Laila Al-Arian - The Persecution of Sami Al-Arian Pt 1

Speaker 1: The only people who are capable of stopping this war are the American people. So, between now and February, if there isn't a massive movement to stop the war, the war will take place in February. What I told them today, basically, is that this is an unjust war, that there are no people who are advocating this war having their sons and daughters fighting this war.

Sami Al-Arian: Is there a single soldier who is going to fight this war? Who is a son or daughter of any CEO in this country?

Speaker 1: And that this war really is going to start a wave of hatred and violence across the Muslim world, and that we need to stop it, because those who advocate this war basically are of the persuasion of the clash of civilization. In other words, they would like to see a clash, a confrontation, a war between the Muslim world and the West, specifically America. And that there are 2 parties to this.

Laila Al-Arian: Theory.

Speaker 1: One part is the, those who are advocating war, whether it's in the administration or outside, the think tanks, the neocons, the Zionists, and also people like bin Laden and his supporters who would like to see this war, because that will basically give them their theory, which is that there is an inevitable confrontation, that there is no way that we can coexist in the world with the West, that is, the Muslims. And I think this is a very, very dangerous concept, dangerous theory. And the clashes, as I call them, they must be stopped. There are other means to end this conflict. Iraq is hardly the only country that has these accusations. They have been under punitive sanctions, where millions of people have already died or are in dire need of help. And what's happening basically today Is a warmongering, where they would like to see this clash. Samuel Huntington started this back in the early '90s, in which he said that there is an inevitable clash of civilization between the Muslim world and the Western world, specifically the United States. And the advocates of this, as I said earlier, are, on one hand, the people who are advocating this war, whether inside the administration or across the spectrum. A lot of them are— describe themselves as neoconservatives or hardcore Zionists.

Sami Al-Arian: Right.

Speaker 1: Or on the evangelical right, or those who have a stake in the defense spending or oil interests. On the other hand, you also have the extremes across the Muslim world, represented by bin Laden and others, who would like to see also a clash between the West and the Muslim world. And I think that's what is so dangerous about it, because it's going to be a perpetual conflict, that a lot of innocent people would be killed and the whole atmosphere would be so poisoned that there will be no real coexistence when this ends. Chertell, Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, obviously, Cheney, Bush and their cronies across, you know, the administration, Elliott Abrams, a lot of them are on the National Security Council, maybe faceless, nameless. And you get the people on the think tanks, like Daniel Pipes and Gaffney and others, who are working basically very hard on behalf of Israeli interests and interests that have nothing to do with ordinary Americans. Condoleezza Rice is just one small player into this. Obviously, her boyfriend, Richard Haass, is into this. Just is in the State Department, and they are working along the same lines. What is happening in Iraq is a diversion from the real problem, which is, as I said earlier, what we have here is a concept, a theory, that instead of having a dialogue of civilizations, people are trying to have conflict of civilizations, in which hundreds of thousands of people would be affected, hundreds of thousands of people's lives would be affected. What we need really is to have this kind of a extending the hands and the values. And people look at the hypocrisy that takes place vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict, where you have Israel, a possessor of nuclear weapons, a country that defied United Nations Security Council resolutions for many, many decades, getting away virtually with murder, while Iraq, that has been under punitive sanctions for 12 years, and according to the experts has been disarmed of 98% of its weapons. Today they are being threatened with war and destruction. I do not think that this administration cares much for the world, cares much for Europe or the United Nations. I believe the only people capable to stop this war are the American people. And if there is not a massive movement of rejection for this war between now and February, I believe that And as I said earlier, the war will take place in February.

Laila Al-Arian: My name is Leila, and I'm the daughter of Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian-American professor who's been in prison for more than 5 years. Today, my father's on the 44th day of a hunger strike. My mother, brother, and I actually visited him yesterday at an immigration facility in Virginia. He looked extremely thin and was very, very weak. He's lost more than 30 pounds, and he also looked like a shadow of his former self. My mother began sobbing as soon as she saw the way he looked. I should also say my father hasn't seen a doctor for more than a week. My father began the hunger strike on March 3rd for a very simple reason: to protest continued harassment and abuse by a U.S. government that's intent on ensnaring him in a new case and keeping him in jail His case is a clear example of gross prosecutorial misconduct and abuse of power. This is justice under the Bush administration. When my father was arrested in February 2003, John Ashcroft— John Ashcroft's Justice Department claimed it a victory in the fight against terror that a federal jury in a conservative district in Florida After looking at reams of quote-unquote evidence, rejected the government's case wholesale. After a 6-month trial that cost taxpayers $50 million, the prosecution's case fell apart completely. My father's attorneys, in fact, rested their case without presenting a single witness. Our defense was the First Amendment. On December 6th, 2005, the judge in the case Read not guilty verdicts for 20 minutes for my father and his 3 co-defendants. None of this ultimately mattered. After being acquitted of the most serious charges against him, my father was threatened with a retrial. Though the overwhelming majority of jurors voted for full acquittal, 2 of them had stubbornly refused to acquit my father based not on any evidence, but on their feelings. This according to another juror. To avoid a trial on the hung count, to finally bring his nightmare to an end, my father decided to sign a plea agreement. Little did we know that we would be standing here 2 years later begging and pleading with the government to keep their end of this plea agreement. Under the plea agreement, my father should have been released last April at the latest. But when he didn't testify before a grand jury because it was a violation of that plea agreement, he was held in civil contempt, pushing his release date to April 11th of this year at the latest. So why hasn't my father been released and deported as promised? This is justice under the Bush administration. My father's case is no longer about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or about any statements he may have made 30 years ago. This is about the rule of law. My father's been kept away from his family for far too long. How much longer will the government seek to imprison him in order to punish him for his views, speeches, and associations? This case is closely watched by millions of people all over the world, including the Middle East and Europe. We cannot lecture others about human rights and civil liberties When we hold prisoners for political reasons on our own shores. On Friday, the day of my father's scheduled release, he was placed in the custody of immigration officials. We ask these officials to release and deport him immediately. We ask that no new charges be brought against him. We ask that he's able to be reunited with us, his family, after this long and painful ordeal.

Speaker 6: Enough is enough. Enough is enough.

Laila Al-Arian: Your Side at 6. Tonight, terrorism in Tampa. After years of investigation by government agencies, the feds make their move and arrest suspended USF professor Sami Al-Arian.

Juan González: In his capacity as a leader in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, he directed the audit of all monies and property of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad throughout the world.

Sami Al-Arian: I was the only person who was not convicted. And I was put in solitary confinement. 23 hours a day, and sometimes for weeks, 24 hours a day. I wasn't allowed even to see my attorneys when she comes in. I wasn't allowed to call my family. For 6 months, I was not allowed to make a single phone call.

Speaker 1: Sami Al-Arian arrived for court this morning before 9:00 a.m.

Sami Al-Arian: under heavy security for a trial that's gained national and international attention.

Speaker 1: Al-Arian's defense attorney says this case is about a basic American right.

Sami Al-Arian: This is a First Amendment case, in that you have the right to be a member, you have a right to be a supporter, you have a right to take positions based on the violence. This is all First Amendment stuff. This is pure First Amendment stuff.

Laila Al-Arian: For 5 months, the prosecutors laid out in detail a case painting Al-Arian as the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But as NewsChannel 8's Steve Andrews tells us, Once the government rested its case, so did Al-Arian's defense, without calling one witness.

Juan González: The United States of America v. Sami Amin Al-Arian. I'll read the paragraph for which we have a verdict. As to the offense of conspiracy to murder or maim persons at places outside the United States, we, the jury, find the defendant, Sami Amin Al-Arian, Not guilty.

Speaker 6: The judge started reading 20 minutes of not guilty verdicts.

Laila Al-Arian: It was unbelievable.

Speaker 6: There was not one guilty verdict in 51 counts for 4 of these men. That's 200 counts. They didn't have a guilty verdict.

Sami Al-Arian: Uh, Mr. Al-Arian, uh, was not directly linked to any of the violent acts that we showed during the trial.

Amy Goodman: Prosecutors admitted their case lacks hard evidence linking any of the defendants to those violent acts, but they say that in a conspiracy, such evidence is not required.

Speaker 6: Why did you vote not guilty on just about every count?

Sami Al-Arian: I didn't see the evidence.

Speaker 6: There was no evidence against these guys.

Sami Al-Arian: Not enough.

Speaker 6: You know, a lot of it, I felt it was hearsay.

Laila Al-Arian: What would it have taken for a guilty verdict?

Sami Al-Arian: Evidence.

Speaker 10: No tomorrow, no tomorrow. And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had. I find it hard to tell you. I find it hard to take when people run in circles. It's a very, very mad world.

Speaker 6: Mad world.

