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SOCIAL ACTION COMMITTEE
RESPONDING TO GOD'S CALL FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
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SOCIAL ACTION COMMITTEE RESPONDING TO GOD'S CALL FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE |
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First United Church of Tampa has a very active Social Action Committee that is very heavily involved in peace and social justice issues. Its co-chairs are Mel and Martin. On this section of our church's website, the Social Action Committee posts items that may be of interest to the members and friends of our church.
Free Sami Al-Arian
www.freesamialarian.com
Hello friends,
I'm writing you because I really need your help. I've included a link to a
petition that I would like you to consider signing as soon as possible.
It's a petition to a federal judge, Gerald Lee, to put an end to the abusive
treatment of Dr. Sami Al-Arian.
While he lived among us here in Tampa, Dr. Al-Arian founded a school that still
thrives. He was honored for his distinguished career as a professor.
He worked tirelessly as a civic leader. He was a doting father, a loving
husband, and a trustworthy colleague. In short, he was the kind of person
whom one would wish for as a neighbor and a friend.
But our government put an end to all of that. On the eve of its invasion of
Iraq five years ago, the Bush administration boasted of Sami's arrest. Now
it is apparent that Dr. Al-Arian's arrest, like the war itself, was based on
groundless charges.
Today, years after a jury of his peers failed to find him guilty of even a
single crime, Dr. Al-Arian sits ill, mistreated, and alone in a federal prison
in North Carolina. In spite of his poor health, he has been moved from
prison to prison--at least four times in the past few weeks. He's
been held in solitary confinement, often without the basic amenities that are
afforded to even hardened criminals. Each move taxes his health even more.
His family and friends worry that he won't survive.
The tragic thing is that, in a plea agreement that Dr. Al-Arian signed in good
faith in 2005, our government promised that he would be released.
If the government had kept its promise, Dr. Al-Arian would have been allowed to
return to his family years ago. Yet at every step along the way in
this case, the current administration and its minions have interfered with the
due process of law.
And Sami waits.
When I was a schoolgirl, I used to wonder how an educated, civilized population
could allow tyrants to persecute others right before their eyes. Now I
see. It happens when people are blinded by prejudice. It
happens when they are deceived by lies. It happens when they are afraid
for their jobs, for their security, for the people whom they love. It
happens when they begin to suspect that if they looked too closely, they might
find that their government no longer resembles the democracy that they once
believed it to be. It happens when they believe that, even
if they were to speak out, their own quiet voices would never be heard by
those in power.
So they avert their eyes and they remain silent.
But, friends, in this nation where we are told that we must beware of "terrorism,"
the real enemies are silence and complacency. If it is ever to
heal, the ugly scab of injustice MUST be aired. We can't afford the luxury
of remaining silent while Dr. Al-Arian and so many others like him suffer
unjustly at the hands of our government; while our civil rights erode; while our
democracy crumbles.
I urge you to speak out for justice by signing the petition to Judge Lee.
And encourage your friends to sign it. Not just for Sami, but for yourself and
for the freedom that we all cherish.
Sincerely,
Lois Price
“Mr.
Al-Arian was not directly linked to any of the violent
acts
that we showed during the trial. Nonetheless,
it
did not make his role any less.”
-U.S.
Attorney Paul Perez
TAMPA
- The award-winning documentary USA vs Al-Arian, filmed in Tampa, Florida
by Norwegian filmmakers Line Halvorsen and Jan Dalchow, chronicles the effects
of a terrorism trial on the family of the accused USF professor.
Although the jury did not return a single guilty verdict in over two
hundred counts, Dr. Al-Arian has remained
in jail since 2003, with no end in sight. Friends of Human Rights took this film
on tour, showing it at churches and other venues across the country.
Screenings were followed by discussion led by Melva Underbakke and Fred
Bryant, of the First United Church of
Tampa.
Preliminary
showings were in Louisville, KY and Salisbury, MD. The tour officially
began on March 8, 2008 and returned to Tampa on April 4, 2008. Responses
to the film were overwhelmingly positive, and both Muslim and Christian
audiences were very supportive. Muslims were well aware of the assault on
our civil liberties in this country. However,
we found that some Christians knew very little about the current
situation. This state of affairs
that can largely be blamed on the failure
of our national news media to report on the problems of Muslim-Americans, whose
civil rights are often denied due to a climate of fear where guilt by
association and disregard for due process of law are all too often considered
appropriate “for safety sake.”
The media is not telling the story of Sami Al-Arian, who is presently on a hunger strike which began on March 3, but the story must be told. Dr. Al-Arian's continued incarceration, in violation of a plea agreement he accepted in exchange for a promise of freedom, is a breakdown in due process which must be corrected before it becomes a precedent threatening the rights of all Americans. A second national tour of USA vs. Al-Arian is being prepared, with scheduled venues in Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas. A preview video and current news about Sami Al-Arian's continuing incarceration and ongoing hunger strike are available at www.freesamialarian.com. You may also sign a petition at this site. To schedule an event, contact Friends of Human Rights at 831-215-3403 or friendshumanrights@yahoo.com.
First United Church of Tampa, UCC · 7308 E. Fowler Ave. · Tampa, FL 33617 · 813-988-4321