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US & UK Mailing Lists Updated: Fraternal Sacrifices and Familiar Solitude

Yet another Eid has passed without hearing the sacred words of praise, feeling the customary hug from family members, or smelling the familiar foods. This month’s update brings its share of sorrow for many mothers.

We ask Allah to ease the hearts of the prisoners and their families and bestow on them His Mercy and to strengthen them with patience.

On November 1, 27 year old Rezwan Ferdaus, was sentenced to 17 years for two counts of terror-related charges in an entrapment case. He faced a possible 35 year sentence if he had opted to go to trial. Rezwan appreciated the support of family and friends, smiling as they shouted “We love you, Rezwan!” Tariq Mehanna’s parents were also present in a show of support. Rezwan’s mother, strong yet distraught, was visibly angered, “Investigate your government…They’ve been lying a lot,” she instructed the press.

Also on November 1, Shkumbin Sherifi and Nevine Elsheikh pleaded guilty to one count of murder for hire. They face a possible ten years and $250,000 fine when sentenced in February 2013. Without this plea, they faced near life sentences but are now government witnesses in Skumbin’s brother’s, Hysen Sherifi‘s, upcoming trial, set to start on Monday. Hysen, sentenced to 46 years for terror-related charges earlier this year, now faces a life sentence. Weighing the astronomical odds of fighting another entrapment case, the Sherifi family elected to have at least one son possibly return to see his dying father and live some semblance of a normal life.

The recent forced pleas remind us of the true nature of “terror” prosecutions; that in no way do they attempt to uncover truth or relegate justice. Despite destroying lives, families and communities, convictions and pleas are meaningless with respect to establishing guilt, which is why supporting our incarcerated brothers and sisters is a moral obligation, especially when they may be innocent in more ways than one.

It has been one month since the extradition of five British Muslims to the US, and families have not received any verbal or written communication from their loved ones. It is presumed that Adel Abdel Bary, Babar Ahmad, Khalid al-Fawwaz, Mustafa Mustafa, and Syed Talha Ahsan are being held incommunicado, sending a loud message to the international community of what American justice sounds like; oppressively silent.

Ahmed Ajaj, Adham Hassoun, and Randall Royer (currently in transit), who were removed from ADX Florence last month, have all been returned to the supermax prison. Abdulwali Muse (the Smiling Somali) is back in Terre Haute, and those who sent cards or letters to Adnan Mirza or Gregory Vernon Patterson last month may want to consider resending as they may have been in transit and have possibly not received mail.

The Supreme Court rejected the final appeal of the Holy Land Foundation Charity, a dismal but not unexpected decision for Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi, Mohammad el-Mezain, Mufid Abdulqader, and Abdulrahman Odeh, serving a cumulative 180 year sentence for sending aid to Palestine.

There is a possibility that Wadih elHage (not listed) may have his life sentence commuted after lawyers present evidence from Fazul Abdullah Mohammed’s autobiography.

In the UK, Irfan Nasser, Irfan Khalid and Ashik Ali are undergoing trial for an alleged bomb plot for which they had been under surveillance since 2010.

It is feared that Mahdi Hashi is the latest victim of torture and detention by proxy or rendition after the Home Office mysteriously revoked his British citizenship following his refusal to become a government informant. Friends and family are demanding answers to his disappearance and evidence for the claims of “extremism” made by Home Office.

Courts in Canada have given the green light for the extradition of Sayfildin Tahir Sharif, an Iraqi born Canadian, to the US allegedly for connections to suicide bombings in Iraq.

As always, remember them and their families in your duas, and be sure to let us know of any returned mail, incorrect addresses, missing prisoners, or updates you would like to share.

 
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Posted by on November 3, 2012 in News Items

 

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Embarrassed by Yonas Fikre’s Disclosure of Proxy Torture, FBI Pursues Punitive Prosecution

Refusing to collude with the FBI and resisting enlistment into the agency’s army of informants and agent provocateurs is proving to carry hefty consequences. The most recent case of Yonas Fikre is the latest in a string of punitive prosecutions that demonstrate the US government’s eagerness to punish Muslims for their unwillingness to become the devils’ advocates.

Yonas Fikre, an American Muslim now residing in Sweden, was tortured in the United Arab Emirates at the behest of the US government shortly after refusing to become an informant for the FBI.

On 1 May, less than three weeks after Fikre’s allegations were made public, the Justice Department charged Fikre, his brother, Dawit Woldehawariat, and a third man, Abrehaile Haile, with conspiring to hide $75.000 worth of money transfers to the UAE and Sudan from the government, all in violation of federal reporting requirements for large international financial transactions. Woldehawariat, Fikre’s brother, was also charged with failing to file a tax return in 2009 and 2010. There are no allegations of terrorism associated with the charges.