Speaker 10: Children waiting for the day they feel good. Happy birthday, happy birthday. And to feel the way that every child should. Sit and listen, sit and listen. Went to school and I was very nervous. No one knew me, no one knew me. Hello, teacher, tell me what's my name. Happy birthday, happy birthday. Listen, look right through me. Look right through me. And I find it kind of funny. I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had. I find it hard to tell you. I find it hard to take. The people run in circles. It's a very, very mad world. I'm sorry.

Laila Al-Arian: So I think he's made it really his career to go after a lot of Muslim leaders and Muslim organizations, particularly here in Virginia. And he was the one who actually brought my father from Florida to Virginia to begin trying to entrap him in a completely separate case. And what we've learned along the way, in his questioning of my father and his attempts to charge my father with perjury or obstruction of justice by trying to force him to testify in a completely separate case, is that he's not really interested in the truth. And what he's doing, really, is retrying the case that the government lost so badly in Florida, and they— which is a clear case of double jeopardy, and really trying to abuse the law by trying to relitigate this case. And he's even admitted this in his own filings and comments before the court in a public hearing. And, obviously, we hope that these efforts are failing miserably. And I think the fact that my father has been released here in America is a very strong testament that he was never He was never guilty of anything the government has accused him of and that he's not a threat to anybody.

Amy Goodman: Leila Al-Arian, your father is now under house detention pending trial. What trial is that? And where does deportation fit into this?

Laila Al-Arian: This is a trial on criminal contempt, as I mentioned, because my father would not testify. And I talked about this prosecutor not being interested in the truth. In fact, we offered for my father to take a lie detector test to answer the questions that were actually relevant to this separate case, this investigation of— —of these Muslim organizations here in Virginia. And the prosecutor refused this lie detector, which shows that— and 99% of the time it's actually the government that asks for a defendant to take this test. So it just shows that what he's interested in, really, is imprisoning my father by any means, and that that's what he's after, not the truth, not justice. So what we're waiting for, basically— the judge delayed the trial until at least a few more months, while the Supreme Court—

Speaker 6: Right.

Laila Al-Arian: —considers an appeal we have concerning his plea agreement, which he signed with the government in 2006, and the fact that it's a violation of his plea agreement to be forced to testify and cooperate with the government in the way that they want him to. So, pending the Supreme Court ruling, the trial has been suspended or postponed. What also has postponed the trial is that the judge is considering an argument that the same prosecutor has actually abused his authority once again by making up language in an immunity order. So, when he actually brought my father to testify before a grand jury, he offered him an immunity order that usually prosecutors use the language that's been passed by Congress. It's a statute that Congress passed many years ago. But this particular prosecutor actually creates his own language and his own statute. And no other prosecutor in the country does this. It's completely unprecedented. And I think more than one judge has been— appalled at his kind of rogue behavior. So this is something that is also being considered by the court, whether this is constitutional or not.

Amy Goodman: Your mother moved with your 2 younger siblings, your brother and sister, to Egypt. Could he be deported to Egypt?

Laila Al-Arian: He could be. We know that the Egyptian government has already accepted for him to be— to be Basically deported there, and that he would be welcomed there as a citizen of the world, really, and someone who can contribute so much to the entire world once this whole ordeal is over. And that's what we really hope will happen at this point. We hope that within the next few months this case will be seen as nothing but an attempt to really punish my father further than these 5 and a half years, and that he'll be finally released and deported, and this whole nightmare will be over. I think that's what's fair. That's what people all over the country want. And that's what you're hoping for? And all over the world have been asking for. And that's really the only just way to end this whole nightmare that's taken so long to be resolved.

Amy Goodman: Leila Khaled, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Leila Khaled is a journalist in this country. She has cowritten the book with Chris Hedges, Collateral Damage. Her father, Dr. Sami Al-Arian, has been released. He was released from prison in her custody after more than 5 and a half years.

Speaker 6: —events to raise awareness about the case. But just to begin with my father's personal story, like many Palestinians, his story begins even before his birth. It begins with the year 1948, when his family, both of his parents, were forcibly expelled out of their home in Palestine. His father came from The city of Jaffa, or Jaffa. Actually, both of his parents came from that city. And like hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians, they were forced out of their homes. And my grandfather then went on to live in Gaza, where he worked for the UN, sort of helping with refugees who were expelled. And my father himself was born in Kuwait.

Laila Al-Arian: In Kuwait.

Speaker 6: And, you know, never really felt at home, just like so many other Palestinians who were forcibly expelled and displaced. So he lived in Kuwait for about 8 years, and then they were forced out of there, basically for being Palestinian, being who they are. And then they moved to Egypt, and that's where my mom also grew up. And And Egypt, they found it to be a little better, that the society was more open. But at the same time, there were a lot of restrictions. So when my father was a senior in high school, he had worked, you know, for years. He was very much a bookworm, very, very studious. He actually spent all of his allowance just on books because he was a voracious reader. And like many Palestinians, there's a sort of work ethic that your education will be your freedom, your ticket out of That's right. So that very much sort of described the way my father was raised and his outlook. But then Sadat came into power that year, and he changed the laws so that Palestinians were restricted to what sort of fields they were— they could study. So even though my father had excelled, his grades were at the top of his class, and he dreamed of becoming a medical doctor, in fact, he couldn't do that. So his father then told him, you know, I've been working hard my whole life, and he sort of offered him his life savings. He said, if you apply to school in the US or the UK, wherever you're accepted, here are my life savings for you. And sure enough, he came to the US to study. He was only 17 years old. And he came, you know, with a lot of dreams. He really saw America as a place where there's freedom of speech. And, you know, beyond just studying and doing well, he also felt this huge moral responsibility to be outspoken on the Palestinian cause, because this was the place where policy was being made. It was the center of power. We were, you know, obviously the U.S. is Israel's biggest ally, its benefactor financially, and all of that. We all know the role of the U.S. in sustaining and supporting the Israeli occupation. So my father became an activist. He would organize conferences in the US, publish magazines, invite different scholars to come here and speak, and really just offer different viewpoints. Well, because of his work and his advocacy, he made some very powerful enemies. And some of those are people, very well-known Islamophobes, people who detest Muslims, but especially Palestinians, whose very existence is dedicated to taking down people like my father simply because they're threatened by their viewpoints and they're threatened by the fact that, you know, there are articulate Palestinians out there who can advocate for their cause. So a man by the name of Stephen Emerson, who calls himself a journalist, but in fact he's an agent for Israel, made a documentary called Jihad in America, a documentary in quotes, not very credible. And this was the same man who after the Oklahoma City bombing immediately went on television and said this act was committed by Palestinians and Muslims. So he has no credibility whatsoever. He was also caught trying to pass forged FBI documents to reporters at the AP. So these are just some of the desperate acts and, you know, horrific acts that he's taken part of. So in this documentary, he paints my father as a terrorist and a supporter of terrorism. This documentary airs on PBS in 1994, and shortly after, our family's house is raided by the FBI in Tampa, Florida. And after that, a few months later, A protégé of Stephen Emerson, a man by the name of Michael Fechter, who's a local newspaper reporter in Tampa, starts publishing hundreds and hundreds of articles just on my father. So this man's beat at the newspaper was strictly just to write about my father in any way, shape, or form to try to connect him to terrorism, whether trying to blame the Oklahoma City bombing on my father, or just various, you know, completely disconnected, unrelated acts and incidents.

Laila Al-Arian: Right.

Speaker 6: Just to try to smear him. So obviously we had a very unusual childhood, really, under the glare of not only an agenda-driven journalist like Michael Fechter, who in fact, you know, for years, for a decade, we've been saying this guy basically works for Stephen Emerson, even though he pretended he was a reporter. And then we were vindicated a few years ago when in fact he quit his job at the newspaper and formally started working Working for Stephen Emerson. So when people accuse us of being conspiracy theorists, I mean, come on, like half the time these conspiracies are proven true. So anyways, so that's what happened there. He now works for something called the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which is basically Stephen Emerson's outfit devoted strictly to taking down activists like my father and smearing them on the internet mainly. So around the time— so a couple of years after our house was raided in Tampa, this was 1995, 2 years later my uncle Mazen was arrested by the FBI, by immigration. He was directly taken to an FBI office and offered a job with the FBI and citizenship if he would basically give them information on my father. So of course he told them, no, I don't have anything to tell you, and I'm not going So they then held him under the use of secret evidence, which— and remember, this is the Clinton administration. So when people say that all of this started with Bush, I mean, unfortunately, that's not entirely true. The Clinton administration wasn't very good on these issues either. So after the Oklahoma City bombing, there's a bill passed in Congress called the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

Laila Al-Arian: Right.

