The documents, along with other records obtained by Property of the People, reveals that the FBI has changed its domestic terrorism designation “Anti Abortion Extremists” to “Abortion Extremism” in order to include pro-choice activism within this official domestic terrorist category.

One of the newly-obtained documents, titled “Abortion Extremism Reference Guide for Law Enforcement,” was distributed by the FBI at a counterterrorism training for local law enforcement in 2017. The opening line of the document reads dubiously, “Both pro-life and pro-choice abortion extremists engage in criminal activity and seek to further their ideology, wholly or in part through force or violence.”

The FBI’s Abortion Extremism Reference Guide for Law Enforcement further informs that, “Catalysts which may lead to an increase in pro-choice extremism include […] “restricted access to abortion services.” The FBI’s Guide continues that, “Characteristics of pro-choice extremism include belief in a moral duty to protect those who provide and receive abortion services.”

“Pro-choice activists should not have to worry about being targeted as terrorist extremists simply for advocating for bodily autonomy and a woman’s right to choose,” said Gunita Singh, Staff Attorney for Property of the People.

“The FBI has a long, sad history of targeting progressive movements as threats to American security,” stated Ryan Shapiro, Executive Director of Property of the People. At its core, the FBI is, as it has always been, a political police force that primarily targets the left. However, what we’re seeing here is in some ways even more disturbing than the FBI’s routine policing of progressive dissent. Pro-choice activism isn’t even dissent. It’s literally a movement to uphold the existing constitutional order.”

The FBI’s message appears to be taking hold. As revealed in another document obtained by Property of the People, one Washington State Sheriff who attended the FBI’s counterterrorism training shared the Bureau’s Abortion Extremism Reference Guide for Law Enforcement (along with other FBI domestic terrorism reference guides) with the rest of his department. In his email distributing the guides, the Sheriff added, “I attended a counter terrorism meeting with the FBI and other agency heads a short time back. Attached is the latest and greatest about groups we should be aware of.”

About Property of the People

Property of the People is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to governmental transparency in the service of democracy. The organization’s motto is, “The records of government are the property of the people. It’s time we reclaim them.” Property of the People can be found on twitter at @propOTP

Property of the People is represented by Washington, DC-based FOIA specialist attorney Jeffrey Light assisted by Property of the People staff attorney, Gunita Singh.

The 214-page report, “Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in US Terrorism Prosecutions,” examines 27 federal terrorism cases from initiation of the investigations to sentencing and post-conviction conditions of confinement. It documents the significant human cost of certain counterterrorism practices, such as overly aggressive sting operations and unnecessarily restrictive conditions of confinement.

“Americans have been told that their government is keeping them safe by preventing and prosecuting terrorism inside the US,” said Andrea Prasow, deputy Washington director at Human Rights Watch and one of the authors of the report. “But take a closer look and you realize that many of these people would never have committed a crime if not for law enforcement encouraging, pressuring, and sometimes paying them to commit terrorist acts.”

Many prosecutions have properly targeted individuals engaged in planning or financing terror attacks, the groups found. But many others have targeted people who do not appear to have been involved in terrorist plotting or financing at the time the government began to investigate them. And many of the cases involve due process violations and abusive conditions of confinement that have resulted in excessively long prison sentences.

The report is based on more than 215 interviews with people charged with or convicted of terrorism-related crimes, members of their families and their communities, criminal defense attorneys, judges, current and former federal prosecutors, government officials, academics, and other experts.

In some cases the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act. Multiple studies have found that nearly 50 percent of the federal counterterrorism convictions since September 11, 2001, resulted from informant-based cases. Almost 30 percent were sting operations in which the informant played an active role in the underlying plot.

In the case of the “Newburgh Four,” for example, who were accused of planning to blow up synagogues and attack a US military base, a judge said the government “came up with the crime, provided the means, and removed all relevant obstacles,” and had, in the process, made a terrorist out of a man “whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope.”

