New Yorker Accused of Helping al-Qaida About to Go on Trial

by Farah Akbar
Apr 2010

New Yorker Syed “Fahad” Hashmi, an American citizen who has been held in solitary confinement for nearly two and half years at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, is finally set to go on trial April 28 in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska. The 30-year-old New Yorker — the first terrorism suspect ever to be extradited from the United Kingdom to the U.S. — stands accused by the federal government on four counts of providing material support to al-Qaida.

Hashmi’s incarceration also has focused attention on the conditions under which some people suspected of terrorism are held in the United States. This extreme and extended form of solitary confinement, known as Special Administrative Measures, or SAMs, could come into wider use in New York if more people suspected of similar crimes are incarcerated in this area. In the meantime, Hashmi’s supports and other human rights advocates see the conditions of his confinement as violating his rights and jeopardizing his ability to defend his case in court.

To law enforcement, notably the New York City Police Department and the FBI, Hashmi, as described in the controversial 2007 New York Police Department report Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, epitomizes a seemingly ordinary young Muslim man turned extremist who allegedly went on to participate in terrorist activities. On the other hand, his former professors and other supporters who have rallied behind Hashmi view him as a peaceful, devout Muslim being punished for his political and religious beliefs.

The Case

The government alleges that around February 2004, while Hashmi was living in London, he allowed an acquaintance, Junaid Babar, another New Yorker featured in the New York police report, to stay at his London apartment for two weeks. Babar allegedly stored raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks there and then delivered them to the number three al-Qaida leader in Pakistan, Abdul Hadi Al-Iraqi, to be used against American, international and Northern Alliance forces. Hashmi also allegedly allowed Babar the use of his cell phone to make calls to other conspirators in terrorist plots.

On June 6, 2006, British police arrested Hashmi at Heathrow airport as he prepared to leave for Pakistan, reportedly with a substantial amount of cash. The police had a warrant issued by the U.S. government.

After his arrest, Hashmi spent one year in Britain’s Belmarsh prison, labeled “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay” by human rights activists, fighting extradition to the United States. Under the terms of a treaty enacted between the U.S. and Britain after Sept. 11, 2001, the British courts extradited Hashmi to the United States on May 25, 2007. If convicted, Hashmi faces up to 70 years in prison.

The FBI and the New York Police Department collaborated on the Hashmi case. In a press release issued the day after Hashmi arrived in New York, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said, “This arrest reinforces the fact that a terrorist may have roots in Queens and still betray us. Congratulations to the New York City detectives and FBI agents who understood this and kept Hashmi on our radar.”

“If we are engaged in a war against terror — and we most certainly are — then Syed Hashmi aided the enemy by supplying military gear to al Qaeda,” FBI Assistant Director Mark J. Mershon said in the release.

Hashmi denies that he was part of any plot to help al-Qaida. In a motion to dismiss the indictment, Hashmi’s lawyer wrote, “Permitting a short-time visitor to keep possession of their own suitcase containing ordinary clothing items would not place a person of ordinary intelligence on notice that he or she could be ‘providing’ ‘material’ support or resources to a terrorist organization.”

The Babar Connection

Babar forms the “centerpiece” of the case against Hashmi. He is expected to testify against Hashmi and under a plea deal, to receive a reduced sentence in return for his cooperation.

Babar went to Pakistan shortly following the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan. The Joint Terrorism Task Force began investigating Babar after a filmed interview in which he told a Canadian reporter, in November 2001: “Yes, I’m willing to kill the American soldiers if they enter into Afghanistan with their ground troops.”

In 2004, soon after he returned from Pakistan, Babar was arrested in Queens by a police sergeant, a detective and two agents, from the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force on his way to a taxi-driving school. He pleaded guilty to five counts of providing, and conspiring to provide, money and supplies to al-Qaida.

Babar has testified for the government in numerous other terrorism-related cases. In various news accounts, Babar is reported to have conspired in attempts to kill then Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff and said that he would have faced the death penalty in Pakistan if he had not agreed to collaborate with the FBI. According to news reports, Babar’s family has entered into the witness protection program.

Hashmi and Babar were both featured in the New York police report, which was released after their arrests. Kelly wrote that the report, aimed at helping policymakers and law enforcement officials counter terrorism, describes how seemingly “unremarkable” individuals, such as Hashmi and Babar, apparently fell victim to radicalization. Muslim American groups criticized the report for casting too wide a net and viewing all Muslims as potential terrorists.