Speaker 6: And this bill, basically, one of the provisions of it allowed for the use of secret evidence. So someone could be arrested, never charged with a single crime, but held indefinitely on the basis of secret evidence that neither he nor his lawyers could see. So basically, as we would say at the time, it was like fighting ghosts. You had no idea what it was that was being said about you. So you felt completely helpless. And And the lawyers didn't know either, so how could you prove your innocence when you have— yes? So how long could they hold a person? It was indefinitely. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's crazy. So sure enough, he was held for 3 and a half years, and it wasn't until, you know, we really launched a very tough fight against the unconstitutional use of secret evidence. I mean, this This is completely contrary to everything we stand for as a country, where we have a Bill of Rights and habeas corpus, the right to confront your accuser. None of that was afforded to my uncle. And I should mention that the use of secret evidence was reserved mainly for use against Arab and Muslim immigrants. With the exception of maybe one or two people, that was the community that was being targeted with this provision. So my father became extremely active on this issue. He was lobbying Congress, going up to Washington every other weekend or week to really lobby Congress and get different civil rights organizations involved on this, because it was so blatantly against the Constitution. And he became very successful. He was able to get a bill sponsored to repeal the use of secret evidence, and it was a bipartisan effort, so you even had Republicans on it. And because of his efforts and his success on getting secret evidence repealed, at least by the House, people became even more, I guess, compelled or determined to get back at him. And September 11th gave them that opportunity, and to silence him effectively. So after 9/11— and I should even— I should actually step back for a minute and talk about the 2000s. Okay. Presidential campaign. So for the Arab and Muslim community, secret evidence was the main issue. You had a lot of high-profile cases like my Uncle Mazen al-Najjar's case, and you had a community that really felt that it was under siege. Like I said, this act was targeted towards Arabs and Muslims. So at the time, George Bush was sort of painting himself as this compassionate conservative And really trying to court the Muslim vote and deceiving them very, very well. So he basically— the way he was able to win, ironically, the Arab and Muslim vote was during the second presidential debate, which was televised. He stood up and he said, if I'm elected president, I'm going to end the use of secret evidence against Arabs. So that was enough, really, to win their votes. And at the same time, the Gore campaign was very unrelenting. Right. Responsive to any sort of overtures by the Arab and Muslim communities. And they were just very arrogant. Unfortunately, this is a trend with the Democratic Party where they take votes for granted, especially votes of minority groups, and really don't make an effort to win them over. So the Muslim community ended up endorsing Bush, not really also realizing who his sort of team, his cabinet was that he was bringing in, not realizing The power of this neoconservative movement, the backing of the Christian right. I mean, a lot of these issues weren't very known then. And as they say, hindsight is 20/20. So sure enough, they elected him, and particularly in Florida, where we were living, which of course decided the election. And then, as my father liked to say, with Bush, we went from secret evidence to no evidence.

Laila Al-Arian: Right.

Sami Al-Arian: Yes.

Speaker 6: So, of course, that took us back decades. So, after 9/11, a bigot and a caricaturer by the name of Bill O'Reilly, who I'm sure you've heard of, had my father on his show, and he just went completely berserk on the air. He was actually fed information by Michael Fechter, this newspaper reporter I told I told you about. And he fed him basically lies about my father that, like I said, just the same old tired claims. And Michael— and Bill O'Reilly on the air said, if I were the CIA, I would follow you everywhere you went, Dr. Al-Arian, and just menacing him and threatening him and bullying him like he's so known for.

Laila Al-Arian: And—

Speaker 6: You know, we know what happened with the Rwandan genocide in 1994. You had people on the radio propagating hate, and their role was huge. And to me, people like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and these types of characters who propagate hate and who threaten lives and livelihoods are no different than the people who took, you know, took part in the Rwandan genocide. I just find their role completely reprehensible, and they're never held accountable.

Sami Al-Arian: I agree.

Speaker 6: for the lives they've destroyed. Sorry, I had to get that out there. And I should say that O'Reilly's producers, not only did he say these horrible things on the air with no regard for the truth, but his producers actually lied to my father repeatedly. And, you know, just took part in really weird shenanigans that That are contrary to every journalistic ethic. In any case, moving on, after that, his crazy, irrational, racist viewers started sending in death threats to my father and to our home, to his personal email, to his work email, and even to his office at the university where he was teaching. And the university, rather than protect my father, one of their employees, an award-winning professor who was Well-respected and well-regarded, actually punished my father by suspending him. And a few months later, firing him in his absence with no regard for due process, no regard— he was a tenured professor, no regard for tenure, for the whole process. And the way they did it was actually so shameful. It was during winter break, so no students or professors were even there when they fired him.

Speaker 10: Thank you.

Speaker 6: And what we later discovered was that the board of directors was really pushing hard on this. And what happened was when Jeb Bush, our governor at the time, was elected, he sort of did away with the Board of Regents system for universities, which is, you know, there were academics that would serve on boards of universities. You know, isn't that a radical idea to have people who actually know their field serving on the board?

Laila Al-Arian: Yeah.

Speaker 6: He brought in his rich Republican donors to serve on the board of the university. Of course, they had no regard for academia, for academic freedom, freedom of speech, none of— all of those were quaint ideas. And they actually let their racism and their fear and Islamophobia guide their actions. So, you know, the chairman of the board, Dick Beard, was going around in the media calling my father a cancer on the university. Oh, my God. And, you know, using all these, you know, really inflammatory terms to describe my father. And he was the one pushing hard for it. And they fired him, and they came under fire by a lot of academic freedom groups. Professors unions all over the country were supporting my father, because it was clear that the only reason they fired him was because of his beliefs, and because he dared exercise his right to free speech, and because of who he was at Palestine University. So at the time, the American Association of University Professors threatened to censure the university for what they'd done to my father, and this was huge. If a university is censured, a lot of people— they don't get the grants they want, they can't draw the types of star professors that they want to bring to their campuses, so it really had major ramifications. The Washington Post and the New York Times issued editorials in support of my father, so he really became this sort of cause célèbre in terms of academic free speech post-9/11. So the university panicked, and essentially what we believe happened, and this was sort of hinted at in a Time magazine article that came out in late 2005, is that there was a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering to bring about an indictment against my father. The university wanted to get itself out of this huge mess that it created for itself. And it even resorted to really strange tactics to stall until an indictment came. So they sued my father in court. And I mean, who sues a professor after firing him? And of course, the lawsuit was laughed out of court, but it was just a stalling— a way to stall until the indictment happened. We believe that the governor himself was connected to the indictment, that he was pushing for it in Washington, D.C. And we believe that the decision to indict my father went all the way to the top of the Bush administration, I mean, at all levels. And in fact, what Time magazine reported was that it was personally ordered by John Ashcroft. I mean, it's extremely unusual for the Attorney General himself to order an indictment of someone, at the objection of prosecutors in Florida who said, you know, we don't have anything on this guy, we're not ready to build a case against him. And they were right. So what they essentially did was they arrested my father in February 2003, and they said, okay, we're going to indict him now and build a case later. And that was sort of the attitude. So they held him under the most atrocious conditions imaginable. It was very much like Guantanamo Bay, for 2 and a half years, solitary confinement. We— even though all of the convicted felons in prison could hug their families and see them face to face. We had to visit my father behind glass. They would insist on stripping him before and after each visit, even though we would see him behind glass. So it was all these ways to really humiliate him and to psychologically break him down before trial. Even his attorneys were harassed. So if his lawyer wanted to go in and carry legal documents with her to meet with my father, they would just They just come up with all these arbitrary rules, like you can only bring in a 1-inch stack of paper. Well, the indictment itself was 3 inches large, so how could they— they were basically trying to restrict even his ability to prepare a defense for trial. So in any case, we had to really go through this for 2 and a half years where we saw him suffer under these conditions. He wasn't even given a clock to know when the prayer was. Of course, he couldn't see the sun for months at a time. And at the same time, we were preparing for trial. Remember, this is Florida. This is a place where, you know, they polled people, and the vast majority of people had heard about my father. And what they were subjected to were these articles I told you about by this reporter who had an a vendetta against my father, who's agenda-driven, whose views on Israel basically colored everything he wrote, and who had no journalistic ethics or morals or regard for the truth. And so they were subjected to a decade, basically, of these types of articles. So we had a— basically, the deck was stacked against us from the very beginning. We were very worried about the jury pool. And the judge in the case was denying one motion after another. He was also extremely biased. If you've seen the film on my dad's case, you know how biased he was. But despite all of that, after a 6-month trial, there was not a single guilty verdict for the 4 men. So when my father was indicted, 3 other men were indicted along with him, Palestinian men as well. And what was the verdict? And the reason for that is because they used something called the RICO law, which is generally used against the mob, but also political activists, including in the past civil rights activists, African American activists. And what that means is you charge someone with a conspiracy. So if we're charged in a conspiracy, anything my co-defendant says or does, I can be held liable for. But even beyond that, the government was bringing in website links that nobody had accessed, even not a single one of the defendants. And we later discovered that that completely backfired, and the jury was just flabbergasted, and it completely counted against the government in their case. They brought in Israeli witnesses to testify, survivors of bombings and their family members, and—

Laila Al-Arian: Excuse me.