The FBI often targeted particularly vulnerable people, including those with intellectual and mental disabilities and the indigent. The government, often acting through informants, then actively developed the plot, persuading and sometimes pressuring the targets to participate, and provided the resources to carry it out.

“The US government should stop treating American Muslims as terrorists-in-waiting,” Prasow said. “The bar on entrapment in US law is so high that it’s almost impossible for a terrorism suspect to prove. Add that to law enforcement preying on the particularly vulnerable, such as those with mental or intellectual disabilities, and the very poor, and you have a recipe for rampant human rights abuses.”

Rezwan Ferdaus, for example, pled guilty to attempting to blow up a federal building and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Although an FBI agent even told Ferdaus’ father that his son “obviously” had mental health problems, the FBI targeted him for a sting operation, sending an informant into Ferdaus’ mosque. Together, the FBI informant and Ferdaus devised a plan to attack the Pentagon and US Capitol, with the FBI providing fake weaponry and funding Ferdaus’ travel. Yet Ferdaus was mentally and physically deteriorating as the fake plot unfolded, suffering depression and seizures so bad his father quit his job to care for him.

The US has also made overly broad use of material support charges, punishing behavior that did not demonstrate an intent to support terrorism. The courts have accepted prosecutorial tactics that may violate fair trial rights, such as introducing evidence obtained by coercion, classified evidence that cannot be fairly contested, and inflammatory evidence about terrorism in which defendants played no part – and asserting government secrecy claims to limit challenges to surveillance warrants.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is a US citizen who alleged that he was whipped and threatened with amputation while detained without charge in Saudi Arabia – after a roundup following the 2003 bombings of Western compounds in the Saudi capital of Riyadh – until he provided a confession to Saudi interrogators that he says was false. Later, when Ali went to trial in Virginia, the judge rejected Ali’s claims of torture and admitted his confession into evidence. He was convicted of conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists, and conspiracy to assassinate the president. He received a life sentence, which he is serving in solitary confinement at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

The US has in terrorism cases used harsh and at times abusive conditions of confinement, which often appear excessive in relation to the security risk posed. This includes prolonged solitary confinement and severe restrictions on communicating in pretrial detention, possibly impeding defendants’ ability to assist in their own defense and contributing to their decisions to plead guilty. Judges have imposed excessively lengthy sentences, and some prisoners suffer draconian conditions post-conviction, including prolonged solitary confinement and severe restrictions on contact with families or others, sometimes without explanation or recourse.

Nine months after his arrest on charges of material support for terrorism and while he was refusing a plea deal, Uzair Paracha was moved to a harsh regime of solitary confinement. Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) – national security restrictions on his contact with others – permitted Paracha to speak only to prison guards.

“You could spend days to weeks without uttering anything significant beyond ‘Please cut my lights,’ ‘Can I get a legal call/toilet paper/a razor,’ etc., or just thanking them for shutting our light,” he wrote to the report’s researchers. After he was convicted, the SAMs were modified to permit him to communicate with other inmates. “I faced the harshest part of the SAMs while I was innocent in the eyes of American law,” he wrote.

These abuses have had an adverse impact on American Muslim communities. The government’s tactics to seek out terrorism suspects, at times before the target has demonstrated any intention to use violence, has undercut parallel efforts to build relationships with American Muslim community leaders and groups that may be critical sources of information to prevent terrorist attacks.

In some communities, these practices have deterred interaction with law enforcement. Some Muslim community members said that fears of government surveillance and informant infiltration have meant they must watch what they say, to whom, and how often they attend services.

“Far from protecting Americans, including American Muslims, from the threat of terrorism, the policies documented in this report have diverted law enforcement from pursuing real threats,” Prasow said. “It is possible to protect people’s rights and also prosecute terrorists, which increases the chances of catching genuine criminals.”

