Late last year, a jury in Boston convicted Tarek Mehanna, a 29-year-old pharmacist born in Pittsburgh, of material support for terrorism, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to kill in a foreign country, after a thirty-five day trial in which I testified as an expert witness for the defense.
On 12 April, Mr. Mehanna was sentenced to seven-teen and a half years in prison. Hearing this, most Americans would probably assume that the FBI caught a major homegrown terrorist and that seven-teen and a half years is reasonable punishment for someone plotting to engage in terrorism. The details, however, reveal this to be one of the most important free speech cases we have seen since Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969.
As a political scientist specializing in Islamic law and war, I frequently read, store, share and translate texts and videos by jihadi groups. As a political philosopher, I debate the ethics of killing. As a citizen, I express views, thoughts and emotions about killing to other citizens. As a human being, I sometimes feel joy (I am ashamed to admit) at the suffering of some humans and anger at the suffering of others.
At Mr. Mehanna’s trial, I saw how those same actions can constitute federal crimes.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, Andrew F. March, Brandenburg v. Ohio, First Amendment, Free Speech, http://www.nytimes.com, jihad, Tarek Mehanna, Tariq Mehanna, thought crimes
Electronic Itafada’s Maureen Clare Murphy interviews Nancy Murray of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union on the case of Tariq Mehanna, the constitution and Free Speech. Last week, a federal judge sentenced 29-year-old Boston-area pharmacist Tarek Mehanna, convicted earlier this year of various material support for terrorism charges, to 17.5 years in a supermax prison. Mehanna has been in lockdown for most of the past four years, held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day in a cell “the size of a small closet,” as Mehanna described during his powerful statement to the judge at the hearing.
Mehanna’s case fits into the wider pattern of civil liberties violations related to the prosecution of Muslims in domestic terror cases. Like in other prosecutions, including that of three young American Muslim men in North Carolina that I have covered on my blog, the government’s case focused on Mehanna’s opposition to US foreign policy and Internet activity, as well as travel he made abroad — all activity thought to be protected by the First Amendment.
FBI Coercion 
Before prosecuting him, the government tried to coerce Mehanna into becoming an FBI informant and spying on his community, approaching him after a hospital shift and telling him that he could go the “easy” way and never see the inside of a prison cell, or Mehanna could choose the “hard” way. Mehanna chose the hard way, which his lawyer says he is being punished for. Indeed, defendants’ refusal to become informants is a troubling commonality in a number of terror prosecutions.
And during the trial the prosecution used the tried and true tactic of invoking the specter of the 11 September 2001 attacks, even though Mehanna has no connection to those events whatsoever. When the word “terror” is invoked, even in cases like Mehanna’s where no act of violence is alleged to have been perpetrated, government prosecutors are nearly universally able to secure guilty verdicts — so much so that defendants are more likely to take plea deals than have their day in court.
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Tags: ACLU, constitution, First Amendment, http://electronicintifada.net, Maureen Clare Murphy, Nancy Murray, religious persecution, Sami Al Hussayen, Tarek Mehanna, Tariq Mehanna, Unconstitutional, War on Islam
Hutaree Who?
It is a frightening scenario. Nine heavily armed men conduct military-style training in preparation for a terrorist attack involving the bombing of a funeral for the police officer they had killed three days earlier.
Over a two-year period, a paid FBI informant and FBI agent infiltrates their cell, discusses building bombs and getting explosives and tapes their conversations. By the time their homes are raided, they had amassed instructions and material for making bombs, night vision binoculars, machine guns, assault rifles, 148,000 rounds of ammunition, body armor, gas masks, tear gas, knifes and swords.
Before their trial started, one of their members took a plea bargain, admitting the group “advocated” and prepared for violence against local, state and federal law enforcement. True, the government’s case was not helped when the informant who received $31,000 to infiltrate the group got arrested for shooting at his wife, but it still seemed like the case against the others would be a slam dunk – right?
Well, it almost certainly would have been if they were Muslims. It is difficult to imagine any judge extending the protection of the First Amendment to taped conversations between Muslims stating that they should “start hunting” law enforcement “pretty soon” and that “it is time to strike and take our nation back so that we may be free again from tyranny.”
