Fahid Hashmi Vigil

Fahid Hashmi Vigil
http://FreeFahad.com

On January 18th, as our Nation commemorates Martin Luther King Day, for the slain civil rights leader who peacefully spoke out against war, racism and injustice, members of THAW (Theaters Against War) and friends, family and supporters of Fahad Hashmi invite you to join us for a special Free Fahad Vigil across from the MCC, Metropolitan Correctional Center, in New York City, where Fahad Hashmi has been detained for over two and half years before trial under conditions of severe solitary confinement.

January 11, 2010 marks the 8th year of the Guantanamo prison establishing indefinite detention, torture and operating outside the established rule of law and Geneva Conventions by the United States government against international terror suspects. Last year President Obama declared and then voided a deadline for closing this prison. Some of the Guantanamo detainees have even been cleared for any "wrongdoings" by the Dept. of Defense yet remain imprisoned there. While these detainees and the conditions they are being held under at Guantanamo have received worldwide attention and due criticism, similar unlawful abuses and inhumane treatment of U.S. Citizens that is happening here in NYC has not. The case of Fahad Hashmi is particularly disturbing because he has been held at the MCC, Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City for over two and half years before trial under "Special Administrative Measures", known as SAMS, that keep him in perpetual solitary confinement, under electronic surveillance and subject to a regime of severe deprivation, equivalent to torture and in violation of Habeas corpus. The U.S. government has a very weak case against him, accusing him of allowing an acquaintance to sleep on his couch who then traveled with waterproof socks and ponchos to his birth country of Pakistan (his family immigrated to the U.S. when he was three). The U.S. Government argues this as material support to al Qaeda and justifies Fahad's harsh detention conditions under the threat of terrorism. There is also a lot of ancillary evidence being used by the U.S. Government against Fahad pertaining to his reputation as a devout Muslim and student activist that suggest a pre-crime, racist and discriminatory profiling, prosecution and torture of a man based more on his ethnicity and religion than for anything else. To learn more about the case go to: FreeFahad.com and educatorsforcivilliberties.org.

Please join members of THAW (Theaters Against War) and friends, family and supporters of Fahad Hashmi for a special Free Fahad Vigil featuring Kathleen Chalfant, Andre Gregory, Chris Hedges, Bill Irwin, Cindy Sheehan, Wallace Shawn and folksinger Dar Williams across the street from the MCC at 150 Park Row and Pearl Street from 6 to 7 pm on Monday, January 18th, this Martin Luther King Day, as we stand up and say to NYC and the Federal Government No Guantanamo's at Home or Abroad.

Ilan Pappe's book: The Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinians

I am reading "The Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinians," by Ilan Pappe. He is a historian who was forced to leave Israel and has written a very important book (which is now in paperback) that details the systematic expulsion of the Palestinians often accompanied by massacres starting before the UN Mandate ended in 1948. I feel one cannot really understand the current conflict without understanding this history. One can sample Pappe's views in a lecture he gave recently see: Pappe video