Read “Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in US Terrorism Prosecutions” HERE

To arrange an interview with Naureen Shah or Tarek Ismail, contributors to this report, please email or text Andy Stepanian at andy@sparrowmedia.net or 631.291.3010. For more Human Rights Watch reporting on counterterrorism, please visit: https://www.hrw.org/topic/counterterrorism

NSJ vigils are held on the first Monday night of every month outside the MCC., a federal penitentiary where people accused of terrorism-related offenses are held for years in solitary confinement, even before they have been tried.These inhumane conditions are not unique to the MCC. In an effort to shine a light on and end the pattern of human rights and civil liberties abuses happening in “War on Terror” cases, the No Separate Justice Campaign brings together community groups, academics, family members and human rights and civil liberties organizations including Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Council On American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)-New York, and Educators for Civil Liberties.

Each month, NSJ vigils will spotlight an individual case to reveal a pattern of abuses happening by federal courts and prisons in these terrorism cases. The March 10th vigil will focus on the case of Tarek Mehanna, whose “material support” charges (which included the translation of texts from Arabic into English) raised grave concerns from civil liberties groups and academics across the country. After being held for two years in pre-trial solitary confinement, Tarek Mehanna is now serving his 17-and-a-half year sentence in the “Communications Management Unit” in Marion, Illinois.

Please bring a flashlight or candle with you as we will be shining a light together to expose the human rights abuses happening at MCC, the federal government’s domestic torture site in New York City, and across our country in these cases. To learn more about NSJ campaigns visit http://no-separate-justice.org. You can RSVP for Monday’s vigil via Facebook HERE.

“Abuses are happening nationwide, but the MCC is itself a site of abuse and torture,” said Vincent Warren, Executive Director of The Center for Constitutional Rights. “Prisoners in the MCC have been held for years in 22- to 24-hour solitary confinement and under gag orders euphemistically known as Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), even before they have been tried. According to the UN’s independent expert on torture, solitary confinement of more than 15 days can constitute torture. Despite its Manhattan location, conditions at the MCC are hidden from public view; requests for access by human rights monitors and the press have been repeatedly denied.”

This first vigil on February 10 will focus on CCR client Fahad Hashmi, a former Brooklyn College student who was held in pre-trial solitary confinement and under SAMs for nearly three years at the MCC. Fahad was prosecuted for “material support” for terrorism based on allegations that he stored an acquaintance’s luggage, containing waterproof socks and ponchos meant for Al Qaeda, in his apartment for two weeks and allowed the acquaintance to use his cell phone to call co-conspirators. In the face of a possible 70-year sentence, and after years in crushing conditions, Fahad pled guilty to one count of material support in exchange for a 15-year sentence. Today, he is serving his sentence in the harshest federal prison in the country, the Administrative Maximum (ADX) prison in Florence, Colorado. He has now been held in 22- to 24-hour solitary confinement for nearly seven years.

On February 3 the activists will demand humane conditions for Fahad and bring attention to the injustices in his case.

To learn more about NSJ campaigns visit http://no-separate-justice.org. You can RSVP for Monday’s vigil via Facebook HERE.

Shapiro, a FOIA specialist, is an historian of the policing of dissent and the political functioning of national security. His pathbreaking FOIA work has already led the FBI to declare his MIT dissertation research a threat to national security. Shapiro also has FOIA requests for records on Mandela in motion with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Shapiro is represented by FOIA specialist attorney Jeffrey Light.

Two Key Issues Regarding Today’s Filing Against the CIA:

1) The CIA is widely and credibly believed to have been involved in Mandela’s 1962 arrest that led to his decades-long incarceration. Yet, the Agency has never admitted its role in this affair, and little specific public information exists on the matter. Shapiro’s FOIA efforts will begin to fill this massive hole in public knowledge of U.S. intelligence operations.

2) Despite longstanding public knowledge of U.S. intelligence assistance to apartheid South Africa in general, and in Mandela’s arrest in particular, much of the U.S. and world press has paid distressingly little attention to these issues. Even in the wake of Mandela’s death, these issues, including the fact that Mandela remained on the U.S. terror watch list until 2008, have for the most part remained ignored or discounted. Shapiro’s efforts will bring much-needed attention to these vital topics, as well as to the U.S. intelligence community’s continued outrageous aversion to transparency.

