El-Hajj Mauri’ Saalakhan
Peace And Justice Foundation
May 28, 2009
Assalaamu Alaikum
(Greetings of Peace):
On Wednesday, May 27, 2009, my dad and four other men officially became the Nelson Mandelas of the 21stCentury.
Only they’re not South African—they are Palestinian-American being held in a U.S. federal prison. In their orange prison jumpsuits, they are political prisoners caught in the disillusioned web widely known as the “War on Terror.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noor-elashi/a-plea-from-a-daughter-of_b_15...
By Noor Elashi
Dear Americans. Dear people of conscience. I know how you feel. Perhaps as helpless as children, not yet swimmers, witnessing a sea of our fellow humans drowning. But we must not be silent. The voiceless people of Gaza desperately need our help. To tell their painful stories. To condemn Israel's massacre of 500 plus civilians in one of the bloodiest attacks of Palestinians in 60 years. To make it stop. So they'll finally be able to swim up to the surface and gasp for air.
BY BOB RAY SANDERS
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
On its face, the U.S. government won last week when a federal jury in Dallas convicted the Richardson-based charity Holy Land Foundation and five former leaders of providing financial aid to a foreign terrorist organization — Hamas.
But a Fort Worth defense attorney who has been involved in the case since 2005 called the prosecution shameful and compared the 42-day trial to some of the darkest days in American history.
By Laila Al-Arian, AlterNet
November 26, 2008
On Monday afternoon, a jury in Dallas, Texas found five Palestinian men guilty of more than 100 charges in the nation's largest terrorism financing trial since 9/11.
But was this case about prosecuting terrorism, or the Bush administration's "war on terror?"
By Noor Elashi
Huffington Post
Sept. 22, 2008
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noor-elashi/dj-vu-in-dallas-as-the-go_b_12...
Today, a cloud of déjà vu is hovering over a federal courthouse in downtown Dallas, Texas. Prosecutors will begin retrying my father and four other associates of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), which was the largest American Muslim charity until the Bush administration shut it down in December 2001.
By Hadi Jawad
Dallas Peace Center
The Bush Administration has systematically compromised the neutrality and independence of the U.S. Justice Department. For proof, look at Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson. These aides of the last two U.S. Attorneys General, Alberto Gonzalez and John Ashcroft, recently admitted to have favored professed loyalists to President George W. Bush for high-level jobs in the Justice Department. To the aides, admiration for the president was more desirable than duty to upholding justice.
Re: "Judge threatens to bar Holy Land defendant – Dallas: Outburst reportedly referred to 'Zionist conspiracy,' " Tuesday news story.
U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish's rulings, allowing into evidence hearsay, pamphlets, general depictions of Hamas activities and emotionally charged but irrelevant imagery, have irrevocably tainted a jury whose job it is not to examine Hamas.
The Holy Land Foundation trial is a political trial on behalf of Israel in an American court.
The HLF was shut down by an executive order in December 2001 during the visit of Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister. The HLF was a legitimate zakat (charity) committee licensed by the Israeli government to distribute aid to the Palestinian people.
I will never forget sitting on that cold, solid wooden bench in the very back of the courtroom. As my eyes watered, I looked up at the judge, who started to look like nothing more than a mirage. Then, as I slowly turned my head to the double doors, I became almost blinded by a color more orange than the fruit, itself. It was the color of my daddy’s jumpsuit. Two officers escorted my dad as he took small and careful steps to the front of the room to avoid tripping over the chains between his ankles.