Speaker 6: Policemen, and of course the government itself wasn't even alleging that my father had anything to do with these violent acts. But despite that, they wanted to intimidate the jury, to emotionally blackmail them, and to basically sway their emotions regardless of the truth. And that, I think, also didn't really work to their credit. I think the jury— and I think a smart thing our lawyers did was they didn't cross-examine any of these witnesses.

Laila Al-Arian: Right.

Speaker 6: So they basically made the statement that this is irrelevant to the case. And in fact, after months and months of the government presenting its case, our lawyers stood up and said, on behalf of Dr. Alareer, we present no defense, because our defense was the Constitution and the First Amendment. So of course at the time we were very scared about this. It was a very risky strategy. But thankfully it was successful, and the jury could really see how powerful that statement was. That, you know, we didn't even bring a witness, nothing. And after 13 days of deliberation, the jury acquitted my father. Like I said, not a single guilty verdict after— among, you know, hundreds of charges among the 4 men. But despite that, my father remained in prison, even though he signed— he ended up signing a plea agreement with the government months later.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 6: He was sort of backed into a wall. They threatened to retry him because a couple of the jurors refused to fully acquit my father. And when the other jurors would ask them, why not? I mean, they're clearly innocent. The government failed to prove its case. The burden of proof is on the government. They would just say, it's a feeling we have. You know, so they relied on their emotions and their presumably racist views and not on Anything that was actually presented in court. So, like I said, my father sort of left with very few choices. Either he had to face a whole other trial, raising more and more funds for the attorneys. At that point, we were very exhausted, I mean, emotionally, financially, and in all the ways you can imagine after going through that ordeal. So my father ended up signing a plea agreement, basically amounting to some made-up charges the government devised to save face. And they amounted to bringing in a scholar from Britain to work in the U.S., helping his brother-in-law, my uncle, with immigration matters, and supposedly lying to a journalist, which if that were a crime, I think half of Congress would be in jail. So, you know, it just shows their desperation. And this journalist himself says he doesn't believe he was lied to, so you could just see the lengths they went to. He signed this plea agreement, he was told, well, okay, we don't expect you to cooperate. He actually had the government take out the provision that's normally in the plea agreement that you have to cooperate in other cases and that sort of thing. He had them take that out and promise him he wouldn't have to cooperate in any other case, that his business with the government was over. And that he would be deported. Of course, it's a sad day when you have to leave America to be free, but that's the place we found ourselves in after this ordeal. But they went back on their agreement. And, you know, what we've heard is that it's— it was unheard of before the Bush administration for the Department of Justice to make an agreement like that on their word and then Just go back on it. Like, no regard for justice, no regard for their word, nothing. And you really see that in other situations with the Bush administration. You really see this politicization of justice. You saw the attorneys who were fired because they refused to bow down to the Bush administration's demand to prosecute people based on politics. And you saw that with my father's case, with other similar political prosecutions. And you saw that with the— So a prosecutor by the name of Gordon Cromberg, who's based in Virginia, Northern Virginia, was very, very upset with the verdict. He was upset with the plea agreement, which he described as a bonanza to our attorneys. And he made it his life's mission to keep my father in jail for the rest of his life by any means necessary, even if it meant he would exploit the position and the power and the authority that he's in to do that. Thank you. And just to give you some background on Gordon Cromberg, he's very, very pro-Israel. He's made his opinions very well known. He's blogged about his fear of Palestinians online. He's made a slew of Islamophobic and anti-Muslim comments on the record. Just to give you a few, when he was trying to bring my father up from Florida to Virginia a few years ago, it was during the Muslim month of Ramadan. And our attorneys asked, you know, since my father wouldn't have to testify before this grand jury for a month or 2 longer, why don't you just keep him in Florida during Ramadan so he can be with his parents— his family, rather— and bring him up later? And he said, well, he just responded, well, if Muslims can kill each other during Ramadan, they can testify before a grand jury. So this is his views on Muslims. More recently, When my father was being released on house arrest, the judge asked this prosecutor if he objected that my father was being released into my custody. He actually stood up and he said, well, in this particular culture, meaning Arabs and Muslims, if a man wants to leave his woman or his daughter, can't tell him, no, don't leave. She can't stand up to a man. And of course, the judge was completely appalled by his comment and blasted him. And he said, Yeah. So he's very shameless about his disdain for Arabs and Muslims, but especially Palestinians. And he's never apologized for any of these remarks. And he even told a jury in another case that Arabs lie, that Muslims lie, that, you know, they'll tell each other one thing, but they'll tell you another. So he's not above race-baiting either. In any case, he brought— he completely just threw away this plea agreement that my father signed, disregarded it, brought him up to Virginia to try to force him to testify before a grand jury investigating a Muslim think tank in the area. And this is sort of a tactic that's common when prosecutors lose a case. They resort to desperate tactics, and they try to bring people before a grand jury.

Laila Al-Arian: Right.

Speaker 6: So basically it's a catch-22. If you testify, they charge you with perjury. If you don't testify, they charge you with criminal contempt or obstruction of justice. So either way, they find a way to keep you in prison. In my father's case, he did not testify. He said it was a clear violation of his plea agreement and the promises made to him by the government. And for that, he was held in prison for at least a year.

Laila Al-Arian: And he was released after a year.

Speaker 6: On criminal contempt, and then charged in a new case for not testifying. Charged with a count of criminal contempt. Sorry, when he was held before, it was on civil contempt, which is technically not a charge, but it's a way for the government to pressure you. I'm sorry if all of this is very legal, but we feel like we practically have law degrees after this experience. We've had to really learn a lot about the U.S. legal system.

Laila Al-Arian: Yeah.

Speaker 6: So where we are now is my father, like I said, he was released on house arrest a year ago, which has been such an amazing blessing for our family. After 6 long years in jail, we finally have him home, and we're able to really benefit from his wisdom, and his love, and support, and all of that. So that's been great. He went on 3 hunger strikes, actually, since his arrest in 2003, so it's also been a chance for him to really regain his health and his strength. Because, you know, the prison system is very dehumanizing, and even to the body, it's a very cruel system. So being out has been also great in that regard. But where we stand now is the judge was presented very compelling arguments by our lawyers in court that all of this That forcing my father to testify was a violation of his plea agreement, that he should never have been charged. And she's been weighing whether to proceed with trial or to drop the charges and have him deported. And it's been several, several months now, and we still don't have a decision. So we've sort of been living in limbo for a while. And, you know, it sort of feels like we've been living in limbo since this whole thing began.

Laila Al-Arian: Right.

Speaker 6: But we're hoping for a good conclusion and for us to finally be free and to be a family once again, you know, after this night.

