Lawyer imprisoned for more than 2 yrs for defying “special rules” for terror suspect—before U.S. law people are UNequal
Free Lynne Stewart!
Lynne Stewart was sent to prison on November 19, 2009. People throughout the United States and around the world recognize this as a great miscarriage of justice.
Her indictment was an outrage. So too was her conviction. The fact that this seventy year old veteran civil rights attorney has been sent to prison is a crime itself. She is serving a 28 month sentence although the Court of Appeals has remanded her case back to the original trial court with the hope that her sentence will be lengthened. The Bush Justice Department had sought a 30 year sentence.
“Lynne Stewart should be set free,” stated Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition. “Her conviction is part of an-going war against civil rights and particularly against the Arab-American and Muslim community. With her jailing the government is sending a definite and chilling message to all the attorneys in this country – ‘do not represent Arab people and or Muslims.’
In recent weeks the government has seized mosques in the United States at the same time as they have implanted agent provocateurs and set up sting operations and carried out FBI assassinations targeting the American Muslim community and its leaders.”
The irony and hypocrisy of Lynne Stewart’s imprisonment can’t be overlooked. This admired civil rights attorney who is struggling with cancer is sent to prison while the Bush attorneys who authorized and instructed the most sadistic torture occupy comfortable positions as law professors and serve as judges on the federal bench. It is they who should be disbarred, prosecuted and sent to prison.
The ANSWER Coalition is planning major actions protesting the Afghanistan and Iraq war on Saturday March 20. We will also be demanding an end to the persecution and repression of the Arab and Muslim communities. Lynne Stewart has marched with us and spoken at these major protests in past years. In spite of the threat of prison hanging over her, Lynne Stewart always marched in defense others especially the Iraqi, Afghan and Palestinian people.
On this March 20, 2010 people marching together will now also demand Free Lynne Stewart!
***
Lynne Stewart in her own words
The following is excerpted from an interview that Lynne Stewart did with Pacifica’s Democracy Now just prior to her imprisonment. She explains key features of her case.
LYNNE STEWART: I represented Sheikh Omar at trial—that was in 1995—along with Ramsey Clark and Abdeen Jabara. I was lead trial counsel. He was convicted in September of ’95, sentenced to a life prison plus a hundred years, or some sort—one of the usual outlandish sentences. We continued, all three of us, to visit him while he was in jail—he was a political client; that means that he is targeted by the government—and because it is so important to prisoners to be able to have access to their lawyers.
Sometime in 1998, I think maybe it was, they imposed severe restrictions on him. That is, his ability to communicate with the outside world, to have interviews, to be able to even call his family, was limited by something called special administrative measures. The lawyers were asked to sign on for these special administrative measures and warned that if these measures were not adhered to, they could indeed lose contact with their client—in other words, be removed from his case.
In 2000, I visited the sheikh, and he asked me to make a press release. This press release had to do with the current status of an organization that at that point was basically defunct, the Gama’a al-Islamiyya. And I agreed to do that. In May of—maybe it was later than that. Sometime in 2000, I made the press release.
Interestingly enough, we found out later that the Clinton administration, under Janet Reno, had the option to prosecute me, and they declined to do so, based on the notion that without lawyers like me or the late Bill Kunstler or many that I could name, the cause of justice is not well served. They need the gadflies.
So, at any rate, they made me sign onto the agreement again not to do this. They did not stop me from representing him. I continued to represent him.
And it was only after 9/11, in April of 2002, that John Ashcroft came to New York, announced the indictment of me, my paralegal and the interpreter for the case, on grounds of materially aiding a terrorist organization. One of the footnotes to the case, of course, is that Ashcroft also appeared on nationwide television with Letterman that night ballyhooing the great work of Bush’s Justice Department in indicting and making the world safe from terrorism.
The course of the case followed. We tried the case in 2005 to a jury, of course sitting not ten blocks from the World Trade Center, and an anonymous jury, I might add, which I think went a long way to contribute to our convictions. And all three of us were convicted. Since that time, the appeals process has followed. The appeal was argued almost two years ago, and the opinion just came like a—actually like a thunderclap yesterday. And to just put it in perspective, I think, it comes hard on the heels of Holder’s announcement that they are bringing the men from Guantanamo to New York to be tried.
To send Lynne a letter, write:
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY NY 10007
