Showing posts with label mohamed yousry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mohamed yousry. Show all posts

Saturday, June 12, 2010

*In Honor Of Our Class War Prisoners- Free All The Class War Prisoners!- Free Lynne Stewart, Mohamed Yousry, And Ahmed Abdel Sattar!

Click on the headline to link to more information about the class-war prisoner honored in this entry.

Make June Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month

Markin comment


In “surfing” the “National Jericho Movement” Website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck, whom I had read about in a “The Rag Blog” post I linked to the Jericho list of class war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania death row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.

That last notion set me to the task at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a long time supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which supports class war prisoners as part of the process of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and disagreements as a separate matter. What matter here and now is the old Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.

Note: This list, right now, is composed of class war prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases in the comment section. Likewise any cases, internationally, that come to your attention. I am sure there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!

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*Free Lynne Stewart, Mohamed Yousry and Ahmed Abdel Sattar!- A Guest Commentary

Click on the title to link to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee Web site.


Workers Vanguard No. 948
4 December 2009

Court Imprisons Leftist Attorney

Free Lynne Stewart, Mohamed Yousry and Ahmed Abdel Sattar!


NEW YORK CITY—In a blow against the rights of the entire population, leftist attorney Lynne Stewart was hauled off to prison on November 19 on bogus charges of conspiracy to provide “material support” to terrorism and to “defraud” the U.S. government. An outspoken courtroom advocate for black activists and the poor, the 70-year-old Stewart was convicted in 2005 along with translator Mohamed Yousry and paralegal Ahmed Abdel Sattar on charges stemming from her ardent legal defense of Islamic fundamentalist Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for an alleged plot to blow up NYC landmarks in the early 1990s. Reporting to prison two days after the Second Circuit Court of Appeals turned down the appeal of her conviction, Stewart told her supporters that the government was warning lawyers: “Don’t advocate for your clients in a vigorous, strong way or you will end up” like her, “disbarred and in jail.”

The victimization of Stewart, Yousry and Abdel Sattar has been a key cog in the government’s drive to eviscerate civil liberties in the domestic “war on terror.” From beginning to end, the Feds’ case was a fabrication. The government admitted that not a single act of violence resulted from the alleged “terror conspiracy.” Unable to get Stewart for breaking any law, the government invoked the spectre of “conspiracy” and nailed her for violating Special Administrative Measures that drastically restrict a prisoner’s right to communicate with the outside world. Stewart was “guilty” of conveying Abdel Rahman’s thoughts about a cease-fire between his Islamic Group and the Egyptian government to a Reuters journalist. The government declared this was tantamount to a terrorist “jailbreak.”

In a November 21 protest letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the Partisan Defense Committee—a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League—stated that Stewart, Yousry and Abdel Sattar “should not have spent a single day in jail! Their frame-up prosecution gives the government a green light to prosecute lawyers for the alleged crimes of their clients, ripping the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to shreds.” Pointing out that the jailing came in the immediate aftermath of the Justice Department’s announcement of plans for a show-trial prosecution of Guantánamo detainees, to be held within a mile of the World Trade Center site, the letter stressed that “the message is clear: any determined defense of those the government deems an enemy can mean a prison sentence for ‘material support’ to terrorism.”

The Second Circuit’s 125-page decision against Stewart, Yousry and Abdel Sattar made no bones about its effect on restricting the right to legal counsel, declaring that it was now “less likely that other incarcerated persons will have the same level of access to counsel that [Stewart’s] client was given.” The court ordered not only that bail be revoked immediately but that a new hearing be held by the trial judge, John G. Koeltl, to increase the sentences of all three defendants. In 2006, Federal prosecutors who had demanded a 30-year sentence reacted in outrage when Koeltl, citing Stewart’s efforts on behalf of “the poor, the disadvantaged and the unpopular,” set her sentence at 28 months. Yousry got 20 months while Abdel Sattar, a former postal worker, was given 24 years.

