Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2007
By Andrew Killgore, Richard Curtiss and Delinda Hanley

Link: Click here

THE TWO-HOUR drive from Washington, DC to Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, VA gave us plenty of time to worry. With the help of his daughter, Laila, who was a Washington Report staff member before moving to New York City to attend the Columbia University School of Journalism, we had managed to secure a one-hour visit with Dr. Sami Al-Arian on Feb. 8—four years after his arrest on Feb. 20, 2003 and 18 days into his latest hunger strike. We hadn’t seen the professor since the 2000 elections, when he and other Muslim- and Arab-American leaders helped forge a bloc vote which, ironically, hinged on ending the use of secret evidence in trials.

Would we find him despondent or ill? After all, more than a year ago, in December 2005, a jury of his peers had found him innocent of eight counts against him and deadlocked on the rest. Sami Al-Arian should have been a free man, but instead a judge had ignored the jury’s ruling and a plea agreement. Now the former professor was being held for contempt of court in an unrelated case.

To our great relief, our respected friend looked fine, if very thin. Slapping our hands to his against the glass window that separated us, we knew by his shining eyes and wide grin that somehow, despite his ordeal, his spirit had not been crushed. He spoke loudly into two telephones, but the third, phoneless, visitor could barely hear his words. Behind us rose the babble of other visitors and shrieking children. Behind Al-Arian drifted the voices of other men enjoying their weekly visits with loved ones.

Dr. Al-Arian began his hunger strike when, in violation of the deal he’d made with the U.S. Justice Department, he was called to testify against the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, VA. As a matter of principle, and on the advice of his attorneys, he refused. “The good news is I’ve lost 24 pounds, and I don’t need my medicine for my diabetes since I’m eating no food,” he joked.

When we asked why he is putting his life in danger with his hunger strike, Dr. Al-Arian replied, “I’m protesting the continuous harassment campaign by the government against me because of my political beliefs. I believe that freedom and human dignity are more precious than life itself. I’m taking a principled stand and I’m willing to endure whatever it takes to win my freedom. And I won’t give in.”

Prior to his arrest, Al-Arian told us, he’d been a target of investigation for a dozen years, with FBI agents trailing him for the last eight. The prosecution had 21,000 hours of taped conversations, 400,000 documents—and those were just the ones they released—and countless photos, including shots of his bookshelves and others snapped every time he went in or out of a restaurant. The prosecution called 80 witnesses, including 21 flown to Florida from Israel. All in all, Al-Arian estimated, the prosecution probably spent $80 million. “My defense was four words—’I rest my case’—and the jury agreed,” Al-Arian said. “They gave us zero convictions.”
Even before his trial, Al-Arian spent much of his time in solitary confinement, he recalled, “in an 8-by-9-foot cell with no books, radio or telephone, just sitting there wondering ‘why me?’ They never told me. I spent the first 23 months in a federal penitentiary in Coleman, FL, or what I call Guantanamo-plus—the ‘plus’ being given one phone call a month. If my family wasn’t home I lost my month and they took even that away for six months. Murderers and kidnappers, everyone had contact with the outside world except me, and I couldn’t do a thing about it.

“I was strip-searched and my hands and feet shackled whenever I left my cell,” he continued. “My guards refused to carry my legal stuff, so I had to carry it on my back. Deafening fire alarms went off for 5 to 10 minutes, 15 times a day, even in the middle of the night.”
Sami was moved to nine prisons in as many months. “This was part of the harassment,” he explained. “My two weeks ‘locked-down’ in Atlanta were the worst. It was the filthiest prison with rats and cockroaches and two to three men to each cell.”

Al-Arian told us the Warsaw prison was one of the best. He had contact with his kids, access to a library, and his subscriptions to The New York Times, The Nation and the Washington Report actually came through.

As for his current sentence of 18 months for civil contempt, Sami said he was “‘cautiously optimistic.’ This could go on for years or it could end tomorrow. I had to take a stand. I’ll suffer for a few weeks or months. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be a martyr. But I won’t testify.

“I’ve really missed my family,” he told us. “The worst part of all this is that my family suffers along with me. My wife, Nahla, has been with me throughout. I couldn’t ask for a better partner in my life.

“My three older kids are in college or graduated and working. My two youngest children are in need of me. Lama is 12 now and Ali is 16. This is the most critical time for them and I need to be a part of their lives before they grow up. That’s why I wanted to end this; I want to be with them. And now the government wants to delay it even further.

“My children are the pride of my life,” Al-Arian explained. “I don’t regret being in the U.S. at all, even after all this suffering, because it has put them in an environment in which they’ve flourished.

“I’ve lived here more than 32 years and I’ve been treated well in America,” the 49-year-old Palestinian said. “I don’t regret any struggles in my life. I’m not the first and I won’t be the last to be persecuted for my political beliefs. You never know God’s plans. This is my test.”

When we asked Al-Arian what we could do to help him, he said, “Publishing these articles will help me. Your magazine reaches everyone, Christians, Muslims and Jews, in the activist community as well as government leaders. You and your readers can help this administration get it through their heads that a person can’t be held responsible for the criminal activity of another unless there is a conspiracy between them. No one should be guilty by association. The White House, Congress and our courts are susceptible to media pressure. They are listening to citizens. That’s what is so great about this country. We’re able to correct abuses, to change things if people want change. I believe that if there is pressure, they will relent and release me.”

It’s that hope and confidence in America’s system of justice that lit up his face when our palms touched his against the glass barrier as we said our goodbyes.

As we go to press, Sami Al-Arian’s hunger strike continues and he has lost more than 40 pounds. After he collapsed on the 23rd day of his hunger strike, he was moved to a federal medical prison in Butner, NC. Prison officials say they will force feed him through a tube in his nose if he appears close to death. Around the world supporters are fasting in solidarity.
His family has recently returned from Norway, where they attended the opening of a highly acclaimed documentary film, “USA versus Al-Arian,” a portrait of an Arab-American family’s struggle against U.S. government charges of terrorism. Director Line Halvorsen’s previous documentary “A Stone’s Throw Away,” about three Palestinians boys from Dheisheh refugee camp, won prestigious Norwegian awards, and certainly this film will attract even more international attention. For more information visit .

We hope that by the time this issue reaches our readers, Dr. Sami Al-Arian will be reunited with his family and living abroad. If he is not, please use the enclosed postcard and do everything you can to help free him. For more information, or to contribute to his defense fund, visit: .
Andrew Killgore, Richard Curtiss and Delinda Hanley are, respectively, the publisher, executive editor and news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.