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<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/My-Student-the-Terrorist/126937/" eudora="autourl">
http://chronicle.com/article/My-Student-the-Terrorist/126937/<br><br>
</a></font><h1><b>My Student, the 'Terrorist'</b></h1><font size=3>By
Jeanne Theoharis<br>
<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/My-Student-the-Terrorist/126937/" eudora="autourl">
http://chronicle.com/article/My-Student-the-Terrorist/126937/<br><br>
</a>Pale and gaunt, he stood there, having endured three years of
pretrial solitary confinement. "<i>Alhamdullilah,"</i> he
said.<br><br>
Yes. He had allowed an acquaintance to stay with him in his student
apartment in Londonan acquaintance who had raincoats, ponchos, and
waterproof socks in his luggage, which the acquaintance later delivered
to Al Qaeda.<br><br>
One day before his case was set to go to trial, nearly four years after
he had been arrested, Syed Fahad Hashmi, a U.S. citizen, accepted a
government plea bargain on one count of conspiracy to provide material
support to terrorism.<br><br>
Eight years earlier, Fahad and I had sat across from each other in my
office. A student in my civil-rights seminar, he had come in to discuss
his final research paper. Months after the terrorist attack on the World
Trade Center, he wanted to examine the denial of civil rights and
constitutional protections that Muslim groups across the political
spectrum were facing in the United States.<br><br>
A devout Muslim and outspoken political activist, Fahad had been a lively
and overly talkative participant in class discussion. Relishing debate,
he had not shied away from disagreement. I often saw him in the halls
before and after class deliberating with other students, discussing the
issues of the day or denouncing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East
and the treatment of Muslims in America. He seemed to prefer to talk to
those who did not share his political views, and to possess the overly
optimistic belief that with a good argument, he could win others over. He
would sometimes tire me out by his indefatigable talking, and on
occasion, by leaving materials in my mailbox about converting to Islam.
His utopia was a state ruled by religious law, and he held beliefs that I
certainly did not share about global politics and the ascendancy of
Islam.<br><br>
Still, Fahador Syed, as I called him thenwas a thoughtful student, and
I admired his spunk and stubborn willingness to question authority. I
found out later that because all the men in his family had Syed as a
first name, he was known to friends and family as Fahad. But like many
other students at Brooklyn College, he was too respectful to correct
me.<br><br>
The government specifies our duty as citizens: to watch for suspicious
activity and individuals. Implicitly we are told to see danger in people
with beards and head scarves.<br><br>
Despite some presence by Hashmi’s family, friends, and Muslim student
groups, the major civil-liberties organizations have remained silent
about his treatment behind bars.<br><br>
His final paper contended that in contradiction to the Bill of Rights,
the civil liberties of Muslim-American groups were being violated in the
aftermath of September 11. It began with the American philosopher
Randolph Bourne's claim that in times of war, dissent becomes seditious:
"Minority opinion, which in times of peace, was only irritating and
could not be dealt with by law unless it was conjoined with actual crime,
becomes, with the outbreak of war, a case for outlawry."<br><br>
That summer, Fahad e-mailed me for advice. He wanted to know how to
become a professor. The next semester he came to my office. He was
applying to master's-degree programs in England. Would I write him a
recommendation? Yes, I said, that makes sense. In 2003, there was a much
more developed intellectual conversation among British academics on the
role of Islam in global politics than there was in the United States. I'd
be happy to write a letter. He got up to leave. Almost at the door, he
opened his backpack and nervously turned to face me.<br><br>
Out he fished a package of chocolates. Old World in his manners, Fahad
had very likely decided he could not come empty-handed to make a request.