The higher court, which includes two Clinton appointees, outrageously denounced Koeltl for failing to consider whether Stewart committed perjury at trial by maintaining that she believed she did nothing illegal. Describing her sentence as “breathtakingly low,” one of the appellate judges all but explicitly called for Stewart, who suffers from breast cancer, to be locked away for life. The New York Post (17 November) cheered, “Finally: Jihadist-Enabling Lawyer Lynne Stewart Ordered to Jail,” while the New York Daily News (19 November) headlined: “Terror Moll Gets Hers.”

Stewart, Yousry and Abdel Sattar were convicted after a seven-month trial fraught with prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutors pandered to public fear in the post-September 11 climate, even introducing videotapes of Osama bin Laden as evidence! The evidence against Yousry, a doctoral candidate in Middle Eastern Studies at New York University and an opponent of Islamic fundamentalism, consisted of notebooks of his discussions with Sheik Abdel Rahman for use in his dissertation. Yousry now faces possibly two decades in prison for doing his job as an interpreter. Ahmed Abdel Sattar is an Islamic fundamentalist whose only “crime” was to rack up large phone bills talking to other fundamentalists. At bottom, they were convicted of being Arab in post-September 11 America.

Though the prosecution was carried out under the Republican Bush administration, this mugging of constitutional rights has the fingerprints of the Democratic Clinton White House all over it. The Special Administrative Measures Stewart purportedly violated were enacted by the Clinton administration. For years, the Feds under Clinton secretly recorded the supposedly privileged attorney-client discussions between Stewart, her aides and Abdel Rahman. Stewart, Yousry and Abdel Sattar were indicted under the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, one of several measures that have been escalated under the “war on terror” to attack fundamental rights.

After eight years of chanting “Anybody but Bush,” the liberals and reformist left hailed the election of Barack Obama and his promises of “change,” not least in regard to the “war on terror.” But as we have always stressed, the “war on terror” has the stamp of both parties of U.S. imperialism. Despite Obama’s campaign pledge to close Guantánamo and end torture, his administration has endorsed indefinite detention, a hallmark of police-state dictatorships and a centerpiece of Bush’s war on democratic rights. Many Guantánamo detainees will be transferred to detention centers in Bagram, Afghanistan, which has become synonymous with torture and all-around imperialist savagery, and elsewhere. And as the death toll of Afghans mounts ever higher in the U.S./NATO occupation of that country, the announced show trial of Guantánamo prisoners like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed demonstrates the Obama administration’s commitment to continuing the assault on democratic rights at home.

At the onset of the prosecution of Stewart, Yousry and Abdel Sattar, we pointed to the urgent need for leftists, trade unionists and defenders of democratic rights to defend them against a government intent on tearing up the rights of all of us. SL and PDC supporters have repeatedly turned out to express our support at court hearings and protests, and in recent years Stewart has been a regular invited speaker at the PDC’s Holiday Appeal benefits for class-war prisoners. Based on the principle of non-sectarian, class-struggle defense, we have also stressed that defense of Stewart is inseparable from that of Yousry and Abdel Sattar. Not so the reformist left, which disappeared any mention of Yousry and Abdel Sattar long ago. Recent articles protesting Stewart’s incarceration in Workers World, the International Socialist Organization’s Socialist Worker and the Revolutionary Communist Party’s Revolution don’t even mention their names.

Stewart and Yousry’s jailing reveals yet again the workings of the courts as an integral part of the repressive machinery of the “democratic” capitalist state, which masks the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with a veneer of equality before the law. But there can be no equality between the exploited and their exploiters, between the oppressed and their oppressors. We fight to win those outraged at the legal persecution of Stewart, Yousry and Abdel Sattar to a perspective of proletarian revolution to abolish the capitalist system, sweeping away the capitalist state and establishing a workers state, where those who labor rule. Then, and only then, will we see justice for all the victims of imperialist barbarism, at home and abroad.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

*FOR REAL JUSTICE-FREE LYNNE STEWART!

Click on title to link to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee site.