Laila Al-Arian: Well, thank you all for coming here. I'm very excited to be at this conference. I think it's a very momentous occasion, one that's long overdue, but I'm heartened to see your commitment to these important causes. Now, I actually normally don't like to read from But in this case, the events I'm describing took place when I was about 15 and 16 years old, so I think it's better told through the analysis and recollection of my father, Sami Al-Arian, who actually lived these events and was able to talk about them in much more detail. And the events I'm talking about is, as Brother Mehdi mentioned, the campaign to ban the use of secret evidence, the unconstitutional use of secret evidence. That's right. Seeker evidence, which was one of the first fights that really brought American Muslims together, civil libertarians together. And I think the example of how this battle, this legal and political battle happened and how they prevailed is really one that's very relevant to us today, and that hopefully we can take something from it and build on it and be inspired by the story. And what I'm going to talk about is the experience of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom, an organization with a very similar name to ours, but which preceded us and who worked on the use of secret evidence. And their story is one of determination and persistence by diverse groups and individuals who joined together to resist repressive government legislation, tactics, and actions designed to punish political speech and association. For a number of years before 1996, the FBI and other government agencies such as the— what was then called the INS, or the Immigration and Naturalization Service, were pushing Congress to pass a law that would criminalize First Amendment activities centered on support of political groups in politically hot areas like the Middle East and Northern Ireland. In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, these efforts accelerated. Culminating in the passage of a bill in the Senate a month later with an overwhelming majority, that's 98 to 1. The law was named the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, and although it was facing some resistance in the House of Representatives, it passed overwhelmingly in the Senate because Senator Bob Dole, who was a Republican majority leader at the time, had presidential aspirations. So the law was quickly passed in the Senate without much debate. As its sponsors exploited the fear, hysteria, and high emotions engulfing the public following Oklahoma City. In the summer and fall of 1995, there were several meetings by those concerned about the law to discuss an appropriate response. These discussions involved my father, Sami Al-Arian, Georgetown constitutional law professor David Cole, the Center for Constitutional Rights— and we have representatives from the CCR here today— and others, including some Muslim and Arab groups. Who were concerned that they could become the targets of the law because of their political beliefs and associations. The executive order issued by President Bill Clinton in January 1995 had precipitated the targeting of political activists, especially those who were critical of Israel and the offer of peace process. After some debate and in the heat of that year's presidential campaign, the legislation passed the House in April 1996. That same month, the INS arrested an Egyptian Muslim named Nasser Ahmed during an immigration deportation proceeding and held him under secret evidence. This case was the first time the government had invoked the use of secret evidence. Basically, it was a constitutional violation as it denied the defendant his 6th Amendment rights to due process. In essence, the government would meet with an immigration judge behind closed doors and without the presence of any defense lawyer or the defendant himself and provide that judge of secret evidence, which in many cases was hearsay or political associations hyped as support of a terrorist group. The judge would then ask the detainee to defend against it without telling the detainee what the evidence was, which was clearly an impossible task, or as my mom and dad liked to say at the time, it was like fighting ghosts. After the passage of this law, the tactic was used more frequently. So between April '96 and April '98, the coalition documented 29 cases where defendants were held on secret evidence in immigration courts. 28 of them were Arab and Muslim, including the elected Algerian political leader Anwar Ghaddam in December 1996. In May 1997, my uncle, Dr. Mazen al-Najjar, a Palestinian refugee scholar who had been living in the United States since 1981 and living in Tampa, Florida, was arrested and became another casualty of secret evidence. Immediately, a local group called the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace was formed to lead the struggle to free him locally. For the next 2 months, and through the efforts of many individuals and organizations, a national coalition was formed, which Brother Mehdi spoke about, in July 1997 in Washington, D.C., called the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom. It included not only many local defense communities of the Arab victims of secret evidence around the country, including Tampa, New York, New Jersey, Detroit, California, Northern Virginia, but also North Irish defendants who were threatened with the same unconstitutional practice until all of them were freed, these Irish defendants, as part of the political settlement of the Good Friday Accords in 1998. The coalition also included traditional civil and constitutional rights groups like CCR, the National Lawyers Guild, the First Amendment Foundation, as well as many Arab and Muslim groups including the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Arab American Institute, American Muslim Alliance, the American Muslim Council, CAIR, MPAC Mass, and others. My father was later elected as the coalition's first, and as it turned out, only president. More than 30 groups would eventually join. The coalition agreed to launch 2 major national campaigns in its attempt to confront the use of secret evidence. One of the campaigns and other abuses. One of the campaigns was titled Seeker Evidence, and the other one was a longer-term campaign challenging the material support provision in this 1996 law I talked about. The interesting thing is the coalition itself coined the term Seeker Evidence because before that the government was calling it classified evidence. So it shows you the power of language and how coalitions and activists can actually force the U.S. government itself to change its own language. So by the year 2000, everyone was calling it secret evidence, from politicians to journalists to judges and even government agents and prosecutors. The coalition started its campaign against secret evidence for the next 4 years on many fronts, and we'll get into those. As you can see on the board, there's education and community outreach, the media, support of victims and their families, and it eventually culminated in political lobbying and congressional legislation. In the material support campaign, there's much less effort because it hadn't been used by the government at the time. But if all of you in this room heard about the Humanitarian Law Project and the lawsuit against the material support provision recently in the Supreme Court hearing, this all came out from this coalition's effort, which basically the Supreme Court A couple of months ago upheld in a very important and critical decision the criminalization of so-called material support, which could be anything from, as David Cole said, Jimmy Carter basically monitoring an election in Lebanon. If Hezbollah's involved, he could be charged with material support. So this is a very important Supreme Court decision. If someone gives advice to an organization that's been designated Yes. —a terrorist organization and tells that group to adopt peaceful, nonviolent means, they could still be arrested on material support. So this is an issue that we should all be concerned about. There are many lessons to be learned from this experience at the local and national levels. It's important that a vigorous and sustained effort takes place at the local level where the real suffering takes place. The old adage, all politics is local, is true, especially in this The sum of all the local efforts would ultimately multiply, not add, when they reached the national stage. At the local level, the Tampa Bay Coalition embarked on many activities on a number of fronts. I'll go over some of the highlights of the different aspects of these efforts. As part of the public education campaign, many public lectures and panels were organized on campuses, community centers, mosques, and churches. Between June and November 1993, 1997, the Tampa group sponsored 4 public lectures centered on secret evidence. They were attended by hundreds of people, and each panel addressed the topic from a different perspective: legal, by inviting scholars such as Peter Erlinder, who's here today and was the president of the National Lawyers Guild at the time; political, by inviting current and former elected officials like Congressmen Paul Findley and Steve Klosky; members of the media such Bill Maxwell of the St. Petersburg Times, Charlie Reese of the Orlando Sentinel, John Sack of the Weekly Planet, etc. And even at the security level by inviting former CIA counterterrorism official Vince Canestraro and former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky to discuss the political elements. Many of these events were covered by print and electronic media, and informative publications, newsletters, and brochures were also produced and widely distributed. During this campaign, the Muslim Muslim community, along with many others, organized demonstrations that attracted hundreds of people. Every few months, a protest was organized downtown that brought together many public speakers using creative civil rights themes. So at one point, they chained the Statue of Liberty, they held a funeral for the Constitution, etc. And these events always attracted a lot of media coverage. Community outreach. The local Tampa mosque joined a countrywide community outreach So, the Tampa community formed a community group in October 1997 called HOPE, or Hillsborough Organization for Progress and Equality. That group comprised 19 churches and 1 mosque, dealing entirely with local issues and concerns. But by the spring of '98, the Tampa group's sustained efforts in community outreach had paid off. Secret evidence, which was seemingly a national issue, had become a local concern. So HOPE then requested a meeting with Attorney General Janet And subsequently sent a delegation of 14 people that included many pastors and local leaders, as well as David Cole and my mother, and the coalition's national coordinator at the time, Kit Gage. As a result of this meeting in April '98, the Justice Department sent a letter to Hope pledging that immigration district directors would no longer be authorized to use secret evidence, but rather it would have to be authorized by the Attorney General herself.

Sami Al-Arian: Wow.

Laila Al-Arian: So as a result, no, there were no more uses of secret evidence. There were absolutely no new cases after that. So the only task— so secret, the use of secret evidence was stopped. The only task now was to free the prisoners who were held under secret evidence. By December 2000, those who were in detention under secret evidence, including Haddam and al-Nashar, were free. Thank you. Public figures, newspapers, community leaders, and civic groups were celebrating their release all over the country. Other efforts of engaging traditional civil rights organizations also ensued, and my father had joined the local ACLU and was elected to its board. After that, secret evidence was always on the group's agenda at every meeting. Eventually, the Florida ACLU also joined in the legal litigation in the case, in my uncle's which provided the defense team tremendous help because of the resources and their connections to the media. On the media front, the Tampa Bay group placed a daily advertisement in the local newspaper that read, Free Mazen now. It also included a counter giving the number of days he was in detention. So this ran every single day. On Sunday, there was a larger ad with a picture of him and his daughters explaining what the use of secret evidence was. And on certain occasions, it even— there were full-page ads saying Day 100 and comparing it to the Iran hostage crisis, which people immediately grabbed people's attention. In August 1997, the Tampa group requested a meeting with Bill Maxwell, who was on the editorial board of the St. Petersburg Times. They explained to him what secret evidence was and how it was Within days, there was an editorial in the newspaper entitled Secret Evidence, which condemned the practice. Maxwell then followed it by a column detailing the family's suffering and humanizing my uncle and his family in the process. Within 3 years, the coalition's efforts produced over 50 editorials and 200 feature articles, many of them which were positive and sympathetic. Newspapers like the San Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, Washington Post, New York Times, etc. Even the Tampa Tribune, which was a very right-wing newspaper and was part of that attack machine against the Tampa Coalition, published a lukewarm condemnation of secret evidence. And it was so successful that people like Anthony Lewis, nationally syndicated columnist, even condemned the practice. 2 documentaries were also produced about my uncle. Including a professionally produced film called Uncivil Liberties, which was shown on local public access stations in the Tampa Bay area dozens of times. The film was also screened in many cities across the country to mobilize people against secret evidence. As far as the legal campaign, one of the coalition's— the national coalition's first task was to establish a legal committee that brought all the lawyers together on the different secret evidence cases. They shared briefs and strategies, discussed different tactics used by the government and how they could confront them since many aspects of the cases were so similar. And slowly but surely, they started winning the cases legally. With the negative public stigma of secret evidence and its condemnation in society at large, the victims started to be released one by one. My uncle Mazen was the last one to be freed on December 15th, 2009. Thanks to the efforts of his defense team, which included Professor Cole, who was at the center of many of the cases. They won first in federal court by getting the federal court to reopen the case, then by immigration court and the Court of Appeals. Slowly but surely, secret evidence had become a series of legal defeats for the government, which then abandoned it completely. But since it was still on the books the coalition had to work to ban the use of secret evidence completely, which takes us to the political campaign. After the initial success of the public and media campaigns, it became clear that a national political movement to ban the use of secret evidence had to be waged. After careful study of political figures, a meeting with David Bonior, who was the House Democratic whip at the time, was arranged in his district in Michigan in November 1999. Hi, my name is After my father explained to him the constitutional challenges of secret evidence and its impact on families nationwide, he was immediately on board. By January 1999, Bonnier visited my uncle in prison. I mean, imagine a congressman visiting one of these Muslim prisoners now. It just seems like the political climate is so different, but that's how it was then, allowing him— my uncle to have his first contact visit with his family in 2 years.