According to Shapiro:

“Though the U.S. intelligence community is long believed to have been involved in Mandela’s arrest, little specific public information exists regarding this involvement. Similarly, though the U.S. intelligence community is long understood to have routinely provided information to the South African regime regarding the anti-apartheid movement, little specific public information exists about these activities either. Further, despite now being universally hailed as a hero and freedom fighter against gross injustice, Mandela was designated a terrorist by the United States government and remained on the U.S. terror watch list until 2008.

In bringing suit against the CIA to compel compliance with my Freedom of Information Act request, I seek access to records that will begin answering the following questions:

What was the extent and purpose of the U.S. intelligence community’s surveillance of Nelson Mandela prior to his arrest? What role did the U.S. intelligence community play in Mandela’s arrest and prosecution? What role did the U.S. intelligence community play in the broader effort to surveil and subvert the South African anti-apartheid movement? To what extent, and for what objectives, did the U.S. intelligence community surveil Mandela following his release from prison? To what extent, if any, did the U.S. intelligence community continue providing information regarding Mandela to the apartheid regime following Mandela’s release from prison? What information did the U.S. intelligence community provide American policymakers regarding Mandela and the South African anti-apartheid movement? To what extent, and to what ends, did the U.S. intelligence community surveil the anti-apartheid movement in the United States? How did the United States government come to designate Nelson Mandela a terrorist threat to this country? How did this designation remain unchanged until 2008? And what was the role of the U.S. intelligence community in this designation and the maintenance thereof?”

You can read the full text of today’s court filing against the CIA HERE.

To arrange an interview with Ryan Shapiro please email or text Andy Stepanian at andy@sparrowmedia.net or 631.291.3010. You can follow Shapiro on twitter at @_rshapiro

A focal point of this new effort will be monthly vigils held outside the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan, a federal detention center where people accused of terrorism-related offenses have been held in solitary confinement for years, even before they have been tried.

The panel will include discussion of the case of Syed Fahad Hashmi, who is currently serving a 15-year sentence at the federal “supermax” prison in Colorado on material support charges, after three years of pre-trial solitary confinement and Special Administrative Measures at the MCC in New York. It will highlight efforts by the Center for Constitutional Rights and allies to challenge Fahad’s inhumane conditions of confinement, and show how Fahad’s treatment is part of a pattern of rights violations in other “War on Terror” cases, based on extensive research into terrorism prosecutions. Family members of other federal terrorism prisoners will also participate on the panel.

This January 7 campaign-launch event dovetails with a year-long series, “America After 9/11” – a collaboration between The Nation and Educators for Civil Liberties – which features monthly articles examining facets of the domestic “War on Terror.”

SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE

Liliana Segura
Specializing in the prison industrial complex and harsh sentencing Liliana is a former editor at The Nation magazine and is currently a founding partner at Glenn Greenwald’s new public service journalism venture, First Look.

Pardiss Kebriaei Pardiss is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center Constitutional Rights, which she joined in 2007. Her work focuses on challenging government abuses post-9/11, including in the areas of “targeted killing“ and unjust detentions at Guantanamo and in the federal system. Pardiss represents Fahad Hashmi.

Tamer Mehanna
Tamer’s brother, Tarek Mehanna, was convicted under broad allegations of “material support to terrorists” for 1st amendment protected activities, and is currently imprisoned at the Federal Communications Management Unit in Terre Haute, IN.

Sonali Sadequee
Sonali’s brother, Ehsanul “Shifa” Sadequee, was held for three years in pre-trial solitary confinement while charged under the “material support” statute and is currently incarcerated at the Federal Communications Management Unit in Terre Haute, IN. As a member of the Sadequee family and Free Shifa Campaign, Sonali organizes and speaks publicly to expose the inherent injustices of the War on Terror and the prison complex.

Sarah Khasawinah
Sarah is a PhD candidate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a friend of the Abu-Ali family and will be speaking on behalf of Ahmed Abu-Ali (sentenced to life in prison based on a confession he maintains was coerced through torture while in a Saudi prison). Since 2005 Ahmed has been in held in solitary confinement. He is currently at the federal “supermax” prison in Florence, CO.

