UPDATED! December 17 Hearing in New York: Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

Innalhamdolillah. Bismillah hir Rahman nir Raheem. Indeed, all praise is for Allah. In the Name of Allah, Whose Mercy transcends every comparison, Who is Always Merciful.

[posted by abu abdAllah] Update: Fahad Hashmi’s case has been rescheduled for January 8, 2009, but Dr. Aafia Siddiqui’s case will still take place Wednesday, December 17, 2008, at 9:30 am, in New York City. Please attend the hearing to show your support for justice to this woman who has suffered so much during her pre-trial captivity that she may now be unfit to stand trial!

[Video courtesy of FreeFahad.com. Transcript at the end of this post.]

Have you ever stayed at the home of a friend while you were traveling? And your friend did not go through each and every piece of your luggage? He did not interrogate your travel agent?

What has happened to Fahad Hashmi could happen to anyone. He has suffered for years now essentially for not vetting a house guest’s luggage — containing waterproof socks and similar rain gear — nor his guest’s travel plans.

Stand up against oppression. Stand up for justice. Stand up for Muslims in their time of need.

According to the Muslim Justice Initiative, a hearing for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui will be held on December 17, 2008, at the United States District Court, 500 Pearl St., Manhattan, New York. Update: Fahad Hashmi’s hearing has been postponed until January 8, 2009.

Please make every effort to be present for these hearings!!!

Contribute your time, your speech, your blogs, your expertise: Muslim Justice Initiative Volunteer Application.

Join over 800 conscientious persons, sign the petition.

Bismillahir Rahmaanir Raheem

As Salaamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullah

I would first like to thank you for taking the time out to read this important message. My brother Fahad Hashmi is currently in solitary confinement and has been for over a year. Our brother has been falsely accused, and with the help of Allah (the most high) then yours we can an exonerate him. Our Messenger Muhammad (Peace be upon him) said: “Feed the hungry, visit the sick and free the prisoner.”

Our brother Fahad is not the first and sadly we do not believe him to be the last. So we must present a unified front, and stand firm in the face of oppression. What we need you to do is ask Allah for sincerity, guidance, and strength. We then need you to help promote our effort in your community. We will provide material, man power, content, speakers, etc. as needed. All you have to do is help create an opportunity. If you have any type of outlet (website, radio, television, newspaper, etc) through which we can better inform the community of their rights, and raise awareness regarding the cases of our brothers and sisters like Fahad Hashmi, Aafia Siddiqui, and others then please contact us at Freefahad@gmail.com or Info@Muslimsforjustice.org.

Our lawyers have always mentioned how helpful it is to show up to court. So we thank you all and ask you to keep supporting with whatever you are capable of. Help the community by fund raising, raising awareness, attending court hearings, and creating opportunities so this message can reach the masses. I ask Allah to reward our brothers and sisters of Muslimmatters.org, and its readers.

As Salaamu Alaikum

Faisal Hashmi

Transcript of Video:
[Michael Ratner, Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights]
Our society should not have ideological prisoners. We should not have prisoners who have no — even in their indictments — no overt connection with any kind of terrorist act. We should not have those people in prisons, and we should have not have them in prisons that are essentially secret, incommunicado practically prisons without any access to genuine representation.

[Narrator]
Fahad Hashmi was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1980. He immigrated with his family to America when he was 3 years old.

[Anwar Hashmi, Fahad’s Father]
So we came to this country [mumbled] basically, for our kids to have a good education and the opportunity here in United States. As they say it’s the American Dream; that was the dream for us, and, and I gave good education — I tried to give a good education to my both kids. And that’s, that’s the reason we came in this country.

[Narrator]
Fahad’s family settled in Flushing, Queens. He became a United States citizen in 1991, when he was 11 years old.

[Anwar Hashmi, Fahad’s Father]
He’s a very lovable person. And he, basically, he dared among his peers to help others. He was very friendly; he was very friendly. You know I mean it is in our blood. It’s in our blood, that to help others. That’s why we are — that’s how Fahad is.