He handed them to me. No, no, that's not necessary, I said. This is my
job. Thank you, he said, and stubbornly insisted on giving me the
chocolates.<br><br>
I wrote the recommendation and sent him on his way. Three years later, a
colleague told me she'd just seen a news storyour former student Syed
Hashmi had been arrested in Britain on some sort of terrorism charge. We
were instructed by the college not to say anything to the news media. In
the silence lurked fear of association. Galled by the prohibitions, I
nevertheless put the arrest out of my mind.<br><br>
More than a year later, another colleague e-mailed to ask what I knew of
Syed's case. The question sat in my head. Poking around on the Web, I
found sensational stories about the arrest of a homegrown terrorist from
Queensa fearsome picture of military gear in the hands of Al Qaeda,
reams of cash headed toward the insurgency in Afghanistan.<br><br>
After a couple of weeks, the case was still bothering me. Fahad had been
a zealous political activist. As a scholar of African-American history, I
knew that people with radical politics often became targets of government
surveillance, that threats to national security were not always what they
were purported to be. I found myself going back to that history as I
tried to understand what was happening.<br><br>
The articles on Fahad's arrest listed the name of his lawyer. I
cold-called him, and he asked to meet. Sean Maher talked to me that
afternoon about SAMs, CIPA, and "material support"a hodgepodge
of acronyms and confusing legal terms, even for a professor of political
science who imagined herself well informed. Maher, a former public
defender, had represented people accused of murder, rape, drug
trafficking, and gang conspiracy. Never had he seen anything like the
jail conditions and rights violations Fahad was being subjected
to.<br><br>
Worried at how isolated Fahad's family might feel, and learning that they
were still living in Queens, I sent his parents a card. A few days later,
Fahad's father called. Syed Anwar Hashmi was distraught. The family had
left Pakistan when Fahad was 3. Mr. Hashmi had worked for the City of New
York as an accountant for more than two decades. He did not understand
how his son could be treated in this way in a country that he had
sacrificed to come to and be part of. He started to cry. He believed in
the law. But there were supposed to be fair trials, a set of rights,
public evidence, and no torture. Where was the Constitution now?<br><br>
In the years since September 11, stories announcing the apprehension of
new terrorism suspects have filled the national news. They follow the
same form: relief mixed with jubilation that law enforcement is keeping
our homeland safe. Despite the banner headlines, the actual nature of
these cases receives limited public scrutiny. We hear little of the
government's evidence or of the treatment of suspects within the federal
system. We have come to accept, almost reflexively, that while there have
been abuses in places overseasGuantánamo, Bagram, secret CIA prisonsthe
rule of law is intact at home. Captivated by a post-civil-rights frame of
the U.S. judicial system as relatively incorruptible, we have missed the
broader devolution of rights in the federal system and the ways our
terrorism policies follow from a larger history of policing dissent and
difference.<br><br>
This, then, is the story of Guantánamo at home, of the treatment of
terrorism suspects in the federal courts, the civil-rights violations
happening within the United States, and the legal and political culture
that allows them. I have been lecturing and writing about this case for
more than three years, and what strikes me, as someone who studies civil
rights, is how little we in America seem to learn from our own
history.<br><br>
On June 6, 2006, preparing to board a plane to Pakistan, Syed Fahad
Hashmi was arrested at Heathrow Airport on a U.S. warrant. He had been
living in London, completing his master's degree in international
relations at London Metropolitan University. The arrest of Fahad, who was
charged by the United States with two counts of providing and conspiring
to provide material support and two counts of making and conspiring to
make a contribution of goods or services to Al Qaeda, commanded the top
of the nightly news that June evening. "Terror trail" and
"web of terror" flashed as Brian Williams began his nightly
broadcast. New York Police Chief Raymond Kelly crowed, "This arrest
reinforces the fact that a terrorist may have roots in Queens and still
betray us." As in many terrorism indictments, the news media
maintained little distance from the government's story.<br><br>
For 11 months, Fahad fought his extradition, fearing the treatment he
would face in American courts. In May 2007, he became the first U.S.
citizen extradited under laws passed after September 11 that relaxed
standards for the process. While the British government did not ask for
assurances of fair treatment for Fahad, it did require the United States
to give a cursory account of the basis of the case.<br><br>
The "centerpiece" of that case was the testimony of a
cooperating witness, Mohammed Junaid Babar. In the beginning of 2004,
Babar, an acquaintance of Hashmi's from New York, asked to stay with him
at his London apartment for two weeks. According to the government, the
acquaintance had luggage with him, which he, the acquaintance, later
delivered to the third-ranking member of Al Qaeda in South Waziristan, in
Pakistan. In addition, Hashmi allegedly allowed Babar to use his
cellphone to call conspirators in terrorist plots.<br><br>
"If we are engaged in a war against terrorand we most certainly
are," FBI Assistant Director Mark J. Mershon publicly claimed,
"then Syed Hashmi aided the enemy by supplying military gear to Al
Qaeda." The government had caught a "quartermaster."