Speaker 6: Wow.

Laila Al-Arian: Later that day, Bonior met with over 400 people in the mosque— Muslims, Christians, Jews, community members— in which he promised action. He even took a letter from my young cousin about her father's plight and then eventually personally delivered that letter to President Clinton. Another congressman who was horrified by the use of secret evidence was Tom Campbell, a Republican from California and a constitutional scholar in his own right. The coalition worked with these representatives' offices, as well as David Cole and the ACLU Legal Counsel, to draft the bill called the Secret Evidence Repeal Act. Within a few weeks, 2 members in the House Judiciary Committee, one Democrat, John Conyers, and one Republican, Bob Barr, agreed to co-sponsor the legislation. All 4 congressmen appeared at a news conference in June 1999 to introduce bipartisan legislation that And called for secret evidence to be banned in judicial proceedings. Again, imagine that happening today. It seems so daunting, but we should take inspiration. A campaign to lobby Congress began in earnest, gathering co-sponsors to the legislation. This grassroots citizens' campaign employed many traditional approaches, which shows that you don't need AIPAC's budget to lobby successfully. This included weekly visits and follow-ups, telephone calls, emails, and faxes— basically stalking professionally— and engaging and educating staff members. Both my parents would travel to Washington and spend 2 or 3 days every week campaigning and visiting over 30 or 40 congressional offices every single day they were here. Some members of Congress had agreed to co-sponsor the bill because of The close contacts established with them or with their staff. And by October 2000, there were 129 representatives who sponsored the bill, over half of the members of the Judiciary Committee. In February 2000, a major event against secret evidence organized by the National Coalition took place in the largest room outside the well of the House, drawing over 700 people, standing room only, and lasting over 3 hours. Many members of Congress or their staffers spoke or attended the event. My uncle's documentary was also screened in its entirety. The success of the event prompted Congressman Bonior to declare that the gathering was the best organized public event he'd witnessed in his 24 years in the House. As the campaign was unfolding, it became clear that unless the Republican leadership was on board, it would go nowhere. A Republican lobbyist was then recruited to open doors to various Republican members. Meanwhile, the AMA chapter in Chicago, American Muslim Alliance, arranged for my father to meet with the House Judiciary Committee chair, Henry Hyde, who showed empathy and understanding. Hyde was then invited to a fundraising event in Florida, during which he watched the documentary and heard He heard the pleas of many people in the audience. And he immediately declared that he would take the legislation, which is languishing in the Immigration Subcommittee, to the full committee, therefore taking control of it. Shortly after, he arranged for 2 hearings in the committee. In May 2000, they had 2 sides testify. My mother was one of the people, David Cole, the ACLU legal counsel, and one of the victims of secret evidence who'd been released. While on the other side testifying, there's the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the ADL, and Stephen Emerson, the notoriously pro-Israel Islamophobe. The government did not even show up for prosecution of the DOJ to defend its use of its unconstitutional practice. Both Bonnier and Campbell also testified urging their colleagues to pass the legislation. It might also be interesting to note that during these intensive lobbying efforts, My parents personally met twice with President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton and candidate George W. Bush asking for their support against secret evidence. In September 2000, the Judiciary Committee passed the Secret Evidence Repeal Act by a margin of 28 to 2. Immediately, the coalition started working on the Senate side and introduced the same legislation co-sponsored by Spencer Abraham of Michigan and the late Edward Kennedy. Meanwhile, the Muslim political organizations were trying to engage both presidential campaigns and force them to take a position on secret evidence. The Gore campaign was slow and reluctant, while the Bush campaign was eager and responsive. Through negotiations between my father and a high-level Republican insider, candidate Bush said publicly in the second presidential debate on live television that he condemned the use of secret evidence, and he did this He was furious. He was furious to receive the endorsement of American Muslims, knowing how important this issue was for them. Not only did he call to ban it, but 62 million Americans were watching it on television, scratching their heads and wondering what Speaker Evans was. In the next 2 weeks, there was a fast-track attempt to pass the legislation after Bush endorsed it and after leading other people in the Republican Party to support it. The coalition received a major commitment from both majority and minority leaders in the Senate, but the legislation was stopped by the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. You may have heard of him, Porter Goss. There was simply not enough time to pass it. After the close and controversial presidential election of Bush, the campaign acknowledged the crucial endorsement— the Bush campaign— in support of Muslim groups in the election, especially in Florida, which which decided the election, of course, where— and none other than Newt Gingrich and Tom Davis thanked the Muslim groups for the Republicans' victory just 2 days before Bush's inauguration. In 2001, the legislation to ban seeker evidence was reintroduced and quickly attracted more than 100 co-sponsors in the House. The intense lobbying by the coalition continued, and a delegation of several major political figures and other coalition leaders including my father, met with the Speaker of the House at the time, Dennis Hastert. The Speaker promised swift action once the administration signaled its intention. Another delegation that included my father and other coalition leaders met with senior Justice Department officials in July 2001 to discuss secret evidence legislation and other civil rights concerns. They felt like they were finally being taken seriously. Meanwhile, the Bush White House called for a major review of the secret evidence practice and promised the Muslim groups that they'd announce their decision after the summer. In early September 2001, the White House invited all major Arab and Muslim organizations to declare a major announcement on secret evidence. They felt like their dream would finally be realized, their efforts of the last 40 years would be acknowledged and were not in vain. For the first time in history, major legislation that was the main concern of Arab and Muslim groups in America would be Muslim leaders gathered in Washington, D.C., in anticipation of this major achievement. A new chapter was about to be written by Arab and Muslim Americans. A new emerging political power was about to take its rightful place in society. The date of this important announcement was set by the White House: 3:00 p.m. on September 11th, 2001. I'm sure you can guess how the story ends.

Amy Goodman: Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Juan González: The Palestinian activist and professor Sami Al-Arian has been deported this week from the United States. In one of the most controversial prosecutions of the post-9/11 era, Al-Arian was jailed in Florida for 5 and a half years on what many described as trumped-up charges. He was arrested in 2003, at a time when he was one of the most prominent Palestinian activists in the United States. In addition to teaching at the University of South Florida, Al-Arian was a frequent media commentator and speaker at antiwar rallies. He co-founded the Tampa Bay Coalition for Peace and Justice and the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom. Between 1997 and 2001, he visited the White House 4 times. He actively campaigned for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. But life for Sami Al-Arian changed after the September 11th attacks.

Amy Goodman: On September 28th, 2001, Sami Al-Arian was interviewed on Fox News by Bill O'Reilly about former University of South Florida professor Ramadan Shallah, who went on to become the leader of the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Beginning the next day, the University of South Florida, where Al-Arian worked, was overwhelmed by hundreds of threatening letters and emails. 36 hours after the interview, Al-Arian resigned. The university put Professor Alareer on paid leave. In October of 2002, I interviewed Professor Alareer here in New York when he spoke at the Not in Our Name rally in Central Park. I asked him about his appearance on Bill O'Reilly.

Sami Al-Arian: The way it was, the interview went, the guy attacked me viciously. So, many emails and threatening phone calls came to me personally and at the department. So the department put me on paid leave, and then they banned me after that from coming to campus within 3 months because of the, you know, the orchestrated campaign by pro-Zionist groups and also by some politicians and some appointed people, people appointed by Governor Bush, particularly members of the board of trustees at the university. They voted to terminate my employment. In December of 2001, it hasn't been finalized because faculty unions and other professors from around the country, as well as the American Association of University Professors, have been protesting. And the AUP has threatened that if they do terminate my employment, they will be censured, which is black mark. So eventually, the president opted to sue me in court to get me fired through the court.

Amy Goodman: So, the university has banned you. On what grounds?

Sami Al-Arian: It's not really clear, except, you know, they say that the campus was disrupted. And it goes like, since people have threatened my life, the campus has not been secure, and the best way to secure it is to terminate my employment. I don't think— it's a bogus argument. I don't think it's going to fly, but that's the essence of the situation.