The police departments quietly added a statement of clarification in 2009, which said that the report “should not be read to characterize Muslims as intrinsically dangerous or intrinsically linked to terrorism” and “was not policy prescriptive.” The portions on Hashmi and Babar, however, remained unchanged.

Out of Flushing

Hashmi’s family emigrated from Pakistan and settled in Flushing, Queens when he was three. His father worked for the city as an accountant, and his mother was a housewife. Hashmi graduated from Brooklyn College in 2003 with a degree in political science. He wrote his senior seminar paper on the treatment of Muslim groups in the United States, highlighting what he saw as violations of many groups’ civil rights and liberties.

Faisal Hashmi, his older brother, says that Fahad believed that many Muslims around the world were being oppressed and used to organize rallies around Muslim issues.

“What I always saw Fahad doing was reaching out to students of other ethnic backgrounds, and certainly other political beliefs. One of the sad things about this is that it’s precisely those qualities that are now bringing Fahad under suspicion,” Corey Robin, a former professor of Hashmi’s said in a short documentary film about Hashmi that can be seen on the Free Fahad website.

Hashmi then went to England and received a master’s degree in international relations from London Metropolitan University in 2006.

At some point, Hashmi became affiliated with a group called Al-Muhajiroun (The Emigrants). The group, which has reportedly disbanded, was banned by the British government in January 2010. Al-Muhajiroun, which was never outlawed here reportedly held meetings and study sessions in a mosque in Jackson Heights, Queens.

The group aimed to spread Islam and establish an Islamic Caliphate. Some of its leaders in Britain are infamously remembered for a conference at which the Sept. 11 hijackers were hailed as the “Magnificent 19.” While at an Al-Muhajiroun meeting at Brooklyn College in 2002, Hashmi said, according to CNN, “America is directly involved in exterminating Muslims. America is the biggest terrorist in the world.”

Babar also was a member of the group.

Supporters of Hashmi say that affiliations, words and beliefs are constitutionally protected. In a court hearing, Hashmi’s lawyer, Sean Maher, said Al-Muhajiroun did not engage in any criminal military behavior but gave out flyers, attended demonstrations and engaged people in debate about Islam.

“Are we a society that allows political discourse, or are we a society that is going to say if you say something outside of the spectrum of accepted speech, that you therefore have criminal intent,” Maher told the court.

Locked Away

In explaining their decision to keep Hashmi in solitary confinement, even though he has not been convicted of any crime, law enforcement officials cite his involvement with Al-Muhajiroun, as well as the charges linking him to al-Qaida. The government also says that the Special Administrative Measures are necessary due to Hashmi’s “proclivity to violence.” According to court documents, upon his arrest in London, Hashmi allegedly said that U.S. and British soldiers were going to be killed and that the arresting officers would “pay” for what they were doing to him. Hashmi has denied making these comments.

As of February 2009, according to an article in the New York Times, 46 federal inmates were being held under Special Administrative Measures and of those, 30 faced terrorism related charges. The Times article quoted a Justice Department spokesperson who said that six of the 46 were being held prior to trial, four of them on terrorism charges.

Although originally created in 1996, Special Administrative Measures were strengthened after the 2001 attacks. If the U.S. prison in Guantanamo is closed, experts have anticipated more terrorism suspects will be subjected to these procedures.

Oussama Kassir was kept under pre-trial SAMs before his trial in New York City in May 2009, where he was convicted of trying to help al-Qaida recruit members. The measures also have also been ordered on mobsters like Frank Calabrese, who was convicted of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included the murders of 18 people.

Hashmi has been under Special Administration Measures since Oct. 29, 2007 when they were put into effect by then Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Since then, they have been renewed by current Attorney General Eric Holder.

‘Shoe of the Shoe’

In a court hearing, Hashmi’s lawyer said that a lieutenant from Metropolitan Correctional Center referred to the unit where Hashmi is held as “the shoe of the shoe,” the place where inmates who get into trouble while staying with the general prison population are sent. As part of the restrictive measures, he is under 24-hour surveillance — even when on the toilet or while he showers. He can exercise for only one hour a day in what his lawyer describes as a cage. He may not speak out loud and is not allowed to talk to other prisoners at any time. He may write one letter a week of no more than three pages to a family member and can read selected newspaper articles that are at least 30 days old.