Despite the sensationalism, the government had been forced to admit it
was not actually accusing Hashmi of supplying military gear himself;
"quartermastering" consisted of allowing an acquaintance with
luggage to stay in his apartment. "Military gear" in the
luggage amounted to raincoats, ponchos, and waterproof socks.<br><br>
Babar himself had been arrested in 2004 on five charges of material
support. He quickly cooperated with government authorities, who
interviewed him in a midtown hotel, and he agreed to serve as a
government witness in a number of terrorism cases in exchange for a
reduced sentence. Out on bail since 2008, Babar would provide his last
testimony at Fahad's trial.<br><br>
Flown back to New York, Fahad Hashmi was placed in solitary confinement
at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, 13 miles from
where he had grown up in Flushing. In front of a courtroom filled with
family and friends, Judge Loretta A. Preska denied him bail. Although he
was a citizen with no criminal record, she said that he did not respect
U.S. laws or have significant ties to family and community to prevent him
from fleeing.<br><br>
In the first months of detention, family members could visit him together
and talk about their visits with friends and family. Fahad had a radio
and could receive and read newspapers and magazines. He could shower
outside of the view of the camera. His lawyer could talk freely with him
and with others.<br><br>
Five months later, that changed. Fahad was put under Special
Administrative Measures, or SAMs, which restrict a prisoner's contact
with the outside world.<br><br>
The federal government established SAMs in 1996 for gang leaders and
other crime bosses with demonstrated reach in cases of "substantial
risk that an inmate's communication or contacts with persons could result
in death or serious bodily injury to persons." After September 11,
the Justice Department began using SAMs pretrial, with wide latitude to
wall off terrorism suspects before they had been convicted of
anything.<br><br>
Fahad was allowed no contact with anyone outside his lawyer and, in very
limited fashion, his parentsno calls, letters, or talking through the
walls, because his cell was electronically monitored. He had to shower
and relieve himself within view of the camera. He was allowed to write
only one letter a week to a single member of his family, using no more
than three pieces of paper. One parent was allowed to visit every two
weeks, but often would be turned away at the door for bureaucratic
reasons. Fahad was forbidden any contactdirectly or through his
lawyerswith the news media. He could read only portions of newspapers
approved by his jailersand not until 30 days after publication. Allowed
only one hour out of his cell a day, he had no access to fresh air but
was forced to exercise in a solitary cage.<br><br>
The government cited Hashmi's "proclivity for violence" as the
reason for such harsh measureseven though he had no criminal record and
was not charged with committing an actual act of violence or having any
demonstrated reach outside of prison. Given the number of people
convicted of a violent crime behind bars in the United States,
"proclivity for violence" seemed an implausible justification
for the harsh measures.<br><br>
While challenging his extradition, Hashmi had been housed at Britain's
notorious Belmarsh prison, where he talked, prayed, and exercised with
other prisoners. No complaint was ever made about his behavior there.
(The British never charged him with any support to terrorism.) Similarly,
there had been no complaint about his behavior in his first five months
at the correctional center.<br><br>
But he was not cooperating with American authorities. The U.S. attorney
had made it clear that this could all go away if he would. As Fahad
explained at his sentencing three years later, "And in all reality,
I had nothing to cooperate about." Much like other forms of torture,
his treatment was a coercive punishment for not doing what the government
wanted.<br><br>
Special Administrative Measures come directly from the attorney general.
