Sun 6 Apr 2008
Petition to help free Sami Al-Arian
Posted by k under Civil Liberties , Site AnnouncementsNo Comments
Please consider signing the petition to free Sami Al-Arian.
[KH: Dr. Al-Arian was arrested the week before Dr. Dhafir and, like Dr. Dhafir, held without bail. After being held for 29 months, Dr. Al-Arian faced a six-month trial in which the government achieved not one guilty verdict, yet continues to hold him. In an effort to gain his freedom Dr. Al-Arian is on his third hunger strike; I fear for his life.]
To the Honorable Judge Gerald Lee,
We, the undersigned, are writing to you with regards to Dr. Sami Al-Arian. We ask that you honor the plea bargain concluded between the government and Dr. Al-Arian, and allow him to be released on April 7th as scheduled. We also ask you to respect the terms of the plea bargain which stipulate that Dr. Al-Arian shall not be obligated to testify at any other grand jury, and therefore exempt him from testifying before the third grand jury to which he was recently summoned. This is an obvious perjury trap, given that the prosecutor Gordon Kromberg has repeatedly made outrageously bigoted statements against Muslims, publicly supported the principle of punishing those who he finds guilty but who are acquitted in court, and indeed has successfully engineered the perjury conviction of another Muslim acquitted of terrorism charges who now faces ten years in prison.
We also ask that you ensure that Dr. Al-Arian is given adequate health care during his hunger strike, which he began to protest this unjust treatment.
Ever since September the 11th, the current administration has ravaged the integrity of our once-great legal system, Dr. Al-Arian being only the most prominent example of this. We ask that you help restore some measure of dignity to our country and end Dr. Al-Arian’s suffering immediately.