Hashmi can meet only one immediate family member every two weeks and a glass wall divides them, but even this is subject to revocation based on his behavior, or, as Faisal Hashmi, his older brother, says, “bureaucratic hang ups.” Faisal says that his parents have been denied opportunities to visit their son for about a third of all of their allowed visits, one reason being that the government did not schedule interpreters for all the visits properly. In 2008, all of Hashmi’s visits were suspended for three months when prison officials accused him of practicing martial arts. The “Slave of Allah,” as Hashmi referred to himself in the incident report, said that he was merely exercising.

Over 500 academics including Henry Louis Gates and Noam Chomsky have signed a petition in Hashmi’s support, urging the government to lift SAMS, which they deem are “draconian.” In an affidavit regarding the likely effects of prolonged isolated confinement for Hashmi, Terry Kuper, a professor in the Graduate School of Psychology of the Wright Institute in Berkeley stated that prisoners isolated in this way tend to exhibit symptoms of “cognitive impairment, memory problems, an inability to concentrate, mounting rage, increasing paranoia and massive free floating anxiety. … Prolonged isolated confinement quite often and predictably results in a significant degree of incompetence to stand trial, whether or not the prisoner’s mental state deteriorates to the point where he or she exhibits chronic serious mental illness.”

In a posting on Truthdig, former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges wrote, “The extreme sensory deprivation used on Hashmi is a form of psychological torture, far more effective in breaking and disorienting detainees. It is torture as science.”

Hashmi’s lawyers have made 30 appeals related to his treatment under the Special Administrative Measures, with each one being rejected. Joshua Dratel, who has represented three defendants held under the measures, told the New York Times last year that the Southern District of New York applies the measures “reflexively” and judges seem reluctant to challenge them.

The Southern District Court has ruled that the restrictions do not infringe upon Hashmi’s constitutional rights.

As the trial date approaches, the Muslim Justice Initiative hopes to get 500 Hashmi supporters to show up at the federal courthouse on Pearl Street. “The level playing field was lost a long time ago due to the actions of the government. We are trying to salvage justice,” said Faisal Hashm

Mohammad Siddiqui

(Dr. Aafia’s Older Brother)

Tina Foster

(Executive Director of International Justice Network)

Fawzia Siddiqui

(Dr. Aafia’s Sister)

Yvonne Ridley

(Award-Winning Journalist)

Sentencing Date Changed to September 23rd, 2010

Dr. Aafia’s Sentencing Hearing has been adjourned again until September 23rd, 2010 @ 8:45am.

The Hearing will be held in Judge Berman’s court at 500 Pearl Street in Manhattan, New York 10007.

If you are interested in hosting an event at a masjid or university, please contact us at info @ muslimsforjustice.org

Past Events

Fahad Hashmi’s case characterizes overreaching powers that came about due to War on Terror
By Udai Malhotra

We must consider cases such as Fahad Hashmi’s, which illustrates the overreaching powers that have come to characterize the Federal Government, the intelligence community, and the American justice system through the War on Terror.

Keywords: Analysis, Bronx, Government, Human Rights, Law, Security, Police & Prisons, Repression,

In the eight years since President Bush began the War on Terror, a number of Muslim charities, human rights groups, and community based organizations have been under intense scrutiny and surveillance by the US Federal Government. Muslim Americans have had their phones tapped, their financial assets frozen, and their places of worship infiltrated. The American intelligence community has been slowly bringing home many of the intelligence gathering tactics used abroad to now monitor and detain its own citizens. In this climate of profiling, and eroding civil liberties at home, we must consider cases such as the one of the American, Syed Fahad Hashmi, which illustrates the overreaching powers that have come to characterize the Federal Government, the intelligence community, and the American justice system through the War on Terror.

The Global War on Terror is conducted mainly through intelligence gathering as opposed to evidence gathering. For intelligence gathering agencies, association with blacklisted individuals is all that is needed to raise a red flag and invite the scrutiny of the state. Independent journalist Petra Bartosiewicz comments in “The Intelligence Factory: How America Makes It’s Enemies Dissapear” in Harper’s Magazine, “What most of us understand as human relationships, infinitely varied and poignant with ambiguity, criminal investigators understand simply as a series of associations.” This approach is problematic. Coupled with the coercive tactics used in the interrogation of detainees, inaccurate intelligence becomes actionable, and individuals may be punished simply for their association . Imposing guilt by association, and doling out punishment for the actions of others does not provide any guidance about what kinds of actions are prohibited by the government and it punishes innocent assistance to, or association with, blacklisted individuals. The prosecution of individuals for their association is a tactic that has been used by states to suppress dissent and criticism.