[Narrator]
Fahad earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Brooklyn College in 2003. And a Masters Degree in International Relations from Metropolitan University in London, in 2006.

[Professor Corey Robin, Political Science, Brooklyn College]
What was interesting to me about Fahad as a student was that he had very strong views of his own. But unlike many other students who have their own points of view, who tend to segregate themselves with, with their own groups, what I always saw Fahad doing — particularly after class when there was a very heated discussion about some question of constitutional law or American foreign policy — what I always saw Fahad doing was reaching out to other students.

I always saw him speaking with students of other faiths, of other ethnic backgrounds, and certainly other polictical beliefs.

One of the sad things about this is that it is precisely these qualities that are now bringing Fahad under suspicion, and that’s something that I think educators in particular ought to be concerned about.

[Newscaster, “Terror Trail Arrest” in inset]
Officials say an American student who was arrested in London as he prepared to board a flight to Pakistan has been indicted in New York on terrorism charges. 26 year old Syed Hashmi is accused of providing military gear to Al Qaeda to be used against US forces in Afghanistan.

[Newscaster, “Web of Terror” in inset]
The arrest of an American, picked up by police in London — he is accused of helping an Al Qaeda plot to stage a series of spectacular attacks.

[Anwar Hashmi, Fahad’s Father]
You know, that the 6th of June, 2006, my American Dream… became a… American Nightmare. It was just the worst day in my life. Everything is shattered.

[Arifa Hashmi, Fahad’s mother]
(In English:) It is a very bad feeling. I have no words. (In Urdu:) There are no words. Even now I have the same feeling… what I felt the first day, until now, even now this feeling has not left me.

[Sean Maher, Fahad’s attorney]
What we’ve been able to discern from the government’s case, so far, is that back in 2004 Fahad was living in London; he was a graduate student at the time. And around February or March of 2004, someone who Fahad knew was in the town, in London, and stayed in Fahad’s apartment for about two weeks. That person left after two weeks.

Two years later, in 2006, Fahad was at the airport, Heathrow Airport, going to Pakistan when he was arrested, and essentially charged with being a terrorist in the United States.

The charges, though, go back to that, that trip, that person that he knew took back in 2004 and stayed in Fahad’s apartment. Supposedly this person kept a suitcase or luggage containing raincoats, ponchos, and waterproof socks. That person then, the government alleges, took those waterproof socks and ponchos to the number three leader in Al Qaeda, who is at that point, supposedly, based in South Waziristan, Pakistan, and leading the insurgency in Afghanistan.

So the charges are not that Fahad is a member of Al Qaeda, not that Fahad gave any money to Al Qaeda, not that Fahad gave any military weapons to Al Qaeda.

The charge is that he knowingly allowed a person to keep ponchos and waterproof socks in his apartment that then were going to go to Al Qaeda. All told, Fahad faces 70 years in a federal prison.

[Michael Ratner, Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights]
When you actually read what the government is trying to claim in the case, how do you call this a terrorism case?

He’s not accused of any act of terrorism. Even what he supposedly did has no relationship to any act of terrorism. It had a relationship of supposedly holding something, something innocuous like a raincoat that might or might not have been given to an organization that the United States designates as a terrorist organization.

[Narrator]
There is no allegation that Fahad is a member of Al Qaeda. Or that he ever personally gave or helped to give anything to any member of Al Qaeda.

[Michael Ratner, Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights]
So you have to ask yourself what’s going on here? Is this the best they can do, and call this a terrorist case? And it makes you question the entire motives of the prosecution and whether or not there isn’t something else going on here, and something else going on in Fahad’s case.

Fahad is a strong spokesperson. He’s an activist on Islamic issues. And so what it makes you think, the first thing is, are they targeting this guy because he’s a Muslim? Because he’s a strong spokesperson? Because he wasn’t actually born in the United States as a US citizen? Because of who his friends are?

But what you can almost for sure say is they are not targeting him because he was in any way involved in an act of terrorism, or aiding and abetting terrorism, or knowingly having anything to do with terrorism.

