Action Alert from The Washington Report On Middle East Affairs 8/08/08

At a pretrial hearing today in Alexandria, Virginia, Judge Leoni Brinkema of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia postponed Dr. Sami Al-Arian’s trial on charges of criminal contempt of court. The trial had been scheduled to begin on Wednesay, Aug. 13. Noting that he has an appeal pending before the US Supreme Court, however, Judge Brinkema ruled that the appeal must be heard before Dr. Al-Arian can be tried. The Supreme Court reconvenes on the first Tuesday of October.

Jonathan Turley, Dr. Al-Arian’s attorney, had been posting documents related to the case on his blog, http://jonathanturley.org/. As he explains in his latest update:

“We have just returned from court and the continuance of the trial for our client Dr. Sami Al-Arian. During the hearing, the prosecution objected to this blog and specifically the comments left by visitors to the site. We have used this site to make filings available to reduce the calls to our staff from the media and the public. While attorney blogs are allowed under local and federal rules to give updates on filings, we have decided to remove the Al-Arian entries to avoid this issue from being cited in the future as a distraction from the important issues in the case. Documents can still be obtained on the court site and various Al-Arian blog sites.

Posted 11:50 a.m. Friday, August 8, 2008”

The following event will take place as scheduled:

Monday, August 11, 7:30 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington
4444 Arlington Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22204
(703) 892-2565

The chartered bus leaving Tampa Aug. 12 has been canceled. Other activities planned in connection with the originally scheduled trial date currently are in flux. We will keep you posted as information becomes available.