Tarek Ismail
As a fellow at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute Tarek develops research and policy at the intersection of human rights and U.S. counterterrorism policies, with a particular focus on issues affecting Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian communities in the United States, including racial profiling, selective prosecution, and the use of informants and sting operations.

Faisal Hashmi
Co-founder of the Muslim Justice Initiative. Faisal’s brother, Fahad, was accused of providing material support to Al-Qaeda. He is currently being held in solitary confinement at the Federal “Supermax” Prison, ADX-Florence, Colorado.

WHAT: Panel Discussion & Launch Event
WHEN: Tuesday, January 7, 2014 | 7:00pm-9:00pm
WHERE: Judson Memorial Church | 55 Washington Square South, New York 10012
INFO: Facebook RSVP | media RSVP andy@sparrowmedia.net

To arrange an interview with any of the speakers & presenters please email or text Andy Stepanian at andy@sparrowmedia.net or 631.291.3010

This year, to mark the 3rd anniversary of Siddiqui’s sentencing, civic and human rights groups are staging a press conference and free screening of the documentary portrait of Siddiqui, ‘Prisoner 650’ by Yvonne Ridley (details posted below).  Taking place this evening, Monday September 23, from 7:30-10pm the screening & presser hopes to reveal illuminating new evidence in the same city where the UN meets to champion Human Rights and where Aafia was prosecuted.

For more than a year, International Justice Network has urged the Government of Pakistan to demand the return of this “daughter of the nation” to her family in Pakistan. Now, more than ever, her fate rests in the Pakistani Government’s hands.  The IJN’s report, Aafia Siddiqui: Just the Facts, reveals new evidence contradicting official statements from the governments of both Pakistan and the United States that Dr. Siddiqui was not detained in their custody prior to her arrest in Ghazni, Afghanistan in July of 2008. IJN has obtained a secret audio recording of a senior Pakistani official who admits he was personally involved in the arrest of Dr. Siddiqui and her children in 2003. This account is corroborated by substantial documentary evidence and witness testimony, which all points to the same conclusion—that Dr. Siddiqui and her three children were initially arrested in March 2003 with the knowledge and cooperation of local authorities in Karachi, Pakistan, and subsequently interrogated by Pakistani military intelligence (ISI) as well as U.S. intelligence agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Regardless of whether any of the allegations against Dr. Siddiqui are true, or whether other grounds for her repatriation may exist, her return to Pakistan should be expedited by both goernments on humanitarian grounds. Her mental and physical health has severely declined, and continues to deteriorate every day that she remains imprisoned. IJN urges both governments to take immediate action to bring Dr. Aafia Siddiqui home.

More broadly, there can be little doubt that Dr. Siddiqui’s repatriation to Pakistan from the United States would do a great deal to repair some of the damage done to the diplomatic relationship between the two nations. Until then, the International Justice Network will continue to expose the truth and seek justice for Dr. Siddiqui and the thousands of other prisoners who have been imprisoned as part of the U.S. government’s “global war on terror.”

SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE:

Sara Flounders,  International Action Network
Mauri Saalakhan,  Peace thru Justice Foundation
Steve Downs,  National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms
Fahd Ahmed,  Desis Rising Up and Moving

WHEN: Monday September 23, 2013, 7:30-10pm
WHERE: Diversity Plaza, Jackson Heights, Queens NY
FOR MORE INFO: Contact justicebythepen@gmail.com

The § 2255 motion, can be filed directly by the prisoner if new evidence is found that may materially affect his conviction. Over several years of incarceration, Aref has exhausted his formal appeals (to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City and to the U.S. Supreme Court) and also filed an earlier § 2255 motion, which was unsuccessful, though it did not include presentation of this new evidence.