After being stranded abroad by being placed on the No-fly List, Yonas was ominously ’warned’ by a US official about a possible lack of co-operation during an initial courtship to endear his services: ‘The time to help yourself is now‘ the missive ended. Shortly after that, he was abducted and tortured.

Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who has been working with Fikre, informed Mother Jones that the federal charges were retaliation for Fikre’s refusal to cooperate with the FBI.

‘It is disappointing but not surprising that the FBI is retaliating against Yonas by filing specious charges against him after they promised to make his life difficult after he refused to become their informant. While FBI agents lied to Yonas about many things, in this case, it seems that they have kept their word.’

Thomas Nelson, Fikre’s Portland, Oregon-based lawyer, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer  that he was unaware of the charges against his client. But Abbas said he’s been in touch with Nelson since then and the two are working together to decide what to do next.

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Posted by on May 17, 2012 in News Items

 

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FBI Orders Fikre’s Falaqa – An Account of Torture by Proxy

Yonas Fikre candidly discusses the FBI’s failed attempt to recruit him as an agent provocateur, followed by the chillingly account of his subsequent arrest and torture in the UEA after the agency placed him on the no-fly-list, barring him from returning to the US. The details of his ordeal and evidence strongly suggest that Emirati intelligence arrested and tortured Fikre not only with the knowledge of the FBI but at their behest.

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Posted by on May 16, 2012 in Videos

 

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Yonas Fikre Believed to be Latest Victim in FBI’s Proxy Torture & Detention Program

Last June, while Yonas Fikre was visiting the United Arab Emirates, the Muslim and United States Citizen from Portland, Oregon was suddenly arrested and detained by Emirati security forces. For the next three months, Fikre claims, he was repeatedly interrogated and tortured. Fikre says he was beaten on the soles of his feet, kicked and punched, and held in stress positions while interrogators demanded he “cooperate” and barked questions that were eerily similar to those posed to him not long before by FBI agents and other American officials who had requested a meeting with him.

Fikre had been visiting family in Khartoum, Sudan, when, in April 2010, the officials got in touch with him. He agreed to meet with them, but ultimately balked at cooperating with FBI questioning without a lawyer present and he rebuffed a request to become an informant. Pressing him to cooperate, the agents told him he was on the no-fly list and could not return home unless he aided the bureau, Fikre says. The following week he received an email from one of the US officials; it arrived from a State Department address:

“Thanks for meeting with us last week in Sudan. While we hope to get your side of the issues we keep hearing about, the choice is yours to make. The time to help yourself is now.”
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Posted by on April 18, 2012 in News Items

 

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The Case of Gulet Mohamed: Brutalised Abroad at the Behest of America

Gulet Mohamed was an average 18-year-old American citizen before a visit to family overseas resulted in his torture and indefinite detention in a Kuwaiti prison.

Mohamed, whose family is Somali, immigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of three, fleeing the devastating civil war that ravaged that East African country.

Mohed Mohamed, his older brother, maintained that his family, having fled Somalia in 1995, has always been pro-American and grateful to the United States for its intervention in Somalia’s civil war in the 1990s.

Zahra Mohamed, his sister, explained that Gulet, like any other American teenager, grew up playing basketball, had an iPhone, and obsessed over the game Madden NFL. But like many American teenagers, Gulet had a bad case of wanderlust. He wanted to travel abroad to learn more about his heritage, Zahra explained.

He begged his mother to let him leave: after all, he had never known his father, and he wanted to learn Arabic. Traveling to the Middle East would let him get to know his father’s side of the family, rediscover his roots, experience his ancestral homeland, and learn the language of the Quran.

In March, 2009, Gulet Mohamed departed from Alexandria, Virginia to study Arabic and Islam in in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. Gulet, the most adventurous of the seven siblings, was the first member of his family to travel outside the United States since the family’s relocation.

After several weeks of study, he left to visit his maternal relations in Somalia at his mother’s insistence. Residing in his uncle’s home for several months, Gulet found the environs uncomfortably hot and painfully sickening through bouts of food poisoning that left his youthful wanderlust unsated. Mohamed again ventured to visit other family living in Kuwait and to continue his studies in Arabic.

Throughout his journey of seeking knowledge and rekindling the ties of kinship, Mohamed traveled on an authentic American passport with valid visas for all of the countries on his whimsical itinerary. His past history had no indication of any violent or criminal activity, nor had he ever been arrested.

Yet, on December 20, 2010, when Mohamed went to the airport in Kuwait City to have his visa renewed (a process he had routinely engaged in every three months without incident for the past year), he was told by a visa officer that his name had been “marked” in the computer.

After five hours of uneasily waiting, Mohamed had finished sending his brother an email when he was handcuffed, blindfolded, and kidnapped by two men in civilian clothes. After a fifteen minute drive in a SUV, Mohamed was deposited in an undisclosed location. He was then dragged into a room and interrogated by officials who refused to identify themselves.

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Posted by on February 11, 2012 in Flashback

 

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