Used pretrial, they seem to be reserved for Muslim defendants. On May 31,
2009, as Hashmi sat in isolation, Scott Roeder, a Christian militant,
walked into a Wichita church and shot and killed an abortion doctoran
act of premeditated murder. Some anti-abortion activists celebrated and
wrote to Roeder in jail. Some even came to visit. Roeder was not put
under SAMs. Meanwhile, Fahad received his first punishment, for
"unauthorized gestures" and insubordination, after he practiced
martial arts in his cell. He lost his limited family visits for three
months.<br><br>
On January 23, 2009, the day after President Obama signed an executive
order prohibiting torture and ordering the prison at Guantánamo closed,
Fahad's defense challenged his SAMs for the second time, citing extensive
scholarly and medical evidence that long-term solitary confinement and
sensory deprivation damage a person's mental and physical health. Citing
the martial-arts incident and continuing threat to national security, the
judge rejected the argument, and over the next three years, 30 more
appeals. Attorney General Eric Holder renewed Fahad's SAMs in October
2009.<br><br>
The use of torture and other human-rights violations in America's war on
terrorism has been framed as a problem occurring largely outside our
shores. Our public conversation blames a set of bad guysthe
"torture lawyers" John Yoo and Jay Bybee and their patrons,
President Bush and Vice President Cheneywho twisted the law to allow
"enhanced interrogation" in secret and offshore
locations.<br><br>
But enhanced-interrogation techniques are only one facet of the
human-rights devolution in the aftermath of September 11. In a campaign
against terrorism that requires evidence of the effectiveness of law
enforcement, a record of conviction is paramount. Prosecuting alleged
terrorists has significant cachet for politically aspiring U.S.
attorneys, not to mention financial imperatives as various government
agencies compete for money made available to fight terrorism. Under the
cover of law, U.S. attorneys use prolonged solitary confinement and
sensory deprivation to help produce convictions. As John McCain, a former
POW, wrote, such treatment "crushes the spirit."<br><br>
The use of prolonged solitary confinement is increasingly out of step
with world opinion and practice, and is deemed torture by international
standards. On July 8, 2010, the European Court of Human Rights kept in
place an injunction barring the extradition of four terrorism suspects to
the United States, based on the inhumane conditions in so-called Supermax
prisons, including the use of post conviction SAMs. Evidence of Hashmi's
pretrial treatment formed part of the background for the
decision.<br><br>
Censure is more difficult within the United States. In a particularly
troubling twist, detailed criticism of SAMs, in itself, becomes illegal.
Everyone in direct contact with a person under SAMs is bound by the SAMs
and not allowed to talk about any conversation with the detainee, thus
making it illegal to speak out against the precise damage of these
measures.<br><br>
Fahad's treatment was not a historical aberration. State interests of
national security have repeatedly trumped civil liberties. Shadowy
"un-American" enemies have long borne the brunt of scrutiny and
repression. And periods of public regret have often followed.<br><br>
In 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, allowing the
internment of more than 110,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans (more
than two-thirds of whom were American citizens). Upheld as constitutional
in a series of Supreme Court cases on the grounds of national security,
internment hardly raised an eyebrow with journalists during World War II.
Those who objected were pilloried, with the complicity of many civil
libertarians and the silence of many Americans. When a group of 63
Japanese-American men at Heart Mountain Relocation Camp protested
internment by refusing to be drafted or swear unconditional loyalty to
the United States, they were jailed. The Japanese American Citizens
League supported the government, and the American Civil Liberties Union
refused to provide legal assistance, claiming the draft resisters had no
legal case. They received three years in prison and were ostracized for
years.<br><br>
The United States, however, quickly distanced itself from its history of
internment. By the 1950s, a new internal enemy had emerged. In a cold war
with the Soviet Union, Americans feared that Communists were infiltrating
American institutions. Political activists and Communist sympathizers
summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s
were often pushed to name names. In many cases, the government knew whom
they knewand, in a number, that those summoned had no crucial
information. The point was to quiet dissident voices.<br><br>
Civil-rights activistsvariously including Martin Luther King Jr., the
American Indian Movement, and the Black Panther Partysoon became prime
targets. That was not simply because of the actions of a renegade FBI
director. Attorney General Robert Kennedy himself signed off on the
bugging of King in 1963. Of Americans surveyed by Gallup in the days
before the 1963 March on Washington, almost half of those who had heard
about the protest viewed it unfavorably. When the FBI began handing over
salacious information on King to journalists, no reporter blew the
whistle.<br><br>
Beginning in the late 1960s, the United States again disavowed such
tactics. In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that citizens had the
right to associate with and be members of dissenting groups like the
Communist Party, as long as they engaged in no criminal act.<br><br>
By the 1990s, with the end of the cold war, and following the 1993
bombing of the World Trade Center, Islamic fundamentalism became the new
lurking enemy. The subversion of liberties in what came to be known as
the "war on terror" married old practices to new tactics.
