expressing "concern about the treatment while in federal custody of Dr. Sami Al-Arian." Amnesty International communicated to you that his treatment in prison "is in breach of the USA's obligations under international standards and treaties, including Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which states that `all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.'"
In criticizing the unacceptably punitive conditions of solitary confinement of Dr. Al-Arian, Amnesty International went on to express concern over the reports of the prosecutor leading the grand jury case in Virginia who has expressed anti-Islamic sentiments in discussions with counsel for Dr. Al-Arian. This raises the obvious question whether these proceedings are being used to punish him for his political profile rather than for constitutionally legitimate purposes.
In May 2006, your department had promised to end the case by ending all further business with Dr. Al-Arian and to assist in his immediate deportation. Now your department is responsible for locking him up potentially indefinitely.
You have not kept your promise. Today, people all over the world are urging you to keep your promise and release Dr. Sami Al-Arian as scheduled so that he and his family can build their lives elsewhere.
Signatories:
American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections
Citizen's Committee for Equal Justice
California Civil Rights Alliance
Friends of Human Rights
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
[NOTE: this letter ran as a quarter-page ad in Washington Post on March 5, 2007.]
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