But that is what a Michigan federal judge, Victoria Roberts, did on 27 March in the case involving seven members of the Hutaree militia of self-described “Christian warriors.” Throwing out the most serious charges against the four members of the Stone family and their associates, she declared that the case was “built largely of circumstantial evidence” and that the alleged plot to kill a local police officer and then attack his funeral procession is “utterly short on specifics.”
While the prosecution insisted “these individuals wanted a war,” Judge Roberts agreed with the defense attorney William Swor who said that the group’s leader, David Stone, “was exercising his God-given right to blow off steam and open his mouth.”
In the words of the judge, his “statements and exercises do not evince a concrete agreement to forcibly resist the authority of the United States government. His diatribes evince nothing more than his own hatred for – perhaps even desire to fight or kill – law enforcement; this is not the same as seditious conspiracy.”
At a time when armed extremist anti-government groups may have as many as 100,000 adherents, Judge Roberts’ homage to the breadth of First Amendment protected speech may appear welcome to some and foolhardy to others. But there is no denying that it highlights the chasm between the prosecutions carried out against suspected Muslim terrorists, and the homegrown domestic brand that gave us Timothy McVeigh.
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Tags: ACLU, David Stone, FBI informant, First Amendment, Hutaree Militia, Judge Victoria Roberts, Lawrence Sanchez, Marc Sageman, Nancy Murray, NYPD, Sami Omar Al Hussayyen, Senate Homeland Security Committee, shady informants, Sneak & Peek, Tarek Mehanna, Tariq Mehanna, Unconstitutional
A Southwest Michigan man, suspected of providing support to foreign terror groups, was sentenced today to prison for trying to ram the car of an FBI agent conducting surveillance before the 10th anniversary of the 11 September terror attacks.
Reed Stanley Berry, 26, of St. Joseph, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell in Grand Rapids to seven years, eight months in prison for assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon – his car.
Berry has not been indicted on any terror-related charges.
The FBI raided his home after he allegedly used the Internet to contact one or more foreign terrorist organisations, court records showed. His attorney, noting that Berry has not been charged with terror crimes, said that Berry’s correspondence, which the government believed was a threat to national security, was speech protected under the First Amendment.
The seeming disparity between the First Amendment rights of Muslims and other Americans is one that has been recently questioned, especially in light of two recent cases; the Hutaree Militia, self-described ’Christian Warriors’ acquitted on the basis of First Amendment rights, and that of Tariq Mehanna, sentenced to seventeen and a half years for translation of classical Arabic texts and his desenting opinion over US foreign policy.
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Tags: FBI, First Amendment, http://www.mlive.com, InPrison, John Agar, Judge Robert Holmes Bell, no fly list, Reed Stanley Berry, Sam Moore, Talib
The following testimony, entitled “Victims of the American Inquisition” written by Zachary Chesser, is a microcosmic documentation of America’s naked and larger aggression against the religion of Islam in what Chesser terms the ‘American Inquisition.’ Since the intensification of this most recent inquisition, the global Muslim community has suffered a ruthless assault on legal rights and basic humanity, which in various arenas have been superficially designated as everything from geopolitical interests to heretical rhetoric. What Chesser exposes through details regarding his case and subsequent incarceration, is a pattern of federally sanctioned religious persecution and corrosive civil rights violations reflective of American foreign policy, shockingly common in so-called terrorism cases. He recounts how his religious beliefs designated him as a target for government surveillance, how this surveillance in turn became a means of distortion and manipulation, culminating in his incarceration and the deliberate alienation of his family, particularly the religiously charged, custodial kidnapping of his son.
_______________________________________________________________
En el nombre de Alá, el Compasivo, el Misericordioso:
Mi nombre es Abu Talha al-Zacarías Amriiki (legalmente “Zachary Adám Chesser “), y lo que sigue no es para tomarse a la ligera. Si se va a saber cuánto estas palabras pueden afectar a mí ya mi familia, entonces la gravedad de este mensaje no se puede escapar. Estoy escribiendo esto con el fin de que nadie debe caer en las mismas trampas y errores como yo, para establecer la prueba para los que dudan, y para rectificar los errores determinados. Tal vez mi ignorancia de la naturaleza de mi situación era una excusa para mí, pero si no, entonces le pido a Dios que me perdone. Sin embargo, después de mí, no creo que nadie va a tener una excusa en estos asuntos si estos eventos se manifiestan a ellos.