Fahad Hashmi emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1983 from Karachi, Pakistan, at the age of three. He grew up in the vibrant and diverse community of Flushing, Queens and studied Political Science at Brooklyn College. On campus, he was outspoken in his views of American foreign policy and the oppression of Muslims post 9-11. In 2002, he was mentioned in a Time Magazine article as a student activist. The article quoted him saying, “America is directly involved in exterminating Muslims,” and that “America is the biggest terrorist in the world.” Jeanne Theoharis, one of Fahad’s professors at Brooklyn College, and a campaigner for his release has stated that Fahad wrote his senior seminar paper on the treatment of Muslim groups within the United States and the violations of civil rights taking place.

In 2003, Fahad moved to London to pursue a Masters degree in International Relations from London’s Metropolitan University, which he completed in 2005. There he came in contact with an individual blacklisted by the American government, Junaid Babar, an acquaintance from New York, who stayed in his London apartment for two weeks. Babar has since been convicted of providing material support to Al Qaeda and will be a witness against Fahad in his future trial.

On June 6, 2006, Fahad was arrested by British Police at Heathrow Airport while preparing to board a plane to Pakistan. He pleaded not guilty to charges in the U.S. of “providing material support to Al-Qaeda” and was held for eleven months in Britain’s Belmarsh prison as part of the regular prison population while he fought his extradition. On May 25, 2007, under pressure from the American government, he was extradited from the U.K. Upon his arrival in the US, Fahad was placed in pre-trial solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Lower Manhattan, where he has remained for almost three years. Subject to Special Administrative Measures (SAM’s), he is kept in his cell for 23 hours a day and allowed a single hour in a cage for recreation. He is currently under extreme mobility restrictions and remains under constant video surveillance. He may not interact with anyone other than prison officials, his lawyers, and approved members of his family, and is not allowed to speak out loud, or gesture, under threat of having even more restraints placed on him. Solitary confinement to a lesser extent than what has been imposed is considered torture as permany international standards, and Fahad has been kept in this extreme situation for almost three years now. Over 30 appeals have been made by his lawyers pertaining to his treatment under SAM’s with each one thus far being denied.

Fahad’s charge of providing “material support” to Al Qaeda, does not accuse him of giving money, weapons, or information to the terrorist organization as originally reported. Rather, he is being accused of allowing an acquaintance, Junaid Babar, to stay in his home in London while carrying raincoats, ponchos, and waterproof socks in his suitcase. According to the government, these items were later delivered by Babar to a third ranking member of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. During his stay, the government also alleged that Fahad allowed Babar to use his cell phone to speak to other individuals associated with terrorist groups. As a cooperating witness, Babar has already been convicted of five counts of material support himself and faces 70 years in prison. The case built against Fahad will be based upon the testimony of Babar who has already been used by the government to testify in numerous other terrorism related cases. Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist writes in One Day We’ll All Be Terrorists, “Babar will receive a reduced sentence for his services, and many speculate he will be set free after the Hashmi trial”. It is expected that the US government will also be introducing tapes showcasing Fahad’s political and activist background to demonstrate intent. The implication being that there is no real evidence connecting Fahad to terrorism other than his constitutionally protected religious and dissident political speech.

Under U.S. Law, Fahad is currently presumed innocent while in custody. He has no criminal record or history of violence and there is no precedent for the SAM’s in place against him. SAM’s were first introduced under President Clinton and were meant to be used to disable and severely limit ones contact with the outside world. They were created specifically for dealing with the most violent and unrestrainable of criminals like mob leaders whose criminal activity and leadership could not be halted while present in the regular prison population. Fahad’s “proclivity for violence”, cited to justify such harsh restrictions placed on him are based only upon his religious and political beliefs as he has no past history of violence. SAM’s were expanded in wake of 9/11, with the regulations loosened, and the standards for renewal relaxed. They have allowed for Fahad to be kept in a state of administrative limbo, isolated and flagrantly denied his right to a speedy trial, to confront the evidence against him, and to be given the opportunity to defend himself. Apart from the restraints on Fahad as part of SAM’s, there are also numerous limitations on his lawyers. They are restricted in what they can and cannot say to the media about their contact with him, and have had to go through extensive and time consuming background checks to be given the required clearance to see the classified “secret evidence” against him. They are however barred from discussing this evidence with Fahad himself or the media. A full cover story in the Village Voice by Nat Hentoff in 2007 regarded Hashmi’s case as a “Bush “dark side” legacy”. A year into Obama’s presidency we have seen Attorney General Holder reissue Fahad’s SAM’s in November of 2009.

