Window Into Palestine: Daughter of Palestinian Jailed Under PATRIOT Act to Speak in Burlington

Friday, July 25

Daughter of Palestinian Jailed Under PATRIOT Act to Speak in Burlington

By Ken Picard

It’s been more than five years since Dr. Sami Al-Arian, a professor at the University of South Florida, was arrested and jailed on terrorism and conspiracy charges cobbled together under the USA PATRIOT Act.

Al-Arian, a longtime Palestinian activist, spent more than two and a half years in solitary confinement, until December 2005, when a jury acquitted him of the most serious of the charges. His family claims he signed a plea agreement — admitting to a minor charge — just to put an end to the nightmarish ordeal in hopes of being reunited with his family.

But Al-Arian is still languishing in a Virginia prison, the victim of what his daughter, Laila Al-Arian, describes as the Bush administration’s ongoing persecution of Arabs and Muslims living in the United States. This Wednesday, July 23, at 6:30 p.m., Laila Al-Arian will discuss her father’s case in the Community Room of Burlington’s Fletcher Free Library. Al-Arian is calling on U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, to investigate her father’s prolonged imprisonment.

According to some estimates, the federal government has already spent $50 million in its attempted prosecution of Dr. Al-Arian. The family’s ordeal was chronicled in the 2007 award-winning documentary, USA v. Al-Arian.

“From the beginning, it has been clear that this was a political prosecution and the pursuit of contempt by the rogue prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia have underscored this,” says Linda Moreno, one of Al-Arian’s attorneys, in a posting on his daughter’s blog. “As I have often said, I support my government going after terrorists and those who wish to do harm against my country. But I have never represented a terrorist, and an American jury found that Dr. Al Arian was no terrorist.”

In a statement, Laila Al-Arian said she’s looking forward to coming to Burlington, in part because of the community support for keeping Al Jazeera English on the air. A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, she recently began working as a producer for Al Jazeera English in Washington, D.C.