COMMENTARY

WE NEED LAWYERS WHO ARE FUSS-
MAKERS NOT RAINMAKERS

FREE CO-DEFENDANTS YOUSRY AND SATTAR

Well, the Bush Administration has finally got New York Attorney Lynne Stewart (DESPITE HER DISBARMENT I WILL CONTINUE TO CALL HER ATTORNEY) where they want her. Ms. Stewart had previously been indicted on the vague and flimsy charge of "materially" aiding terrorism by essentially, on the record presented by the government at the trial, providing zealous advocacy for her client, Sheik Rahman, who had been convicted in various terrorist schemes including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. At a trial in Federal District Court in New York City where the prosecution used every scare tactic in the post- 9/11 “War on Terror” playbook she was convicted. On October 16, 2006 she was finally sentenced on the charges. The federal judge in the case noting the severity of the crime but also the invaluable service that Ms. Stewart had rendered to the voiceless and downtrodden sentence her to 28 months.

This sentence has been described as victory of sorts by Attorney Stewart and other commentators. The ever upbeat Ms. Stewart is quoted as stating that she, like some of her clients, could do that time “standing on her head”. Well, that may be, but the fact of the matter is that Ms. Stewart should not have been indicted, should not have been convicted and most definitely not sentenced for her actions on behalf of her client. Only the fact that the judge did not totally surrender to the government’s blatant appeals to “national security” issues and sentence her to the thirty years that they requested makes this any kind of “victory”. That joy over any lesser sentence could be considered as such is a telling reminder of the times we live in.

This case and the publicity surrounding it has dramatically warned any attorney who is committed to zealous defense of an unpopular or voiceless client to back off or face the consequences. The chilling effect on such advocacy, in some cases the only possible way to truly defend a client in this overheated reactionary atmosphere, is obvious. Moreover, the whole question of “material” aid to terrorism is a Pandora’s box for any political activist or even a merely interested non-political participant in any organization on the government’s “hit” list.

The government has the possibility of appealing the sentence to the Federal Court of Appeals so as of today October 18, 2006 the travails of Ms. Stewart are not over. Moreover, her conviction is still on appeal. From what I can gather in any reasonably quiet appeals court some of more blatant actions by the prosecution at trial would warrant, at minimum, a new trial if not the overturning of the conviction. Again, in these times such confidence may be unwarranted. In short, the “people’s lawyer” Lynne Stewart needs financial help to wage these new battles. Please consider sending a donation to the Lynne Stewart Defense Fund or to the organization I support- the Partisan Defense Committee- which will forward the donation. You can google either organization for addresses.

REVISED: NOVEMBER 2, 2006

ADDED NOTE: IN ANOTHER TELLING TALE OF THE TIMES THE INFORMATION THAT I RECEIVED FROM THE MASS MEDIA "NEGLECTED" TO INFORM THAT MS. STEWART'S ARAB TRANSLATOR , MOHAMED YOUSRY RECEIVED A 20 MONTH SENTENCE AND PARALEGAL ABDEL SATTAR RECEIVED 24 YEARS- NO THAT IS NOT A MISPRINT-24 YEARS. I MAKE UP OF THAT EGREGIOUS MISTAKE HERE. NEED LESS TO SAY- FREE STEWART, YOUSRY AND SATTAR.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

*DEFEND LYNNE STEWART, MOHAMED YOUSRY, AHMED ABDEL SATTAR!

Click on title to link the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee site.

COMMENTARY

THIS NOTICE IS PASSED ON FROM THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE, P.O. BOX 99, CANAL STREET STATION, NEW YORK, NY. 10013-0099. I NEED ONLY ADD THAT TOO FEW LAWYERS HAVE BEEN AS INTREPID IN THE DEFENSE OF UNPOPULAR CASES AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS AS MS. STEWART. SHE MUST NOT SERVE ANY JAIL TIME AND MUST BE VINDICATED ON APPEAL ON THE FRAME UP CHARGES SO SHE CAN CONTINUE TO REPRESENT THE OPPRESSED AND FORGOTTEN OF THE WORLD. A FEW MORE FIGHTING LAWYERS WOULD ALSO HELP.


