Dr. Dhafir will be resentenced on January 5th, 2012, and we ask that people write to Judge Mordue asking for clemency.  Letters to Judge Mordue should be sent to Dr. Dhafir’s lawyer: you can find instructions on how to write the most effective letter here and examples of letters that have been approved by Dr. Dhafir’s lawyer here.

From the Doctor Dhafir Support Committee:

Please consider writing a letter to Judge Mordue on Dr. Dhafir’s behalf as he faces resentencing for his crime of sending food and medicine to starving Iraqi civilians during the brutal U.S. and U.K.-sponsored UN embargo on the country?  He has been in prison for almost 9 years now and this will likely be his last chance at relief for a long time to come. Dr. Dhafir is a victim in the U.S. government’s “war on terror” that trains its FBI agents to view Muslims as “violent” and “radical”, with Muslim charity as one of its biggest targets.

I sat through the 14-week white-collar crime trial.  Through the proceedings I came to see Dr. Dhafir as a compassionate man of the utmost integrity. There is no doubt that Dr. Dhafir sent aid to Iraq through his charity Help the Needy and therefore violated the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA); but he is not a terrorist.

He never faced any terrorism charges but the fact that this terrorism “charge” has been a specter in his case from the outset has always been a win-win situation for the government.  Sadly, he has never had the opportunity of defending himself against it in the district court or the court of appeals (which gave both proceedings a surreal feeling — the case was never about what it was purported to be about), yet he and other Help the Needy associates (and his wife and accountant) are listed as terrorists by the government:

http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/terrorism/National_Security_Division-09-07-30.pdf

And he is serving his 22-years in a special Communications Management Unit (CMU) that houses almost exclusively Muslim and/or Arab men.  You can see a letter here from Congress to the Bureau of Prisons about the CMUs:

http://ccrjustice.org/congressional-letter-bop-regarding-cmus

Almost all of the men held at the CMU are devout Muslims and many of them are principals of Muslim charities (one of the biggest government targets in the post-9/11 period). Dr. Dhafir is paying a very high price for his humanitarian urge, not least because of the extreme conditions in which he is held: The CMU is housed in the old death row that had been abandoned for years before Dr. Dhafir and other Muslims were moved there in December 2006.  For several weeks this summer there was a heat index at the CMU of 134, with no air conditioning; and in the winters snow has come in to some of the cells.

Dr. Dhafir is in his sixties now.  Since his arrest in 2003, he has developed a heart condition and has not always had the medicine he needs.  He has suffered two bad bouts of gout that could have been prevented with medication.  And he had to wait a long time to have a painful hernia treated, which has unfortunately now recurred, requiring further surgery.  He will likely die in prison if he does not get relief at his resentencing.

Thank you for considering this request and I hope you will join others——including Denis Halliday, who resigned from the UN because he was unwilling to implement a genocidal policy of sanctions; Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire; and many individuals——to write asking District Court Judge Mordue for clemency so that Dr. Dhafir may spend whatever time he has remaining to him with his family and community.

Dr. Dhafir’s lawyer has given clear instructions on how the letters should be written so that they can be the most effective in achieving their aim: http://www.dhafirtrial.net/write-to-judge-mordue/ And examples of letters that have been approved are available here: http://www.dhafirtrial.net/sample-letters-to-judge-mordue/

Letters should be emailed to Dr. Dhafir’s lawyer Peter Goldberger: paralegal.goldberger@verizon.net by late November/early December for approval before mailing a hard copy to: Law Office of Peter Goldberger, 50 Rittenhouse Place, Ardmore, PA 19003-2276, FAX(610) 649-8362

Sincerely,

Katherine Hughes

For the Dr. Dhafir Support Committee (35 people)

www.dhafirtrial.net