Greetings,
Examining court documents from the US and Bangladesh and transcripts from Shifa's entire trial, investigative journalist and documentary maker David Weingarten has written an article on Shifa and Haris' Sentence Hearing. Take a moment to read the article.
Please attend Shifa and Haris' Sentence Hearing on December 14 (Monday) and Sustenance Gathering Dinner on Dec. 13 (Sunday). RSVP for Dec 13 by emailing freeshifa@gmail.com and visit www.freeshifa.com for more details
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How much time should a terrorist spend in jail?
David Weingarten
A man who killed 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing was sentenced to 30 years in a Scottish prison, but released after only 8. A Pole named Paszkowski hijacked an airplane in the 1980's yet was quietly allowed into Canada, allegedly finding work with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
But Ehsanul Sadequee, an American convicted in October of "providing material support for terrorism", faces up to 60 years for a crime that neither brought him close to a weapon nor, according to authorities, even posed an imminent threat. Now that Sadequee's request for a new trial has been rejected by a federal judge, the path has been cleared for his sentencing.
Sadequee's motion for a new trial was rooted in two issues, the first being the nature of his arrest. After arriving in Bangladesh in 2006, Sadequee was apprehended by authorities and rendered to the United States. Prosecutors deny that this rendition was illegal, despite the lack of an extradition treaty between the U.S. and Bangladesh. The fact that U.S. authorities obtained Sadequee within only several days of his capture does seem to strongly suggest that legal protocol was ignored or sidestepped. The Bangladeshi Supreme Court seems to agree, and recently declared the rendition to be unlawful and in violation of the sovereignty of Bangladesh.
The other source of contention for Sadequee is the question of which terrorist organization he is actually accused of attempting to support. Throughout the media, as well as in court, it has been claimed that Sadequee's interest in going to Bangladesh was joining the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET). Although he had visited the country previously and presumably had the opportunity to join LET, Sadequee instead demonstrated his priorities were to marry his wife Happy. Even with no evidenced attempts to join, the defense argues that LET was already a banned organization when Sadequee arrived in Bangladesh and there would have been no outlet for him to be recruited. It's possible that Sadequee may have resorted to joining LET's alleged political arm Jama'at-ud-Da'wah (JUD), but there's a problem with that allegation - JUD was not designated a terrorist organization until April 2006. Court documents indicate that "coincidentally" it is the very same month that Sadequee was rendered to the United States.
We are apparently willing to relinquish the right of national sovereignty in the "war on terror", but can we condemn somebody over the mere accusation that they could have joined a group that was not even outlawed until the time of their arrest? While the fore-mentioned terrorists actually took the steps of carrying out violent acts, Sadequee's conviction seems to rely on "thought-crimes" and "guilt by association".
For instance, much of the evidence in Sadequee's trial focused on his online activities – discussing principles of Islamic faith, translating religious texts, and associating in internet chat-rooms with individuals who may have been involved in "terrorism" as it's been popularly defined. Though many of Sadequee's supporters argue that his activities fall comfortably within the First Amendment right of free speech, FBI special agent Gregory Jones commented shortly after Sadequee's conviction that the FBI "doesn't buy that argument".
Among the material support Sadequee is accused of providing is a video he filmed that includes footage of frequently visited Washington D.C. landmarks. Although the home video has been characterized in the popular media as a "casing video", authorities have insisted that there was no imminent attack against the U.S. Capitol. This alone indicates Sadequee's "support for terrorism" may not be as scary as it has been sensationally made to seem.
Unfortunately, anti-terrorism legislation is so wide-reaching and over-arching by design that common, everyday activities can easily be mistaken for terrorist activity. Although this is beneficial for prosecutors and law enforcement agencies (not to mention their budgets), it is a frightening prospect for average citizens whose freedom can be suspended upon the mere accusation they support terrorism.
Even scarier is the notion that once anti-terror charges are applied disingenuously to enough people, law enforcement can effectively create the appearance of a "nexus of terrorism". This is precisely the illusion that has been established in the case of Sadequee who, along with his friend Syed Haris Ahmed*, has been linked to similar cases around the world including Canada's "Toronto 18".
In that case, Canada's anti-terrorism laws have demonstrated what an extremely low threshold there is for being found guilty of terrorism. The first "Toronto 18" conviction was Nishanthan Yogakrishnan who, by the admission of a police informant involved with the case, was a naive "sheep" that was purposefully "kept on the down-low" as to any real terrorism plans, if they actually existed.
Despite these comments from an RCMP agent, the youth was still found guilty by a judge that dismissed the implausibility of the plot, remarking: "It might have been said prior to Sept. 11, 2001, that a plan to kill thousands and destroy landmark buildings in lower Manhattan and Washington had no possibility of implementation".
In his decision, Justice John Sproat highlights the warped mentality that has permeated our intelligence communities, our media, and a large portion of the general public in the wake of 9/11. It is a mentality that has turned tourist maps into weapons of mass destruction, paintball and camping trips into munitions training, and for Ehsanul Sadequee, home videos into "material support for terrorism". While these items and activities don't usually draw the ire of authorities when white people are involved, they are often used as "evidence" to justify criminal charges against Muslims that are based on their associations.
Though credit must be given when the authorities "get it right", the overwhelming amount of cases where they do not warrant a re-examination of anti-terror legislation and the allowance it makes for criminalization of common practice. The subjectivity of these laws allow for discrimination and misinterpretation within the eyes of our intelligence communities and, perhaps more importantly, the public.
A report from the Canadian government has even gone so far as to label a 13th century Islamic scholar as contributing to radicalization and "violent Jihad in Canada", putting fundamental teachings of the Islamic faith into the same category as Mein Kampf. This report defines radicalization as "the process by which an individual progresses to an Islamist extremist viewpoint where violence is a justifiable means to achieve ideological objectives". The report fails to address, however, examples of Christian and Jewish extremists who have contributed to over 1-million civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan for their own ideological aims. The fact that those responsible have gone unpunished while people like Sadequee face up to 60 years in prison only follows an established pattern - egregious terrorist offenders remain free while the bit players are condemned. Sadequee is scheduled to be sentenced December 14th in Atlanta, Georgia.
*Mr. Ahmed - convicted along with Mr. Sadequee - has written an essay regarding the sentencing that can be read here.
To leave comments/thoughts follow the link http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=11718&uid=62107787609
Take a moment to read the article written by human rights activist and author Mauri Saalakhan http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=11694&uid=62107787609
Thank you.
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