Peter Erlinder: The Torture of Sami Al Arian

JURIST Guest Columnist Peter Erlinder of William Mitchell College of Law, attorney on appeal for Dr. Sami Al Arian, says that the treatment accorded the acquitted but still detained academic Palestinian activist from Tampa – now on hunger strike and in danger of irreversible renal failure at a federal prison hospital – is abuse of power amounting to torture taking place in the United States itself under the aegis of the Bush Administration and its “war on terror”…
_____________________________________________________________

The storm of criticism that followed George Bush’s weekend veto of Congressional limits on the CIA’s use of torture might lead to the conclusion that, reprehensible as “torture” might be in remote, secret CIA locations, it could never happen here in the US. But the Bush administration’s abuse of power in its treatment of Dr. Sami al Arian and other acquitted Palestinian “terrorism-defendants” has already demonstrated that “torture” for this administration is commonplace – even here.

[Read the article]