NEW EVIDENCE FOR APPEAL

This newly uncovered evidence shows that as early as December 2002, the FBI mistakenly thought Aref was an Al Qaeda agent named Mohammed Yasin, and that “Yassin Muhiddin Aref” was merely one pseudonym for Mohammed Yasin. In several documents, the FBI gives alternate spellings of Aref’s name, which are always denoted by the designating acronym “IT-UBL” (International Terrorism-Usama bin Laden) and the term “Al Qaeda.” This misidentification predated the beginning of the FBI sting by 1½ years, which commenced in August 2003. Aref’s § 2255 motion states that it is probable that “the misidentification of Aref caused the case to become a priority in Washington, D.C. …Petitioner Aref was thus originally targeted based on the FBI erroneously linking him to Al Qaeda.” It is unclear from the FOIA file, which is heavily redacted, why or how this misidentification occurred, although it recurs in different FBI documents dated from 2002 to 2004, up to and including the time of the sting.

Aref’s affidavit to accompany the § 2255 states:

“There is an Al-Qaeda agent named Mohammed Yassin who is reported to have been missing two middle fingers on one hand, who was assassinated in Gaza in 2011. I am still alive and have all my fingers so I cannot be Mohammed Yassin. The government convicted the wrong person and I am a victim of mistaken identity. I have never gone by the name Mohammed Yassin. I know nothing about anyone named Mohammed Yassin. I have never been involved with Al Qaeda. I am completely innocent of the charges against me, and was simply tricked by the FBI into gratuitously witnessing a loan that I believe was entirely legal.”

Aref is serving his 15-year sentence at the low-security federal prison in Loretto, PA.  Aref’s beginning 1/2 of his sentence, served at the Communications Management Unit at Terre Haute, IN, was the focus of a 2011 New York Magazine feature titled ‘Little Gitmo’.  His anticipated release date is in October, 2018.  Federal authorities have indicated they may request immediate deportation upon his release.

Yassin Aref’s 2255 motion requests that the court:

» Unredact those portions of the FOIA file that were sent to Aref

» Provide the defense with a description of the classified material given to the trial and appeal courts, especially material that misidentified Aref as Mohammed Yasin

» Provide the defense with exculpatory material not previously provided at trial

» Grant Yassin Aref a new trial

» Dismiss the charges against Aref on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct

The entire 2255 motion will be posted online at http://www.projectsalam.org once it is filed with the court in mid-July.

TWO SUPPORTING EVENTS & ONLINE PETITION

Friday, July 12 at 6 pm: Because of the importance of this appeal, the Muslim Solidarity Committee, Project SALAM, and the Aref-Hossain / Albany chapter of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms (NCPCF) will hold a rally and launch a special event on Friday, July 12 at 6 p.m. at the Masjid As-Salam, 278 Central Avenue in Albany. At the rally, which will also commemorate the ninth anniversary of Aref and Hossain’s arrests in 2004, speakers will discuss the new evidence, its impact on the case, and answer related questions. Speakers will include Kathy Manley, Esq., Aref’s appeal attorney; Honorable Dominick Calsolaro, outgoing Albany Common Council member who sponsored the Albany Resolution in 2010 that calls for the Justice Department to reopen all post-9/11 terrorism cases to determine whether exculpatory information was withheld from the defense; Dr. Shamshad Ahmad, president of the Masjid As-Salam, where Aref was imam; and Lynne Jackson, president of Project SALAM and a Muslim Solidarity Committee member.

Friday, July 12 at 7:30 pm: Jackson, accompanied by other supporters, will launch the “Journey for Justice,” a walk of 133 miles from Albany to Binghamton. To emphasize the importance of Aref’s appeal, Jackson is circulating an online petition that asks the judge who would hear the appeal, Honorable Thomas McAvoy (who was also the Aref-Hossain case trial judge), to give it serious consideration. Jackson intends to hand-deliver the petition signatures to McAvoy’s home court in Binghamton. Immediately following the rally, the Journey for Justice will depart from the Masjid As-Salam for the Pine Hills Library on Western Avenue (Route 20). The next day, Saturday, July 13, at about 10 a.m., Jackson and supporters will reassemble outside the library and continue the 10-day trek to Binghamton, via Route 20 and then Route 7, at the rate of approximately 13 miles per day. They expect to arrive in Binghamton on Tuesday, July 23 at 11 a.m. at the federal courthouse on 15 Henry Street, where a press conference is planned to mark their arrival.