Regardless of Fahad’s ultimate guilt or innocence – something only a fair trial can establish – placing someone in prolonged solitary confinement with such extreme restrictions before being given a chance to defend themselves is deplorable irrespective of the charges, and amounts to torture. For activists rallying around this case, it is an attempt to salvage some justice that has so far uniformly been denied. Fahad’s treatment should be of concern to all Americans who value their right to political, religious speech, and the inalienable rights guaranteed under the constitution. The right to a fair defense is beyond controversy, and community organizations have been mobilizing around Fahad’s case with Theaters Against War holding regular vigils outside the Metropolitan Detention Center at 500 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan. More information about Fahad’s case can be found at www.educatorsforcivilliberties.org. Fahad’s trial is presently set to begin on April 28th , 2010 in the courtroom of Judge Loretta Preska.

http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2010/02/109497.shtml

On February 3, a Department of Justice press release headlined “Aafia Siddiqui Found Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court of Attempting to Murder US Nationals in Afghanistan and Six Additional Charges.”

At her scheduled May 6 sentencing, she “faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the attempted murder and armed assault charges; life in prison on the firearms charge; and eight years in prison on each of the remaining assault charges. SIDDIQUI faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison on the firearms charge.”

On February 3, New York Times writer CJ Hughes headlined: “Pakistani Scientist Found Guilty of Shootings,” convicting her on all seven counts, including attempted murder – “capping a trial that drew notice for its terrorist implications as well as its theatrics,” but omitting convincing evidence of Siddiqui’s innocence. Instead, Hughes said she was arrested with “instructions (in her purse) on making explosives and a list of New York landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.” Her defense team acknowledged their existence, but Siddiqui denied packing them or knowing of their origin. She later suggested she copied them from a magazine, planned no terrorist acts, nor did her indictment claim them.

Hughes also said she “raised suspicions when she and her three children vanished in Pakistan in 2003.” She didn’t vanish. Her mother said she “left the family home in Gulshan-e-lqbal in a taxi on March 30, 2003 to catch a flight for Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport.” Pakistani intelligence agents abducted her, turned her over to US authorities, after which her long ordeal of secret imprisonment, interrogations, and years of brutalizing torture began, even though she wasn’t charged.

Her son Mohammed was later released on condition he say nothing. Her other two children, Maryam and Suleman, disappeared and may have been killed.

In May 2004, Pakistan’s Interior Minister confirmed she was turned over to US authorities in 2003 after no link between her and Al Qaeda was established. In 2006, Amnesty International called her one of many of the “disappeared” in America’s “war on terror.” In 2007, a Ghost Prisoner Human Rights Watch report suggested she was held in secret CIA detention.

In February 2008, the Asian Human Rights Commission said she was brought to Karachi and severely tortured to secure her compliance as a government witness against Khalid Shiekh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, related to Siddiqui through marriage to his nephew. He reportedly “gave her up” after capture on March 1, 2003, after which she and her children disappeared.

The charges were bogus and outrageous. Yet, on September 2, 2008, the Justice Department (DOJ) indicted her “on charges related to her attempted murder and assault of United States nationals and officers and employees.” According to Michael Garcia, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (in his same day press release):

On July 18, 2008, “a team of United States servicemen and law enforcement officers, and others assisting them, attempted to interview Aafia Siddiqui in Ghazni, Aghanistan, where she had been detained by local police the day before….unbeknownst to the United States interview team, unsecured, behind a curtain — Siddiqui obtained one of the United States Army’s M-4 rifles and attempted to fire it, and did fire it, at another United States Army officer and other members of the United States interview team….Siddiqui then assaualted one of the United States Army interpreters, as he attempted to obtain the M-4 rifle from her. Siddiqui subsequently assaulted one of the FBI agents and one of the United States Army officers, as they attempted to subdue her.”

Left unexplained was how this frail, weak, 110-pound woman, confronted by three US Army officers, two FBI agents, and two Army interpreters, inexplicably managed to assault three of them, get one of their rifles, open fire at close range, hit no one, and only she was severely wounded.

According to her attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp:

“how did this happen? And how did she get shot? I think you can answer that, can’t you (and question the outrageous charges against her)?”

