[2050] in peace2
LOCAL ACTIVIST HELD POLITICAL PRISONER
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anton F Van Der Ven)
Fri Nov 8 17:47:38 2002
Message-Id: <200211082247.RAA07547@gold.mit.edu>
To: peace-announce@MIT.EDU, peace-class@MIT.EDU, greens-announce@MIT.EDU,
paw-ac@MIT.EDU
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Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 17:47:25 -0500
From: Anton F Van Der Ven <avdv@MIT.EDU>
* ACTION ALERT *
A good friend of ours, Amer Jubran, who gave a great lecture last IAP in the
SJC sponsored class "declassify this" is now being held a POLITICAL PRISONER.
At around 8 AM on Monday, November 4, one of the foremost activists in the
Boston Palestinian community, Amer Jubran, was taken into custody at his
Cumberland, Rhode Island home by agents of the Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI) and the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS).
Amer Jubran is a local activist who has participated and helped organize
several protests for palestinian rights. Two days prior to his arrest, the New
England committee to defend palestine, (a group Amer helped found) held its
inaugural event, a march and rally in downtown Boston attended by
approximately one hundred people.
Jubran's lawyer Barry Wilson was told only that Jubran was being held pending
investigation of violations of unspecified INS statutes. His INS lawyer,
Nelson Brill, was informed on November 7 by INS officer Mike Clifford at the
INS service office in Providence, RI that the INS is planning to detain Amer
indefinitely. No reasons have been provided for indefinite detention, as
required by INS regulations. Attorney Brill has moved for a formal bond
proceeding to be scheduled immediately.
More info will be forthcoming about what can be done to help Amer Jubran as
events unfold. For now, supporters are urged to write letters to
USINS District Director Steven J. Farquharson
Room 1700, JFK Federal Building
Boston, MA 02203
with copies to:
Commissioner James W. Ziglar
Immigration and Naturalization Service
425 I Street, NW
Washington, DC 20536
protesting the illegal detention of Amer Jubran and demanding his immediate
release and that a bond hearing be set immediately.
___________________________________________________________________
To find out more go to boston.indymedia.org as well as www.onepalestine.org.
Articles have also been attached.
__________________________________________________________
Article from boston.indymedia.org:
Boston-Area Palestinian Activist Detained (english)
Dan Keshet 5:35pm Thu Nov 7 '02
address: Cambridge phone: 617.576.2688 dkesh, channel1, com article#8859
At around 8 AM on Monday, November 4, one of the foremost activists
in the Boston Palestinian community, Amer Jubran, was taken into
custody at his Cumberland, Rhode Island home by agents of the Federal
Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Immigration and Naturalization
Services (INS).
He was transferred to an INS holding facility at the Adult Correctional
Institution in Cranston, Rhode Island later that day, where he is being held
while the INS investigates what they call 'violations of INS statutes',
according to his friend and fellow political organizer Steve Kirschbaum.
Kirschbaum and other friends of Jubran's visited him at the Cranston
facilities on Thursday, November 7. Together, they have provided this
composite account of the events of November 4, as told by Jubran. At 8 AM, as
Jubran was in the shower, four agents of the FBI and INS arrived at his door.
They didn't identify themselves properly, and Jubran was only able to catch
the name of one agent, agent Dave Atkins of the INS. They did not read him his
rights and they attempted to search the house without a warrant. They told him
he was wanted for questioning and that he would be returned at noon. From
there, they took him to INS facilities in Providence for processing. He was
interrogated by the FBI there, who asked him questions about his political
organizing, before he refused to continue without a lawyer. He was allowed one
phone call, with which he called Kirschbaum. Later that day, he was
transferred to the Cranston prison, where the INS rents cells.
Jubran's friends emphatically feel that the detention is for political
reasons. Jubran is in the country on a green card, and, according to his
friends, meticulously files his immigration papers because he feels that it is
important for him, as a politically active person, to make sure to give no
pretense which could be used to attack him. Friend George Collins said that
when he first heard about Jubran's arrest, he thought "Now is the time that,
for whatever reason, they've decided to go after him."