[Narrator]
Fahad is an integral part of the Flushing Muslim community. After September 11, Fahad was active in protecting the rights of Muslims. He was also an open critic of US foreign policy and the decision to go to war.

[Michael Ratner, Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights]
Fahad was a well known activist, a well known spokesperson on, with regard to Muslim ideas, radical ideas according to some, but ideas. And… And the problem is when a government goes after ideas, um, is that, that’s clearly contrary to the first amendment.

[Imam Siraj Wahaj]
In this country we almost, um, idolize our ability as Americans to have free, freedom of speech. It’s in our Constitution. And it seems as if Fahad is yet another Muslim that’s being prosecuted only because of his articulation of his belief.

[Professor Corey Robin, Political Science, Brooklyn College]
Everybody — I can’t think of a person in this country who ought not to be concerned when, um, those kinds of beliefs, statements, and activities that are ordinarily protected and constitutional become evidence in the mind of a government of some of kind a criminal sensibility or inclination.

We fought long and hard in this country to get to the point where the Supreme Court and the judicial system understood that just because you say something, and just because you believe something doesn’t mean you’re going to commit an act of violence.

[Michael Ratner, Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights]
If you’re a Muslim citizen in this country, and you come out on the line and say “stop this war, oppose this war” — speak at a demonstration on a platform, you’re going to have FBI all over you. And that’s a pretty sad comment about the First Amendment.

[Imam Siraj Wahaj]
When I look at Fahad: young, intelligent, young man; Fahad had never been arrested, never been in trouble in his life with the law, and that this man is facing all these years in prison… What? What are you talking about? Do you know this man?

[Narrator]
Fahad has been vilified in the media. And his political beliefs have been treated as evidence of a crime.

[Professor Corey Robin, Political Science, Brooklyn College]
I think that, in the minds of many people, just by virtue of being Muslim and male, you are — if not a terrorist now — fast on your way to becoming a terrorist. So I think the… the presumption of guilt is automatic in that case.

And I think all of us, and I mean all of us in our, in our own hearts and minds, have to work very carefully to make sure that we are not making that leap.

[Narrator]
After being held for a year as a “Category A” prisoner in Britain’s notorious Belmarsh Prison, Fahad became the first United States citizen to be extradited from Britain to the US on terrorism-related charges.

In the United States, Fahad was placed in solitary confinement in the special housing units of the Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan, where he has been since June 2007.

[Sean Maher, Fahad’s attorney]
Right now, Fahad is under what are called Special Administrative Measures. These are extraordainary measures meant to cut off a person in federal detention from basically any contact with the outside world.

[Michael Ratner, Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights]
It’s essentially a barbaric way of keeping human beings. And to think that we’re keeping people in a barbaric way right now, with all of what goes along with it, in breaking down the human personality is something that should not be stood for.

The fact that he has been in custody for almost two years is something that should be unacceptable for any caring human being. It’s certainly unacceptable from a legal and moral and political point of view.

Fahad is 27 years old. I mean, he’s a smart, interesting person. And he’s being kept in a situation to break a personality.

[Professor Corey Robin, Political Science, Brooklyn College]
The concern I have with this case against Fahad is that it, if it goes forward, in the manner in which I fear it may go forward, we will be undoing the 20th century. And I think that’s something that, all of us who care about civil rights and civil liberties in this country ought to be concerned about.

[Michael Ratner, Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights]
Well, Fahad’s case, as I said, is a very, very sympathetic case for anyone who chooses to examine it.

So the first thing I would do, I would tell anybody go to web sites, put in his name, examine what you see here.

[Imam Siraj Wahaj]
Become familiar with the facts of the case. I think that’s important. Number two, we should come to the court hearings when they begin. Number three, financially.

[Arifa Hashmi, Fahad’s mother]
(In Urdu) People can help us in this way, they can come to court. They can raise their voices. He needs help with money, they can help with money. Prayers for him, our faith is based on prayer. Make prayers for him, as much as can be done. And most important, come to the court and raise your voices.

[Anwar Hashmi, Fahad’s Father]
In whatever capacity they want to help us, they come forward and they… I request them to come and to help us.