During proceedings, another defense lawyer, Linda Moreno, said no forensic evidence proved the rifle Siddiqui allegedly used had been fired since no bullets, shell casings, or bullet debris were recovered and no bullet holes detected.

Garcia didn’t explain, nor about her abduction, torture and repeated raping at Bagram prison, Afghanistan where, as Prisoner 650, she was called the “Gray Lady of Bagram” because her screams were heard for years. Nor did he discuss her physical and emotional destruction. She was a pawn in America’s “war on terror,” used, abused, now convicted, and facing life in prison when sentenced, a victim of gross injustice.

Some Background

A Pakistani national, Siddiqui is deeply religious, attended MIT and Brandeis University where she earned a doctorate in neurocognitive science, married a Boston physician, raised money for charities, did volunteer work, distributed Korans to inmates in area prisons, and did nothing out of the ordinary. Yet the UK Times Online called her “Al-Qaeda woman.” For ABC News, she was “Mata Hari,” and the Justice Department targeted her as a terrorist, a woman guilty only of being Muslim in America at the wrong time.

When seized, the FBI said she was a potential “treasure trove” of information on terrorist suspects, sympathizers, or sleepers in America and overseas. CIA officer John Kiriakou called her “the most significant capture in five years,” and an unnamed counterterrorism official said she’s “a very dangerous person, no doubt about it.” FBI Director Robert Mueller said she’s “an Al Qaeda operative and facilitator.” He and the others lied.

Those who knew her recalled she was very small, quiet, polite, and shy, barely noticeable in a gathering. However, she’d say what was needed when necessary. Her fellow students described her as soft-spoken, studious, religious, but not extremist or fundamentalist. She taught Muslim children on Sundays, and was dedicated to helping oppressed Muslims worldwide. She spoke publicly, sent emails, gave slideshow presentations, and raised donations as part of her faith, activism, and sincerity. Yet she was targeted as “a high security risk” despite no evidence then or now to prove it.

Siddiqui is innocent of all charges, yet the DOJ claimed she was involved in biochemical warfare. In fact, she devised a computer program, enlisted adult volunteers to watch various objects move randomly across the screen, then reproduce what they recalled. The idea was to learn how well they retained information after viewing it on a computer. It had nothing to do with terrorism, biochemical warfare, or blowing up New York targets, charges never appearing in her indictment.

Siddiqui’s Trial and Conviction

Against her lawyers’ advice, she spoke publicly for the first time, despite the risk and her frail condition. She explained her academic work, her post-doctorate teaching, her interests that included studying the capabilities of dyslexic and other impaired children, then recounted her ordeal.

After being abducted, she agonized over the fate of her children. In US custody, the relevant incident leading to her indictment went as follows:

– at one point, she was tied down;

– then untied;

– left behind a curtain;

– peaked through it; and

– an American soldier shot her in the stomach;

– another in her side;

– then violently threw her to the floor unconscious.

She vaguely remembered being on a stretcher, placed in a helicopter, and getting a blood transfusion. She emphatically denied seizing and firing a weapon.

Under cross-examination, she said she was given the bag with incriminating documents, didn’t know its contents or whether handwriting on them was hers. She explained her repeated torture at Bagram, the effects of the strong medications given her, and at one point said, “If you were in a secret prison, or your children were tortured,” after which she was forcibly removed from court and the proceedings continued without her.

According to media reports, these revelations were “outbursts.” On January 25, New York Times writer CJ Hughes reported numerous “disruptions….plagu(ing) the trial. Monday (January 25) was hardly an exception. The defendant was ejected from (court) – not once, but twice (for) loudly proclaiming her innocence.” On January 19, she “had several outbursts in previous court appearances, raising questions about her competency to stand trial.”

On February 4, AP writer Tom Hays said “True to form, Aafia Siddiqui did not go quietly,” called her comments “combative,” then claimed the prosecution presented “compelling testimony.”

On February 5, the Islamophobic frontpagemag.com headlined “How a ‘Nice American Girl’ Became a Jihadist,” saying “veiled Muslim women can be very aggressive, murderously so.”

On February 3, the New York Daily News headlined, “Lady Al Qaeda Aafia Siddiqui convicted of attempted murder.” Writer Alison Gendar accepted DOJ’s charges as fact and added some of her own, saying:

“She grabbed a rifle at an ‘Afghan police station’ (she was at Bagram) and started shooting at the Americans sent to grill her. She was shot by the soldier whose weapon she swiped. (In 2008, she was) caught in ‘Afghanistan’ with ‘2 pounds of poisonous chemicals.’ (During the trial), she disrupted the proceedings several times with ’strange outbursts.’ ”

An August 22, 2008 Fox News report said “emails obtained by FOXNews.com show messages sent by Siddiqui (during her time at MIT) soliciting money for Al-Kifah Refugee Center – a known Al Queda charitable front tied to Usama bin Laden and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.”