Political association could now be criminalized through the
fearsome-sounding material-support bans instituted under President
Clinton (and later expanded under the Patriot Act). The federal
government would sponsor bold public indictments but avoid public show
trialsthe evidence and proceedings largely kept hidden. There would be
no mass-based internment, but a broad swath of interrogations and
prosecutions aimed at those deemed disloyal. And the politics of fear and
patriotic loyalty would keep journalists and many civil-rights
organizations silent.<br><br>
Fahad's due-process rights fell victim to the 1980 Classified Information
Procedures Act, which allows evidence to be kept classified. Its use has
drastically expanded post-9/11. As a citizen in federal court, Fahad
faced evidence he was not allowed to review. Fahad's lawyers went through
intensive security clearances to view itbut were not allowed to discuss
it with him.<br><br>
Under material-support bans, all sorts of constitutionally protected
activities can be classified as suspect, if not criminal.
Material-support charges require no criminal act nor direct contact with
terrorists, just the knowing "support" of a foreign terrorist
organization. They often focus on small acts and religious and political
associations, which take on sinister meaning as ostensible manifestations
of forthcoming terrorism.<br><br>
So-called "jihadist" ideas and membership in radical Islamic
political groups thus become indications of "support," rather
than constitutionally protected speech and association. While a student,
Fahad had drawn the attention of authorities as a member of the New York
political group Al Muhajiroun. (Despite its troubled history in England,
the group has not been designated a terrorist organization by the United
States, nor has membership in the organization been deemed illegal here.)
An activist, Fahad had demonstrated outside various embassies protesting
the situation of Muslims in Kashmir, Chechnya, and Palestine, and what he
saw as U.S. complicity in Muslim oppression. He drew the attention of
<i>Time</i> magazine and CNN for comments he made at a student meeting at
Brooklyn College praising John Walker Lindh, and calling America
"the biggest terrorist in the world." In the year before the
Second Gulf War, speaking at Muslim student associations across the New
York area, he claimed that the United States had greater aspirations in
the Middle East and was preparing to go to war against Iraq. Though well
outside mainstream political opinion, his activities should have fallen
squarely within the protections of the U.S. Constitution.<br><br>
The theory of preventive prosecution behind many material-support cases
rests on identifying dangerous characteristics that portend forthcoming
terrorism. In 2007, the New York Police Department published a report on
homegrown terrorism, citing Fahad as one of the examples and listing
indications of a person's possible growing radicalization. Those
included: giving up cigarettes, drinking, gambling, and urban hip-hop
gangster clothes; wearing traditional Islamic clothing; growing a beard;
and becoming involved in social activism and community issues.<br><br>
The government had no evidence it was prepared to introduce in court
outside of Babar's word that Babar had access to or delivered anything to
Al Qaeda. Key to its case, then, were Fahad's controversial political
beliefs. The government was prepared to introduce tapes of his political
activities at trial, tapes that indicated considerable surveillance of
his activism as a college student, years before Babar's visit to his
apartment. Despite objections from the defense citing Fahad's First
Amendment rights, the judge ruled that the tapes were relevant to
understanding his state of mind and "background to the
conspiracy."<br><br>
The seminar paper Fahad had written on civil-liberties violations was no
longer academic. Stunned by the rights abuses happening but a few miles
away, two colleagues who had also had him as a student and I circulated a
Statement of Concern calling attention to "the conditions of his
detention, constraints on his right to a fair trial, and the potential
threat his case poses to the First Amendment rights of others." Over
the coming months, more than 550 scholars and writers signed the
statement, which we sent to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and the
U.S. attorney for the Southern Districtand dozens of journalists and
local officials.<br><br>
With the exception of <i>The Chronicle</i> and <i>The</i> <i>Village
Voice'</i>s longtime civil libertarian Nat Hentoff, no journalists widely
reported Fahad's treatment. Despite the determined work of Fahad's
family, friends, and some Muslim student groups, the major
civil-liberties organizations also remained silent. Working hard to get
terrorism suspects out of Guantánamo into the federal system, they did
not feel they could turn around and highlight how unfair the federal
system was. The attorney general's office responded in a letter reminding
us that, under SAMs, we could not contact him, but promising that any
concerns Mr. Hashmi had would be dealt with in a "timely"
fashion.<br><br>
In the winter of 2009, we sent the statement to President Obama and
Attorney General Holder. The only answer we received from a
constitutional-scholar-turned-president came addressed to "Ms.
