{"id":3022,"date":"2008-03-25T14:18:02","date_gmt":"2008-03-25T20:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=3022"},"modified":"2008-03-25T14:18:02","modified_gmt":"2008-03-25T20:18:02","slug":"media-roundup-of-al-arian-case-hunger-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=3022","title":{"rendered":"Media Roundup of Al-Arian Case, Hunger Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace
\nMar. 25, 2008<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Thursday Mar. 20, more than two weeks after beginning a water and food strike, Dr. Sami Al-Arian began drinking water. He remains on a hunger strike. Throughout his strike, despite suffering from chest pains, severe dehydration, headaches and other symptoms, Dr. Al-Arian was not offered an IV or treated for any of the symtoms. Thursday morning, Dr. Al-Arian appeared before a third grand jury and once again did not testify, citing his plea agreement which does not require his cooperation. The grand jury appearance — and the Department of Justice’s continued attemps to indefinitely prolong Dr. Al-Arian’s imprisonment– came less than three weeks before his April 7 release date.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the nationally syndicated television and radio program Democracy Now! featured Dr. Al-Arian’s daughter Laila and one of his attorneys, Will Olsen. Click on the following link to watch\/listen to the program and read the transcript:<\/p>\n

LINK<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The following day, Dr. Al-Arian’s wife, Nahla, his brother, Khaled, and former counsel Peter Erlinder appeared on “Hiwar Maftuh” (Open Dialogue), one of the most-watched programs on the Al-Jazeera Arab satellite network. The program generated hundreds of letters, phone calls and emails in support of the Al-Arian family. We hope to have a link to the program soon.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post on Mar. 22 published an article about the Al Arian case (Refusal Keeps Terrorism Convict in Prison) that contained some errors.<\/p>\n

The article takes at face value the Department of Justice’s claim that the plea agreement Dr. Al-Arian signed with the government does not bar them from requesting his testimony. But federal prosecutors based in Florida, who negotiated the plea agreement on behalf of the DOJ, dispute this statement.<\/p>\n

Assistant US Attorney Terry Zitek on Nov. 18, 2006, told Judge James Moody of Florida: “Al-Arian says, ‘I don’t want to cooperate.’ So we say, ‘We won’t put a cooperation provision in there.'”The “cooperation provision” to which Zitek referred was, of course, the standard cooperation provision which forms the backdrop of every plea agreement signed in the Middle District of Florida.<\/p>\n

This provision was expressly removed in the Al-Arian case, at Dr. Al Arian’s insistence. The government acceded to this request.<\/p>\n

Here is a link to the Post article:<\/p>\n

LINK<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Al-Arian’s attorney, Jonathan Turley, clarified some mistakes and misrepresentations in the article in a blog post on his website:<\/p>\n

LINK<\/a><\/p>\n

See below for more media coverage of the hunger strike and case:<\/p>\n

I. “Instructor promotes Al-Arian documentary,” USF Oracle Mel Underbakke is touring the country screening the film, USA vs. Al-Arian. The film focuses on the effects of the five-year trial on Al-Arian’s family.<\/p>\n

read more:
\nLINK<\/a><\/p>\n

II. The radio program Flashpoints covered Dr. Al-Arian’s case on Monday, Mar. 24. The segment begins at minute 46:00 of the broadcast:
\nLINK<\/a><\/p>\n

III. “Sami Al-Arian’s Long Ordeal,” Opednews.com Because of his faith, ethnicity and political activism, the Bush administration targeted Al-Arian for supporting “terrorism.” In fact, he’s a Palestinian refugee, distinguished professor and scholar, community leader and civil activist.<\/p>\n

read more:
\nLINK<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace Mar. 25, 2008 On Thursday Mar. 20, more than two weeks after beginning a water and food strike, Dr. Sami Al-Arian began drinking water. He remains on a hunger strike. Throughout his strike, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-MK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}