After a three week trial and two days of deliberation, a federal jury of eight women and four men convicted her on all charges, including attempted murder, armed assault, discharging a firearm during a violent crime, and assaulting US officers and employees. As a result, she potentially faces life in prison at her May 6 sentencing. It’s not confirmed, but her lawyers may appeal given the bogus charges, long detention, and brutalizing torture, leaving her a shell of her former self, so physically and emotionally shattered she was in no condition to stand trial.

After the verdict, aljazeera.net headlined “US verdict sparks Pakistan protests,” saying thousands in several cities rallied in her defense. Her relatives spoke publicly condemning the decision, her sister Fauzia saying “we’re proud to be related to her. America’s justice system, the establishment, the war on terror, the fraud of the war on terror, all of those things have shown their own ugly faces.”

Her mother, Ismat said “I did not expect anything better from an American court. We were ready for the shock and will continue our struggle to get her released.” Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesman, Abdul Basit, said the government would try “to get her back to Pakistan and we would do everything possible and we’ll apply all possible tools in this regard.”

Al Jazeera’s Islamabad correspondent, Kamal Hyder, explained the public disappointment “for failing to find a diplomatic way out and getting (her) back home, because they feel she was innocent.” She was missing for five years like “many hundreds of (others who’ve) disappeared from Pakistan – still not accounted for – and now that Dr. Aafia’s case has come up, that’s likely to be a rallying point for the anti-American sentiment.”

The UK-based Cageprisoners spokesman, Asim Qureshi, said “The case of Aafia Siddiqui carries great significance in terms of the ability of the Obama administration to administer justice. Already we have seen a blanket refusal to look at the facts of her detention prior to 2008. This verdict will only confirm what many already believe, that it is impossible for Muslim terrorism suspects to receive a fair trial in the US.”

Defense lawyer Elaine Whitfield Sharp called the verdict unjust, in her opinion “based on fear….not fact,” and the result is the continued ordeal of an innocent woman facing a potential life sentence.

Carefully orchestrated, the trial proceeded like numerous others, targeting innocent victims because of their faith, ethnicity, prominence, benevolent charity, activism, or other reasons for political advantage, ending with convictions and punitive incarcerations against innocent defendants, guilty of being Muslims in America at the wrong time when we’re all just as vulnerable.

In a manipulated climate of fear, the same process repeats, using bogus charges, secret evidence, enlisted witnesses to cooperate, the defense prohibited from introducing exculpatory evidence, and proceedings carefully scripted to intimidate juries to convict.

Justice is again denied, Siddiqui another victim, a human tragedy, portrayed by the dominant media as a jihadist, and getting public sentiment to agree because disturbing truths are carefully suppressed

What do you do if a young man who was a student in your class is thrown in prison on a terrorism charge?

Jeanne Theoharis teaches Political Science at Brooklyn College. In June 2006, when British authorities detained 26-year-old Syed Fahad Hashmi at Heathrow Airport, she remembered the youth from her class several years ago. Back in 2002, in the days following the attacks of September 11, Hashmi had been a student in Professor Theoharis’s class on race. He was articulate and very critical of the ways in which the civil rights of American citizens, especially Muslims, had been curtailed by the Bush administration.

When Theoharis heard that Hashmi had been arrested by the British police because there was a warrant out for him in the US, she was struck by the irony of it all. A part of her former student’s thesis had been about the government’s surveillance and harassment of four or five Muslim groups in the US. Now, he was himself behind bars on suspicion of having aided and abetted terrorism. Less than a year later, when Hashmi was extradited to the US, the FBI revealed that a man who had stayed at the detainee’s apartment in London had supplied “military gear” to Al Qaeda members in Pakistan. Then, Hashmi’s lawyer found out that the items being labeled as “military gear” were socks and rainproof ponchos. The rest of the details of the indictment remain shrouded in mystery. The FBI has revealed nothing more.