Amy Goodman: So, the university is saying, because your life has been threatened, they're banning you?

Sami Al-Arian: That's right, exactly. Instead of going against the real terrorists, the perpetrators of the threats, they're going after me.

Amy Goodman: The Palestinian activist and professor Sami Al-Arian, speaking in October 2002. 4 months after our interview, in February 2003, Al-Arian was arrested and accused of being a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Justice Department handed down a sweeping 50-count indictment against him and 7 other men, charging them with conspiracy to commit murder, giving material support to terrorists, extortion, perjury and other offenses. He was held in solitary confinement leading up to the trial. This is an excerpt from the documentary USA v. Al-Arian.

Sami Al-Arian: And I was put in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, and sometimes for weeks 24 hours a day. I wasn't allowed even to see my attorneys when she comes in. I wasn't allowed to call my family. For 6 months, I was not allowed to make a single phone call.

Juan González: At the end of his trial in December 2005, the jury failed to return a single guilty verdict. Al-Arian was acquitted on 8 of 17 counts against him, and the jury deadlocked on the rest. 4 months after the verdict, he agreed —to plead guilty to one of the remaining charges in exchange for being released and deported. He was later found guilty of civil contempt for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury in another case. In the end, Al-Arian was jailed from February of 2003 until September of 2008. For 3 and a half years, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement. He was then held under house arrest until this week, when he was deported to Turkey.

Amy Goodman: Right.

Juan González: Last year, a federal court dropped all charges against him.

Amy Goodman: Sami Al-Arian joins us now from Istanbul, Turkey, in his first broadcast interview since being deported. And we're joined by his daughter, Leila Al-Arian, a Peabody Award-winning journalist based in Washington, D.C., co-author with Chris Hedges of the book Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Sami Al-Arian, how does it feel to have left the United States, to have been deported to where you are right now in Turkey?

Sami Al-Arian: It feels like I'm free, finally really feeling freedom for the first time in 12 years. I don't have to watch over my back or over my head or think that someone is trying to monitor you or get you. So, it feels like you're free.

Juan González: And this whole period that you've been under essentially house arrest, could you talk about that experience, as well?

Sami Al-Arian: I mean, it's much better than prison, of course, but you're under house arrest. So, basically, you're confined to your living environment. And although there were no restrictions, other than that you can't leave the house, you still know that you're being monitored all over you. So, it's not really total freedom. And unfortunately, after 9/11, many Americans feel that they live in surveillance and police state. And that's a very discomforting feeling.

Amy Goodman: Why did you choose to move to Turkey, Sami Al-Arian?

Sami Al-Arian: Well, I actually applied to many countries, some in Latin America, some in the Middle East, and Turkey. And I have friends who actually talked to the Turkish authorities, and they immediately made the decision to accept me. So it's a tribute to them and to their thinking of that they value people who fight for freedom or have been dealt with unjustly. And I'm very grateful for that.

Juan González: We're also joined by Leila Al-Arian, your daughter. But, Leila, what's the most important thing for Americans to understand about your father's case and the injustices that occurred here?

Laila Al-Arian: I think what's really important to take note of is the fact that when my father was arrested nearly 12 years ago, in February— on February 20th, 2003, John Ashcroft went on national television and made pretty extraordinary claims about who my father is, completely distorting and outright lying about about my father, calling him a terrorist on national television. And, of course, years later, none of that has borne true. My father was acquitted by 12 ordinary jurors in Florida. He said from the very beginning, this is a political case. And I think what people should take away from what has been a nightmare for our family is the fact that in the United States of America, there's no room for political prisoners. There's no room for politically motivated prosecutions. And, you know, my father was vindicated, even if he did have to eventually leave the country. I think when we look back at this case in history, we'll see that, you know, it's really a shameful part of our history. And, you know, it won't be— it won't be something that anyone will look at with any kind of pride. So, I hope we learn the lessons from this case.

Juan González: And, Leila, the impact on you? Has it impacted you and the other members of your family, the many years of this ordeal?

Laila Al-Arian: Of course it's impacted us personally. My sister, the youngest sibling, was 9 years old when all of this began. She's now about to graduate college. So you can just see how long this ordeal has lasted for us. You know, it's been, in many ways, pretty destabilizing, feeling that we've been— not feeling, knowing, actually, that we've been under surveillance even as children. So, when we were going over— you know, when my father was preparing for his trial, and his attorneys, we learned that, in fact, all of our phone calls were recorded, even as children. We had the opportunity to even listen to some of the phone calls between us and our friends when we were in grade school. It's something that's pretty psychologically jarring and traumatizing. So, I think, really feeling that every aspect of your life is under surveillance by the government, especially because my father was an outspoken Palestinian advocate, is something that I'll never truly get over. But at the same time, there's been a lot of positive things that have come out of this case, a lot of the relationships we've formed with many supporters, many activists, who have really, you know, shown tremendous courage in standing up for my father and his rights. And that's what we'll really remember more than anything else.

Amy Goodman: Sami, if you could talk from your own perspective? About what happened to you. I played that clip from 2002, when I interviewed you at a big peace rally that you were addressing here in New York. You would soon be arrested. Your case factored into a Senate race in Florida. Talk about your journey.

Sami Al-Arian: It's really a story of what happened after 9/11. For whatever reason, the forces of intolerance, exclusionary politics, and hegemony really took center stage, where rational people were no longer able to advance any kind of dialogue or rationality in their dealings. So, what you have here is people who pressured the government just to take retaliatory action against any activists. And if they had the opportunity to do that, they just went for it. For instance, you know, my case was celebrated as being the first case after the Patriot Act, meaning, you know, they said that the intelligence people did not speak to the prosecutions, and therefore the government to actually prosecute criminals, they didn't know anything about my activities. And that was patently false. Because during my discovery, I saw There was an earlier version of the indictment back in 2000, when we were very active politically, and my brother-in-law was in immigration court. They really wanted to indict me and stop what— you know, the activity that we're doing. But somehow, Janet Reno, Department of Justice, refused, refused to prosecute that case. And it was every other act that they said the prosecution didn't know from the intelligence people was there up to 2000. So that was patently false.

Laila Al-Arian: OK.

Sami Al-Arian: And it was so political case that, you know, all legal standards were just, were just ignored. You know, my speedy trial, I was denied speedy trial. You know, the judge asked me in April of 2003 if I'm going to waive my speedy trial. When I said no, that meant that they had to try me within 70 days. The government immediately objected and said they were not ready. And if they were not ready to decide the case, why did they indict? Right. So if you go back and see the political nature of the case, when USF was in hot water because they wanted to terminate my employment and they couldn't do it because of the pressure that was coming from all over the place, we found, for instance, that the president of USF went to the U.S. attorney in public asking him to investigate. And at the end of the meeting, the U.S. attorney announces In February of 2002, the impaneling of a grand jury. Now, grand juries are supposed to be in secret. And here we have the university president going to the government, asking them to bail her out. And at the end of the meeting, they announced the impaneling of a grand jury. And then nothing happens. And I saw in Discovery, for instance, when the government wanted to settle— I mean, sorry, when the university wanted to settle with me, And they offered me almost $1 million to resign. Board of Trustees chairman objected, because he had been calling me, you know, all kinds of names up to that point. And he was the governor's appointee, Jeb Bush's appointee. So he goes to Jeb Bush, basically— and we have that information from their lawyer— and he asks to bail him out. And then, somehow, instead of offering me a settlement, they sued me in court in order to fire me. It was a delaying tactic. And I could see during my discovery how the speed-up of the grand jury went in August, September, October, and so on, until the indictment came back in February. And then we saw, you know, that the— you know, during the superseding indictment, when they indicted earlier in 2003, they had 17 counts against me.

Laila Al-Arian: Right.

Sami Al-Arian: But they knew that half of these counts, the statute of limitation has run out. And the judge kept telling me, when are you going to supersede? But they didn't want to supersede with less counts. So they added more counts on some transactions that took place in Chicago that I had no knowledge of. And they knew that I had no knowledge of it. And when they— when we went to trial, they produced zero evidence of that. And then the person who was actually on the phone calls On the bank account, on everything that had to deal with Chicago, was acquitted, and I wasn't, because the 2 jurors couldn't bring themselves to acquit on all counts. So, from, you know, from start to finish, it was a political case, unfortunately, that took a very ugly turn. And, you know, thankfully, we had great jurors who could see through that, and they would not —at the end, go along and support the government's case.

Amy Goodman: Sami Al-Arian, we have to break, but we're going to come back to this discussion. Sami Al-Arian, prominent Palestinian activist and professor, has lived in the United States for the last 40 years, on Wednesday was deported to Turkey. He was previously accused of ties to the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but a Florida jury failed to return a single guilty verdict on any of the 17 charges. We're talking to Sami Al-Arian in Istanbul, Turkey, and his daughter Leila, the Peabody Award-winning journalist based in Washington, D.C. We'll continue with them in a moment.

