With Steve Downs, Esq. of Project SALAM

Tuesday, Sept. 17, 7:00 pm, ArtRage Gallery 505 Hawley Ave.   free and open to the public

Steve Downs, former Chief Attorney with the NY State Commission on Judicial Conduct, was a member of the defense team for Yassin Aref who was prosecuted and convicted of terrorism related charges. Out of this experience he came to realize that not only had the government convicted an innocent individual, Yassin Aref, but the government had done so deliberately. Morevover it was doing the same thing to hundreds of other innocent Muslims all across the country, using a program, referred to as “preemptive prosecution”, in which innocent people would be convicted of contrived charges to preempt them from possibly committing future crimes based on their perceived ideology. In 2008, he became one of the founders of Project SALAM to document and protest against preemptive prosecution.