Esta es mi historia, y dentro de ella son fragmentos de las historias de muchos otros. Es sólo una relación de lo que yo sé que es verdad a lo mejor de mi capacidad, y estoy seguro de que lo que permanece oculto para mí es mucho peor que la que se hizo claro para mí, pero lo que sí está claro es suficiente para un persona de comprensión. Por lo tanto, que estas páginas se registran en los anales de la historia en los capítulos reservados a la Inquisición estadounidense.
En cuanto a lo que sigue … Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 1st Amendment, Abu Talhah, Abu Talhah al-Amriiki, Abu Talhah Zakariyya al-Amriiki, Al-Qaeda, al-Sahbab, al-Shabaab, American Inquisition, Ansar Forum, Asad Allah, Asadullah al-Shishaani, Babara Chesser, CMU, Emerson Begolly, FBI, FBI entrapment, FBI setup, First Amendment, First Stop Addis, FISA, Gordon Kromberg, Gulet Muhamed, Jesse Curtis Morton, Jordan, Kenya, Marion, Material support, Paula Menges, Ramy Zamzam, Reed Stanely Berry, Revolution Muslim, RevolutionMuslim, shady informants, Shaker Masri, Shakir Masri, SHU, Somalia, Talhah Chesser, Talhah Ibn Zakiriya Chesser, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Uganda, War on Family, War on Freedom, War on Islam, Younes Abdullah Muhammad, Zachary Adam Chesser
The following testimony, entitled “Victims of the American Inquisition” written by Zachary Chesser, is a microcosmic documentation of America’s naked and larger aggression against the religion of Islam in what Chesser terms the ‘American Inquisition.’ Since the intensification of this most recent inquisition, the global Muslim community has suffered a ruthless assault on legal rights and basic humanity, which in various arenas have been superficially designated as everything from geopolitical interests to heretical rhetoric. What Chesser exposes through details regarding his case and subsequent incarceration, is a pattern of federally sanctioned religious persecution and corrosive civil rights violations reflective of American foreign policy, shockingly common in so-called terrorism cases. He recounts how his religious beliefs designated him as a target for government surveillance, how this surveillance in turn became a means of distortion and manipulation, culminating in his incarceration and the deliberate alienation of his family, particularly the religiously charged, custodial kidnapping of his son.
_______________________________________________________________
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful:
My name is Abu Talhah Zakariyya al-Amriiki (legally “Zachary Adam Chesser”), and what follows is not to be taken lightly. If you were to know how much these words can affect me and my family, then the gravity of this message would not escape you. I am writing this in order that nobody should fall into the same traps and mistakes as I did, to establish proof for those who doubt, and to rectify certain wrongs. Perhaps my ignorance of the nature of my situation was an excuse for me, but if not, then I ask Allah to forgive me. However, after me, I do not think that anyone will have an excuse in these matters if these events are manifested unto them.
This is my story, and within it are pieces of the stories of many others. It is only a relation of what I know to be true to the best of my ability, and I am sure that what remains hidden from me is far worse than that which was made clear to me, but that which is clear is enough for a person of understanding. Therefore, let these pages be recorded in the annals of history under the chapters reserved for the American Inquisition.
As for what follows… Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 1st Amendment, Abu Talhah, Abu Talhah al-Amriiki, Abu Talhah Zakariyya al-Amriiki, Al-Qaeda, al-Sahbab, al-Shabaab, American Inquisition, Ansar Forum, Asad Allah, Asadullah al-Shishaani, Babara Chesser, CMU, Emerson Begolly, FBI, FBI entrapment, FBI setup, First Amendment, First Stop Addis, FISA, Gordon Kromberg, Gulet Muhamed, Jesse Curtis Morton, Jordan, Kenya, Marion, Material support, Paula Menges, Ramy Zamzam, Reed Stanely Berry, Revolution Muslim, RevolutionMuslim, shady informants, Shaker Masri, Shakir Masri, SHU, Somalia, Talhah Chesser, Talhah Ibn Zakiriya Chesser, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Uganda, War on Family, War on Freedom, War on Islam, Younes Abdullah Muhammad, Zachary Adam Chesser
They locked me in this room, Alone, by myself, just me –
With no one to talk to except for the walls, or the face in the mirror I see.