Speaker 12: I'm a journalist.

Laila Al-Arian: أحن إلى خبز أمي وقهوت أمي ولم ست أمي أحن إلى.

Amy Goodman: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we turn to an excerpt of the film. USA v. Al-Arian. Sami Al-Arian's son, in this excerpt, his son Ali, describes the night his father was arrested in February of 2003.

Speaker 12: I woke up because there was a guy just searching all over my room with a flashlight. And he had just like— I don't remember. He was wearing just like all black. So he just starts going like this, like with the flashlight. And I guess he just saw me for a second. He just put it on my face, and I wake up. And I look, and the door's already open. And then I was the last one to wake up, so I saw my dad. He was standing where the AC blows. He was standing on the wall with his hands up like this. So then I went to the living room, and I just see all these guys scattered all over the living room, like one police cop and just a million guys in suits. And then I just see I just remember, like, my mom and my 2 sisters crying and everything. Then I knew what was going on.

Amy Goodman: That is Ali Al-Arian. We're joined by Sami Al-Arian, who has just been deported to Turkey on Wednesday from the United States, after being held in prison for more than 5 years, and more than 3 of those years in solitary confinement, then in house arrest for many years. We're also joined by— Sami Al-Arian's daughter, Leila Al-Arian, who is a prominent journalist. She's speaking to us from Washington, D.C. How old were you then, Leila, when your brother Ali is describing what took place? And where were you when your dad was arrested?

Laila Al-Arian: I was actually the same age as my youngest sister is now. I was 21, studying at Georgetown University. And I actually heard the news in a phone call from Yeah. —an administrator who worked in the same office where I had my work-study job. And she called me to convey her sadness over the arrest. I had no idea, so, of course, I was really shocked to learn what happened and, you know, just tried to focus on graduating, really, at that point. And then, after that, I really started becoming involved in advocating for my father and raising awareness, not just about his case, but about the atrocious prison conditions that he was suffering under, which we talked about a little bit earlier. Throughout that time, he also went on 3 different hunger strikes to protest his prison conditions, but also the fact that, you know, a vindictive prosecutor, long after my father was acquitted by a jury, tried to ensnare him in another case up here in Virginia, unrelated even to his own trial. So, you know, there were a number of times when we really had to raise awareness.

Juan González: And Sami Al-Arian, the fact that you'd lived in the United States for 40 years and that you'd had— been invited to the White House 4 times during the Bush years, the impact on you of this sudden turning against you by the government?

Sami Al-Arian: Well, of course, I'm aware of the pressures that they were facing, as I said, after 9/11. But unfortunately, you know, most of the rules that govern the relationship between the citizens and their government were just scrapped. You know, the government has now— or at least after, shortly after 9/11, they just did whatever they thought they can get away with. You know, I remember one of the lawyers who had access to some information is that even the prosecutors themselves, when they went, before indictment, to Washington, D.C., Telling Chertoff, who was at the time the head of the criminal section of the Justice Department, that some of these charges they couldn't prove. He said everything stays. Everything stays. So, you know, it's very sad that you had to go through this. You know, I— you're right. I went to the White House several times, not just during the Bush, but even the Clinton administration. I was able to communicate. And that's tribute to the system, in fact. Right. That I was able to go and meet with all kinds of leaders. You know, I met with Bush, Hillary, you know, Bill Clinton, you know, all kinds of people in Congress, chairmen, speakers, and so on and so forth. And the whole point was to engage politically, because there are certain causes that were of concern to me at the time. A lot of it has to do with civil rights and secret evidence. And I thought that we were making progress, that the politicians were really responsive. to our plea and to our campaign against the use of secret evidence. Even in the— a lot of people ask me, why did you support Bush? Well, it wasn't really supporting Bush, per se. You know, I approached both the Gore campaign and the Bush campaign. And the Gore campaign, whose administration at the time was using secret evidence against mostly Arabs and Muslims, they just ignored our pleas. Right. Well, the Bush campaign gave us lip service, except at the last month, when the race was neck to neck. So I get a call from someone who was very close to Karl Rove, asking me personally how we can get the endorsement of the Muslim community. And my answer was that you need to— he needs to say, the candidate, Bush, needs to say publicly that he's against secret evidence and that he is for that bill that we were advancing in Congress. And to my surprise, the following day, during the second debate, he said these two things. You know, he was asked about racial profiling, and he came in saying, you know, there's another form of racial profiling used against Arab Americans. It's called secret evidence. I support the bill in Congress. And I get a call back and said, now I delivered. Are you going to deliver? So it shows that empowerment of communities does work when you are active. And the Muslim leaders, the Arab The Muslim American leaders actually met and decided to support Bush based on his stand on secret evidence. And the following week, they met and endorsed him, and they identified 6 states as being the swing states. And Florida was my— because I lived in Florida, it fell into me. And we did a lot of Again, based on this. It wasn't based on Iraq or Palestine or other things. It really was based on that one issue. And he won by 537 votes. And obviously, we proved later on that we delivered to him 14,000 extra votes than what he would have got had we not intervened. And then the following month, you know, I get invited to the inauguration, and I get a thank you from Newt Gingrich and John Sununu. And Tom Davis, that we really delivered that to Bush. And then we asked them to deliver for us secret evidence, you know, the bill against secret evidence. And they tell us that Bush, because Ashcroft was delayed, his confirmation was delayed, he says it's going to take time to study the issue. But I get a call back in August of 2001 basically telling me, from the same person, that they've studied the issue and we're going to get to hear good news.

Laila Al-Arian: Right.

Sami Al-Arian: And he asked me to invite all the Arab and Muslim leaders to Washington, D.C., at the White House, in which that news would have been announced.

Amy Goodman: And then what happened? I think it might have— our feed to Istanbul, Turkey, might have frozen. But let's see if he came back. Sami, we— you left— you left us by saying then you got a call where you're supposed to invite everyone to Right.

Sami Al-Arian: And I did invite everybody, and I briefed them, and I told them that there will be an announcement, an important announcement, against the use of secret evidence by Bush that afternoon. And everybody was in town. Unfortunately, it was on 9/11. It was 3:00 on 9/11. So that meeting never happened. But everybody was asking, how come all these Arab and Muslim leaders were in Washington, even though the airspace was closed for several days?

Laila Al-Arian: And I told them, because I wanted to meet with them.

Sami Al-Arian: And the reason they were behind Bush when he visited the mosque and when he went to the National Cathedral is because they were already there. They were going to meet with him for that announcement.

Amy Goodman: Wow! And did it ever happen?

Sami Al-Arian: It never happened, of course. You know, at the time, we were protesting secret evidence. What happened after 9/11 is that they were arresting people with no evidence. I mean, we really went totally backward. And as I said, all the rules were no longer valid. So, you know, it's a sad story in the history. One day it will be written. But, you know, I'm so happy that a lot of people are pushing back. You know, at the beginning there was this shock where everybody was afraid, everybody was angry, everybody was stepping back. But after the abuses that we've witnessed in the past 10 years, a lot of people are stepping up. A lot of people are protesting. A lot of people are speaking out. We saw even some governments. Government contractors or officials, like Snowden, is crying out against what's taking place. And hopefully, you know, the excesses of the surveillance and police state will be put in place.

Juan González: Well, this is really an astonishing story. I don't think anyone's actually heard what happened in those days leading up to the September 11th attacks and that you've told here. But I wanted to ask you Have you noticed any change whatsoever since the Obama administration came in, in terms of how some of these issues are being handled?

Sami Al-Arian: You know, I've heard a lot from Obama, but it's all rhetoric. You know, when it comes to actual policies, I haven't seen much change. I mean, at the beginning, give him the benefit of the doubt. You wait for a couple of years. He's busy with the economic program. is busy with, you know, trying to get elected for the second term. But after 6 years, I haven't really seen much change. And that is very distressing. And I tell people, you know, change should come really from the bottom up. Very rarely you get change from the top down. Until people stand up and speak out and campaign and go to their congressmen and senators and the administration and voice— Right. Position to these policies that not only is going to affect Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, it's going to affect every American. And we can't advocate a policy where, you know, the rights of the minority could be taken out so that the majority could feel at ease, because eventually any things that will We will restrict—

Amy Goodman: Well, Sami Al-Arian, we're going to have to leave it there. We seem to have just lost the connection, as well, in this exclusive broadcast with Professor Sami Al-Arian, who has just been deported from the United States after years in jail and then under house arrest, though a Florida jury refused to convict him on any count against him. And I also want to thank Leila Al-Arian, his daughter, speaking to us from Washington, D.C.