Collins also says that Jubran's detention reminds him of his 2001 arrest. In
that incident, on June 10, 2001, he was arrested by the Brookline Police at a
protest of an Israeli Independence Day celebration, after a celebration
attendant accused Jubran of kicking him. The charges were dropped when the
only evidence forthcoming was exculpatory. A later investigation by the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed that during the day, the
Brookline Police took close-cropped head shots of all of the sixty or so
protesters (including one nine-month-old), and that this information was
shared with both the FBI and the Israeli consulate. Many Palestinian activists
say law enforcement agencies continued to use similar tactics at rallies.
Jubran is a founding member of the New England Committee to Defend Palestine
(NECDP). Two days prior to his arrest, the NECDP held its inaugural event, a
march and rally in downtown Boston attended by approximately one hundred
people. He was also a key organizer in two of the largest Palestinian events
in recent Boston history, both organized by the Act Now to Stop War and End
Racism (ANSWER) coalition. (Many members of the NECDP worked in conjunction
with ANSWER on Palestinian issues prior to the NECDP's formation.) The first
of these events was an April 6, 2002 rally in downtown Boston which drew
approximately 1,500 people, mainly Arabs. The rally happened as the Israeli
Defense Forces (IDF), Israel's army, intensified its occupation of many towns
in the West Bank. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been occupied by the
IDF since 1967, when they were conquered in the Six Days' War between Israel
and a coalition of Arab states. On June 9, 2002, Jubran helped organize
another protest of an Israeli Independence Day celebration. Approximately
three hundred people attended that protest, including a group of Naturei Karta
anti-Zionist religious Jews, opposed to the existence of a Jewish state.
Jubran also attended a 75,000-person rally on Palestinian issues in
Washington, D.C. on April 20. In addition to being an organizer, he is a
frequent public speaker, making guest lectures about Palestine at many area
colleges, including MIT, Northeastern, and Emerson.
In Jubran's time as an activist, he has impressed many people with his
dedication and humbleness. Esther Posner, a student at Emerson College, a
friend of Jubran's and member of the NECDP, met Jubran at an organizing
meeting for a rally against discrimination after September 11. He soon became
"like a part of my family," she says. "He is a rock of inspiration for many of
us" and "one of the greatest teachers I've ever had." She finds it
particularly ironic that last week, the President of Emerson college signed
onto a statement (pdf) condemning intimidation of Zionists on campus. Really,
she says, "it's not safe to be in this country unless your white. It's not
safe if you're an Arab." Collins, also an NECDP member, describes Jubran as
"one of the warmest and most genuine people" he's ever met. "I love the man
like a brother...He has a real clarity about his [political] positions that
makes it a joy to work with him."
Jubran is not the only Palestinian activist to have run-ins with law
enforcement officials. On May 30, his friend and fellow Palestinian activist,
Jaoudat Abouazza, a Canadian citizen, was arrested in Harvard Square on
traffic violations. He was eventually transferred to INS custody and spent a
total of forty-one days inside various Massachusetts prisons before being
granted voluntary departure to his home in Montreal, Canada. Abouazza has
detailed many complaints about his treatment while he was detained, most
dramatically that four of his teeth were removed from his mouth against his
wishes and without proper procedures while he was in the Bristol County jail.
These charges have been denied by the offices of Bristol County Sheriff Thomas
Hodgson, who charged that Abouazza was the "pawn of some organization", most
likely referring to ANSWER. In a July interview, the sheriff's office said
that only one tooth of Abouazza's was removed and that it was done under
proper procedures with the proper release forms.
Jubran was one of the leading figures in the effort to get Abouazza out of
jail, frequently visiting him and organizing protests of Abouazza's detention.