So I sit, listen, and watch
the television in my head
Not a notion to move nor a second spared
I record everything that is said –
Absence of Kindness, Distinct Memories of Pain
Caused by the things that they took away
So I’m holding my breath,until they let me out
But I’m afraid of what might happen the next time I breathe.
I wrote that poem when I was 17. These days I am living it; all over again. Then it was a proverbial prison. I was a conscious youth inside one of the most dangerous institutions of America: the public high school. Today, 16 years later, I am in another – the U.S.prison system where I am but one of a growing number of Muslim Americans who dared to speak out. Today I am a pretrial federal inmate housed in solitary confinement and in conditions that best resemble those of Guantanamo Bay.
Trust me I am not alone. In 1994, my junior year of high school, the U.S. Justice Department announced that the prison population had reached one million. By 2009, that number had more than doubled to 2.3 million with 5 million more on probation or parole. U.S. citizens now represent only 5% of the global population but account for 25% of the world’s prisoners. Additionally,1 in15 Americans is in “extreme poverty” with 48% of Americans labeled “in poverty” or “working poor”, but a recent Gallup poll documented that the percentage of Americans that realize the levels of poverty are so high, has dramatically decreased. These two seemingly distinct sets of statistics suggest something more sinister is going on.
The civil rights era included prison protests like the Attica riots of 1971 and paved a way for productive reform, but today talk of human rights tends to cover a manipulative compromise with the power elite and diverts attention away from structural cause. Generally prisoners today have enhanced rights and services but like the starving people fed by NGO’s in Africa or refugee camps in Afghanistan, such rights and philanthropy are counterproductive where they allow society to ignore the root causes of such appalling levels of crime, punishment, hunger or war. These contradictions become apparent with regard to civil liberties in a time of confrontation, when the citizen is reduced to an object of propaganda about domestic enemies in order to maintain public support for wars abroad.
The authors of the American constitution unanimously resented any sacrifice of civil liberties in the name of national security, but the reaction to 9/11, the immediate passage of the Patriot Act and a new approach to law enforcement the Bush Administration called a “preventative paradigm” ushered in an order of sustained national liberty sacrifice. These changes disproportionately affected American Muslims, however while “terrorists” abroad were “disappeared”, water boarded and held without charges at Guantanamo Bay, the courts approved warrantless wiretapping, ethnic profiling, blacksite rendition and preventative detention targeting Muslims on America’s shores. Wartime propaganda alongside a wave of arrests utilizing entrapment, where undercover agents encourage fund, and coerce potential terrorist attacks, have helped to sustain support. Recent polling documents that two-thirds of Americans support sacrificing some privacy and freedoms in the fight against terrorism. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 1st Amendment, Aafia Siddiqui, Ali al-Timimi, American Inquisition, CIA, CMU, Fahad Hashmi, FBI setup, FBI sting, First Amendment, forced nudity, GTMO, Guantanamo, Guantanamo Bay, Hilary Clinton, http://www.islampolicy.com, Jesse Curtis Morton, Jim Lehrer, Jose Padilla, Jubair Ahmad, Lynne Stewart, Martin Niemoller, Morocco, NYPD, Omar Abdul Rahman, Poem, Poetry, pretrial detention, psychological torture, rape, sexual abuse, solitary, solitary confinement, Tarek Mehanna, Tariq Mehanna, torture, War on Freedom, War on Islam, Younus Abdullah Muhammed
Late last year, a jury in Boston convicted Tarek Mehanna, a 29-year-old pharmacist born in Pittsburgh, of material support for terrorism, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to kill in a foreign country, after a thirty-five day trial in which I testified as an expert witness for the defense.
![Sanâbil: [ Faith | Finance | Family ] French Advocacy Association (French | English)](http://aseerun.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/sanabil.png?w=128&h=128 "Sanâbil: [ Faith | Finance | Family ] French Advocacy Association (French | English)")
![Defence of Human Rights: [ Determination | Awareness | Courage ] Pakistani Rights Group (English | Urdu)](http://aseerun.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/defenceofhumanrights.png?w=128&h=128 "Defence of Human Rights: [ Determination | Awareness | Courage ] Pakistani Rights Group (English | Urdu)")