Jeanne Theoharis and Friends," thanking us for "taking the time
to share your views." For the next 15 months, the Obama
administration made no changes in Fahad's conditions, in its commitment
to secret evidence, and in its use of political activities as evidence of
criminal intent.<br><br>
The years of pretrial detention took their toll on Fahad's family, still
living in Flushing. Fahad's father, exhausted by fear, took early
retirement. His older brother, Faisal, who had two children during the
years of Fahad's pretrial detention, told me how difficult it was to
enjoy them while his brother sat a few miles away in isolation. He
brought his son and daughter with him to pretrial hearings, so Fahad
could get a glimpse of them.<br><br>
Faisal had studied business and possessed a voluminous knowledge about
movies; he had never understood how Fahad intended to make money with a
degree in political science. Now, out of necessity, Faisal grew into an
able political speaker and prodigious legal mind. Together with friends
and supporters, he helped start a group called the Muslim Justice
Initiative, to provide support for Muslim families and communities in the
United States facing legal problems in the post-9/11 political climate.
The need for such a group was increasingly urgent.<br><br>
We attended Fahad's pretrial hearings, watching him grow thinner, less
focused, and more jittery. I corresponded with more journalists, but no
one seemed to have the right beat to write about the casea "metro
story" to be covered at trial, according to <i>The New York
Times.<br><br>
</i>To begin to break the silence, I wrote an article for <i>The
Nation.</i> A movement of New Yorkers began to grow. Outraged that this
inhumanity was occurring in lower Manhattan, people sought to bear
witness. And so, in October 2009, Theaters Against War, together with
Educators for Civil Liberties and the Muslim Justice Initiative, began
holding weekly protest vigils outside Fahad's prison. In the rain and the
cold, the Broadway actors Wallace Shawn, Bill Irwin, and Kathleen
Chalfant performed. The opera singer Christine Moore and the folk singer
Dar Williams sang. Muslim students, playwrights, clergy, professors, law
students, antiwar grannies, mothers with children, high-school students,
prison-rights activists, and Fahad's own extended family gathered outside
the prison week after week for seven months, in the darkness of winter
and the light of spring.<br><br>
Progressive and international news media began to take an interest. The
Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International USA, and the
Council on American Islamic Relations-NY put out an open statement
raising concerns about Fahad's conditions.<br><br>
If this were a movie, the story might end with a triumphal courtroom
scene, or an intrepid <i>Washington Post</i> reporter breaking the story.
It might have a sentimental ending, with a conservative Muslim family and
community locking arms with Christians and Jews and atheists and turning
the country back to its commitment to civil rights. The government,
shamed, would reform its practices.<br><br>
But this is not a movie, and inhumane treatment is well protected in
post-9/11 America.<br><br>
The organizing campaign 500@500 called on people to attend Fahad's trial
at the federal district courthouse. That alarmed the government, which
filed a motion citing public interest in the case as questionable and
dangerous. A 500@500 poster became the government's Exhibit A. The U.S.