For more information visit Project SALAM’s “Journey for Justice” blog HERE. To sign the petition in support of Aref’s 2255 motion visit his Change.org page HERE. To request an interview with Lynn Jackson or to place media inquiries regarding Yassin Aref’s 2255 please contact Jeanne Finley at (518) 438-8728 or via email at finlandia@nycap.rr.com. You can also contact Lynn Jackson directly at (518) 366-7324 or lynnejackson@mac.com.

The US’ “War on Drugs” and “War on Terror” have produced a parallel system of state violence and social control, manifested through unjust prosecutions and the mass incarceration of people of color. Join us on April 18th from 6:30-8:30pm for a historic town hall discussion wherein we will hear first-hand stories from former prisoners, family members, lawyers, intellectuals, historians and activists about excessive  sentences, discriminatory policing, suppression of political dissent, and mass incarceration.

SPEAKERS WILL INCLUDE

Constance Malcom
Mother of the late Ramarley Graham. In February 2012, Graham was slain by NYPD officers while unarmed in his grandmother’s Bronx home.

Jazz Hayden
Community activist & founding member of the Campaign to End The New Jim Crow.

Yusef Salaam
Wrongfully convicted in the Central Park jogger case. Yusef sits on the board of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, the advisory board for the Learn My History Foundation & Inspired People United for Children.

Shaheena Parveen
Mother of Matin Siraj, who was entrapped & charged as a terrorist in a fabricated NYPD plot to destroy NYC landmarks.

Ramzi Kassem
Lawyer representing multiple detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Bagram Airforce Base, & other US “Black Sites” & a supervisor of Creating Law  Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project at CUNY.

Amir Varick
Community Activist sentenced to 25 years to life for a non violent drug offense under the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Co-founder of People Assisting Positive Actions.

Faisal Hashmi
Co-founder of the Muslim Justice Initiative. Faisal’s brother, Fahad, was accused of providing material support to Al-Qaeda.  He is currently being held in solitary confinement at the Federal “Supermax” Prison, ADX-Florence, Colorado.

Sohail Daulatzai
Author of “Black Star, Crescent Moon” & Associate Professor of Film & Media Studies & African American Studies at the UC Irvine.

Noor Elashi
Writer, organic baker, activist & daughter of Holy Land Five political prisoner, Ghassan Elashi.

Andy Stepanian
Cofounder of The Sparrow Project.  Convicted as a terrorist in 2006 for his animal rights activism & served the last 6 months of a 36-month prison sentence in a Federal Communications Management Unit (CMU).

Alicia McWilliams
Activist & Aunt of Newburgh 4 defendant, David Williams.

Fahd Ahmed
Legal & Policy Director of Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), NYC.

Steve Downs
Executive Director of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms and lawyer in the ‘US vs. Yassin Aref’ case.

WHAT: Town Hall Discussion
WHEN: Thursday, April 18, 2013 |  6:30pm-8:30pm
WHERE: Riverside Church Assembly Hall | 490 Riverside Drive, New York, New York 10027
INFO:  Facebook RSVP | andy@sparrowmedia.net

To arrange an interview with any of the speakers & presenters please email or text Andy Stepanian at andy@sparrowmedia.net or 631.291.3010

]]> https://sparrowmedia.net/2012/10/holy-land-foundation-supreme-court/ Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:36:03 +0000 http://www.sparrowmedia.net/?p=4003 [New York, NY] At 5pm tomorrow (Thursday, October 25, 2012) activists, lawyers, and family members of defendants in the controversial Holy Land Five trial will hold a press conference and rally outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building (26 Federal Plaza, New York, NY 10013).