NEW YORK CITY—It is urgent that fighters for civil liberties and black and labor rights rally to the defense of leftist attorney Lynne Stewart, translator Mohamed Yousry and paralegal Ahmed Abdel Sattar. The three are scheduled for sentencing on March 10, having been convicted on frame-up charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism and to defraud the U.S. government. The 65-year-old Stewart, who has been diagnosed with cancer, faces more than 20 years in prison—an effective life sentence. Her "crime" was her vigorous legal defense of Islamic fundamentalist cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for conspiracy to blow up NYC-area landmarks. Yousry also faces more than 20 years, while Abdel Sattar may get a life sentence. These convictions are outrageous attacks on the Sixth Amendment right to an attorney as well as everybody's free speech rights. Protest outside the courthouse at Thomas Paine Park, Centre and Worth Streets in lower Manhattan, 9:00 a.m.! Pack the courtroom!

Stewart's alleged crime consists of making the views of her imprisoned client known to a Reuters journalist, in violation of unprecedented and patently unconstitutional Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) devised by the Clinton government. The government's case was based on hundreds of hours of videotaped and recorded discussions between the sheik and his attorney that are supposed to be free from government snoops. The prosecution was allowed to play inflammatory and irrelevant videotapes of Osama bin Laden during the anniversary week of the September 11 attacks—in a courtroom located within walking distance of the World Trade Center! Following the trial, one juror wrote to the judge that she had been pressured by the witchhunt atmosphere of the deliberations into voting for conviction, against her better judgment. She had been told by another juror that if she didn't vote to convict, it would be her fault if anyone died in a terrorist attack.

In an October ruling rejecting defense motions to overturn the verdicts, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl cited a previous court ruling that "speech is not protected by the First Amendment when it is the very vehicle of the crime itself." But even the U.S. attorneys who prosecuted the case admitted that no crime occurred, that no terrorist attack resulted from this fabricated "conspiracy." As we stressed in "Lynne Stewart Denied New Trial" (WV No. 860, 9 December 2005), the government's aim "is not only to scare away any lawyer from defending a client with unpopular views but to criminalize dissent."

Stewart's translator, Mohamed Yousry, is a graduate student who had been carrying out research for his doctorate on Abdel Rahman on the recommendation of his New York University department chairman, Zachary Lockman. In a Los Angeles Times (6 February) opinion piece, Lockman wrote that if this conviction is allowed to stand, "We may well see other translators prosecuted for doing their jobs, and other scholars facing jail terms for conducting research on controversial issues." But the Bush administration has not always been getting its way in its attempt to silence critics of government policy. In December, the six-month trial of Palestinian rights activist Sami Al-Arian, former University of South Florida professor, and three co-defendants, who faced 51 charges related to "supporting terrorism," ended in acquittal or a hung jury on all counts. Al-Arian still faces retrial and possible deportation. Government hands off Sami Al-Arian!

Since her conviction, Lynne Stewart has continued speaking out against government repression, including at a Partisan Defense Committee rally in NYC in support of her struggle and in defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Assata Shakur (see "Lynne Stewart Speaks at NYC Rally," WV No. 855, 30 September 2005). Stewart was targeted particularly for her lifetime of legal practice in defense of victims of repression and racist injustice. What next? Will publishing a column by Mumia, who was framed up in effect as a "terrorist" for his political views, be considered "material support to terrorism"?

This "war on terror" prosecution threatens the rights of all who would fight against anti-immigrant bigotry, racial oppression and attacks on labor. Just as the prosecution of Stewart, Yousry and Abdel Sattar has ominous implications, so too does powerful protest in their defense have broader portent. The capitalist courts have made clear their intention to seal their fate behind bars. The labor movement and all defenders of democratic rights have every interest in fighting against this frame-up.