attorney explained that "jurors will see in the gallery of the
courtroom a significant number of the defendant's supporters, naturally
leading to juror speculation that at least some of these spectators might
share the defendant's violent radical Islamic leanings." Prosecutors
asked for jurors to be granted anonymity and requested extra security for
them. Promoting guilt by implication, such measures would have signaled
to the jury that Fahad was dangerous before he stepped into the
courtroom. Demonizing observers, the government legitimized the idea that
jurors should view them with suspicion. Once again, the judge granted the
government's motion.<br><br>
One day later, on April 27, Fahad agreed to a plea bargain of one count
of conspiring to provide material support. He made the decision after not
seeing anyone but his lawyers in more than five months, not having access
to the religious support of an imam, and after nearly three years of
solitary confinement.<br><br>
A day before trial, the government dropped the other three charges. That
it did so suggests that it had applied draconian pretrial measures, not
because it considered Fahad a high-level terrorist, but to induce his
cooperation or conviction.<br><br>
Six weeks later, Judge Preska sentenced him to 15 years in prison. At the
sentencing, it became clear that Fahad posed a threat not only because of
luggage brought to his apartment, but because of his ideology. Assistant
U.S. Attorney Brendan McGuire called it "an ideology of violence and
intolerance," noting that "not every person who supports Al
Qaeda is going to pull a trigger or throw a bomb or launch an
attack." Citing Fahad's "anti-American jihadist ideology,"
the judge echoed that McCarthyesque logic of deterrence.<br><br>
At the hearing, Fahad made his first public statement in four years. With
numerous references to the Qur'an, he spoke extremely hurriedly. When the
judge asked him to slow down, he apologized, saying he had not spoken
much in the past years. And then he started to cry.<br><br>
Fahad thanked the people, both Muslims and non-Muslims, who had opposed
the injustices in his case. "To the non-Muslims, above all, some of
my former professors," he said: "I hope, <i>Insha'Allah,</i>
that Allah gives me the opportunity to me to repay you your
kindness." He expressed hope "that the bridges of dialogue and
debate that were built around this case remain so." He apologized to
his family for the pain he had caused them and took responsibility for
his associations with Babar. He spoke of the "noble mujahedin"
and, with allusions to Moses and the Pharaoh, criticized the government's
inhumane treatment of Muslim prisoners, including his
"brothers" at Guantánamo.<br><br>
In August, Fahad was transferred to the federal high-security prison in
Florence, Colo., and in March moved into its Supermax ADX facility, the
most draconian prison in the federal system, criticized by Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch for its inhumane conditions. He
remains in solitary confinement, still under SAMs, which was renewed
again by Attorney General Holder in October.<br><br>
Meanwhile, in December, Babar was sentenced to "time served"
(four and a half years out of a possible 70). The judge cited his
"exceptional" service and noted that he "began
co-operating even before his arrest"raising questions
internationally as to whether he had worked for the American government
before his apprehension.<br><br>
Anyone who sits on the subway in New York knows the poster. "If you
see something, say something." Our duty is laid out: to look out
constantly for suspicious activity and individuals. Implicitly we are
told to see danger in the eyes and backpacks of people with beards and
head scarves, to identify threat in those who give up drinking or observe
terrorism trials. There is a lovely complexity to the young man who
e-mails his female professor about what her job is like and calls the
United States "the biggest terrorist in the world," who brings
chocolates to say thank you and decries secularism. But seeing that
humanity is at odds with the political zeitgeist, where endless searches
and small bottles of shampoo and fear-mongering subway posters have
become the currency of national security. Where a growing obsession with
homegrown terrorism means that we are again willing to chisel away the
Bill of Rights in the name of protecting America.<br><br>
Over the past three years, I have done many interviews about Fahad's
case. Journalists ask, How do you know he is innocent? Rights do not
require known innocence, I point out. What do you say after the plea? To
one who teaches about civil rights, I explain, it is humbling to see
those rights shredded a few miles from my classroom. Among the hardest
things to teach as a historian are the outsized fears, political
motivations, and economic interests that rendered good people silent in
the face of government repression, civil-rights violations, internment,
and redbaiting.<br><br>
We have freedom of speech and build bridges of dialogue and debate, I
teach my students, and what makes that hard is that we have to hear
things we do not like and be confronted with truths and opinions far
removed from our own.<br><br>
But those lessons are not upheld in our public culture, which has drawn
arbitrary, silencing constrictions around the speech and association of
Muslim-Americans. While Christian and Jewish political dissents regularly
enter American public debate (militant Christian anti-abortion rhetoric,
for instance, may be censured but is not criminalized), Islamic political
dissent condemning U.S. practices becomes "subject to ferocious
penalties," as Randolph Bourne decried long ago, and Fahad had
quoted in his paper.<br><br>
"If you see something, say something." Our duty, I believe, is
differentto see in a terrorism suspect a person deserving of rights and
humane treatment; to speak out against torture when it happens in a New
York jail, not just when it occurs overseas; to insist that the Bill of
Rights applies to all defendants all of the time. To take responsibility
for the ways each of us has become complicit in the civil-rights
violations of our era.<br><br>
Jeanne Theoharis is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College
of the City University of New York and co-founder of the group Educators
for Civil Liberties.<br><br>
<br><br>
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