According to Abouazza, this subject was of intense importance to the FBI
agents who interrogated him. Abouazza says that FBI agents frequently asked
him who had printed informational fliers on his case and who Jubran was when
he came to visit Abouazza in prison. In an interview from his Montreal home,
Abouazza has said that he has even been interrogated on the same subjects in
Montreal by the FBI in conjunction with Canadian law enforcement.
These arrests come at a time when there has been an explosion of activism
around Palestinian issues in Boston. In addition to the NECDP, other groups in
the Boston area working on issues regarding Palestine and Israel include the
Boston Committee for Palestinian Rights (BCPR), Stop US Taxpayer Assistance to
Israel Now (SUSTAIN), Jewish Women for Peace and Justice in Israel/Palestine,
Search for Justice and Equality in Palestine/Israel, and many campus groups.
Among these groups, the NECDP is the only one which specifically advocates for
a single secular, democratic state in "historic Palestine", the land area
which is now partitioned into the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Israel.
Jubran's friends have requested assistance in writing him letters at
Amer Jubran
Intake Service Center
PO Box 8249
Cranston, RI 02920
The author has worked with Amer Jubran on various issues in the past.
_____________________________________________________________
Article from www.onepalestine.org:
On Saturday, November 2nd, the newly formed NECDP commemorated the 85th
anniversary of the Balfour Declaration with a rally and march through downtown
Boston. Two days later, one of our founding members, Amer Jubran, was taken
from his home by agents of the FBI and INS. Although Amer has not been charged
with any crime, he is currently imprisoned at the Adult Correctional
Institution in Cranston, Rhode Island, and, under current US law, he could be
detained there indefinitely. While the case is being handled under the
jurisdiction of the INS, its substance has nothing to do with whatever alleged
technicality the INS is holding him for; Amer has already been interrogated by
the FBI, which displayed particular interest in his political activities in
Boston.
Amer's arrest is a terrible event, and not just for those of us who are his
friends and colleagues. It is an attack not only upon him and upon the New
England Committee to Defend Palestine, but also upon the Palestinian people
and everyone who supports justice for Palestine. This attack--part and parcel
of the Bush administration's anti-Arab and anti-immigrant policies--makes it
clear that the present government has no patience for sustained criticism of
its support of Israel, especially when such criticism comes from the
Palestinians themselves.
Those of you who have been politically active in Boston over the past year
should find this familiar. This past May, Jaoudat Abouazza (another
Palestinian activist, and a Canadian citizen) was arrested in East Cambridge
for an alleged traffic violation, and was imprisoned in the Bristol County
House of Corrections, where he was repeatedly interrogated by the FBI about
his activities and those of other supporters of Palestine. In addition to
constant abuse and harassment at the hands of his guards and the prison
administration, Jaoudat had several teeth forcibly removed while in custody. A
concerted defense campaign won his freedom after forty-one days in jail, and
he was sent back to Canada.
The previous November, Amer himself won a four-month legal battle that began
when a supporter of Israel claimed that Amer had kicked him at a
demonstration. Amer was shackled and dragged to a local jail, where he was
held for 36 hours before being granted his first phone call. With help from
the ACLU, the International Action Center, the Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee, Howard Zinn, Chuck Turner, and many other groups and individuals,
the charges were dismissed and the case was turned back around at the
Brookline police, who would now be facing a counter-suit for intimidation,
corruption and harassment--if Amer hadn't been arrested again.
Until Amer and his legal team recommend a course of action, the best way to
help him is to spread the word about his case. Amer will need a dedicated and
flexible network of supporters, as his situation is quite volatile and could
change very quickly. Current information will always be available from
www.onepalestine.org, and over the next day or two we will put up more
background material, both on Amer and on the political context of his arrest.
Please write to Amer at the following address:
Amer Jubran
Intake Service Center
PO Box 8249
Cranston, RI 02920
______________________________________________________________________