Noor Elashi, daughter to imprisoned Holy Land Foundation co-founder, Ghassan Elashi, and Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, will address the large assembly of activist supporters at 5:30pm in what may be the last public showing of solidarity for the Holy Land Five defendants before the Supreme Court is scheduled to conference on whether they will rule on the group’s 2008 conviction for alleged crimes under the Material Support to Terrorists statute.  The Supreme Court calendar indicates that should they conference on the Holy Land Five case it will likely happen on Friday, October 26, 2012.  This will be the last legal remedy for the defendants outside of a Presidential pardon.

The Holy Land Foundation (HLF) was the largest Muslim charity in the United States until three months after 9/11 when the Bush administration shut it down following a claim that the group had donated a portion of their foundation funds to schools and hospitals in Gaza through a Zakat Committee that allegedly had connections to Hamas (designated by the US in 1995 as a terrorist group).  After subsequent raids on their homes and offices, arrests, and two trials (the first ending in a hung jury), the Holy Land Five was convicted of conspiracy under the Material Support to Terrorists statute and received sentences ranging from 15 to 65 years in Federal Prison.

Edward Abington, a diplomat who served as U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem during the 1990s, when called to testify on behalf of the HLF defense in 2007, said Israel had provided “selective information to try to influence U.S. thinking.”  Also introduced into the court record by Abington was the little known fact that in the same year the HLF defendants were indicted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had given $47,00 to the same Zakat Committee alleged in the indictment to have ties to Hamas (see DX1074 or pg.12 in writ). Moreover, USAID has periodically contributed to the same Zakat committees named in the indictments, from before the time of the HLF indictment until today.   This double standard is circuitous because it implies that either USAID is using taxpayer money to “finance Hamas” or that the allegations made against the HLF were baseless from the beginning.

After the 2007 deadlock, juror Nanette Scroggins, a retired claims adjuster, said in her only interview about the case, “I kept expecting the government to come up with something, and it never did… From what I saw, this was about Muslims raising money to support Muslims, and I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

Noor Elashi, whose father Ghassan Elashi is now imprisoned, is speaking out, “I am heartened by the solidarity of those who are standing by my father during this critical time. I hope to see this momentum keep building until the Holy Land Five are exonerated.”

Ghassan Elashi is currently serving 65 years at the Federal Communications Management Unit (CMU) in Marion Illinois.  The CMU is a designer penal program that focuses specifically on isolating and silencing inmates.  The demographic of the CMU’s designees is made up of an overwhelming 79% Muslim majority with a smaller minority group of non-Muslim designees that have highly politicized cases.  This glaring racial disparity as well as the political nature of these prisons was the focus of a two-part investigation by National Public Radio titled “Guantanamo North.”  The Center for Constitutional Rights is currently suing the Department of Justice over the legality of CMU’s.

The American Civil Liberties Union in a 2009 report sharply criticized the government’s prosecution of the HLF, saying it “…violated the fundamental rights of American Muslim Charities and has chilled American Muslims’ charitable giving in accordance with their faith, seriously undermining American values of due process and commitment to First Amendment freedoms.”

Tomorrow’s rally and press conference is part of a national day of action in solidarity with the Holy Land Five.  The groups participating in tomorrow’s actions include:

• The Committee to Stop FBI Repression
• The Center for Constitutional Rights
• The Muslim Defense Project of the National Lawyers Guild
• Free the Holy Land Five / Freedom to Give
• United National Anti-war Coalition
• Defending Dissent Foundation
• International Action Center
• National Lawyers Guild of Washington DC
• Students for a Democratic Society
• Project SALAM (Support and Legal Advocacy for Muslims)
• Labor for Palestine
• New York City Labor Against the War
• Al-Awda New York: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
• US Palestinian Community Network

A copy of the indictment against the HLF is available HERE
A copy of the HLF Petition of Cert is available HERE
For more information on the HLF visit http://freedomtogive.com
You can RSVP to tomorrow’s rally on facebook HERE

To request an interview with Noor Elashi, or for raw video footage of tomorrow’s events please contact Andy Stepanian at andy@sparrowmedia.net or 631.291.3010