I met Jeanne Theoharis recently for lunch in a restaurant in New York’s West Village. She told me that when Hashmi was arrested, the faculty at her College was asked not to talk to the media. But after Hashmi’s extradition, Theoharis told me, she “felt a huge sense of responsibility.” Teaching students is so much about encouraging them to come into their own, to find a voice, and she thought Hashmi had succeeded in doing just that. He had become an activist and a critic of what he thought were unjust policies. Theoharis said, “He was so earnest, so outspoken. My instinct was that there’s no way this is not about politics.”

But it couldn’t have been instinct alone. Athan Theoharis, Jeanne’s father, is the author of a definitive, critical book about the FBI and the ways in which the agency has undermined civil liberties and democratic institutions. Her mother is a social activist. Jeanne Theoharis’s own research is on the civil rights movement in America. She is currently writing a book on Rosa Parks, who, despite the current public image of her as an icon of democracy, had been reviled for decades as a traitor and a communist.

Theoharis responded to Hashmi’s extradition by meeting with his lawyer. She also met and talked with a colleague of hers, Corey Robin, who is the author of a book about the ways in which fear circumscribes our lives and rights. Then, she sent a brief letter (“literally like a condolence card”) to Hashmi’s parents. Hashmi’s old father called Theoharis and broke down and wept on the phone. With this appeal for help, Theoharis began to define a role for herself in what she regarded as a fight for justice.

After several delays, Hashmi’s trial in New York has just been postponed indefinitely. According to Hashmi’s lawyer, the case against his client rests on the testimony of single government informant, Junaid Babar. The informant had stayed for a short while in Hashmi’s apartment in London, at a time when Hashmi was working toward a graduate degree in Political Science. In addition, Babar had used Hashmi’s cellphone to call his associates; he also claims to have received money from Hashmi. Having already pleaded guilty to having been involved in terror plots, his work as an informant is widely seen as an attempt to get a reduction in his 70-year prison sentence.

A few months after his extradition to the US, the conditions of Hashmi’s incarceration underwent a drastic change. He was placed under what is called “special administrative measures.” He was put in solitary confinement; for 23 hours each day he remained in his cell; when taken out of it for an hour, he was allowed to exercise in a cage. He was also under round-the-clock surveillance. He could not participate in group prayer, or communicate with other prisoners, and was denied any access to the media. Family visits were now limited to one family member every two weeks, although even such visits were imperiled because oftentimes, as Hashmi’s parents soon discovered, the meeting could be canceled if the government interpreter had not come. Theoharis believes that the prolonged solitary confinement has already affected Hashmi: in his court appearances, Hashmi has appeared nervous and depressed. Earlier, Theoharis said, Hashmi’s attention “had seemed rock solid” but now “he seems to be retreating into his own head.”

Theoharis also told me that one of the first, more urgent, questions she faced was to come up with a list of books she could send her former student in prison. It was tricky. Which books would not be censored? Theoharis decided to have Amazon.com send books to Hashmi, and among the first titles she chose was Edward Jones’s The Known World because she felt a cover that said “Pulitzer Prize” would make the book less scary to the prison authorities. Among the other titles she sent to prison, without even knowing whether the books were making their way to Hashmi, were Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Octavia Butler’s Kindred, and Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine.

The book list was a revelation to me. So far, all I had known about Jeanne Theoharis was that she had been behind an online petition signed by hundreds of academics, including some of the top names at US universities (see educatorsforcivilliberties.org). Some of the first people to add their names to the petition were African-Americans and others familiar with the systematic denial of civil rights in the 1960s and later. And when during lunch she told me about her book list, I began to see how Theoharis had understood the related nature of oppressions. Toni Morrison’s novel is a lyrical, wonderfully imaginative account of the brutality of slavery. Julie Otsuka’s book is the story of one Japanese family’s internment in an alien enemy camp in the US. I also saw how Theoharis had perhaps never stopped being Hashmi’s teacher. She was offering solace, or strength, to someone who, in the name of American security, was not even allowed to see the evidence against him.

I also saw Theoharis as offering a lesson to her fellow Americans. She was reminding them that President Obama might have expressed a resolve to close Guantánamo, but it is no consolation at all if Guantánamo has just been moved to within a few blocks of the place where Hashmi was once a student learning about civil rights.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amitava-kumar/kidnapped-by-the-state_b_453462.html

Syed Hashmi, known to his family and friends as Fahad, was born in Karachi, Pakistan in 1980, the second child of Syed Anwar Hashmi and Arifa Hashmi. Fahad immigrated with his family to America when he was three years old. His father said “We knew there would be many opportunities for us here in the United States. We came here to find the American dream.” The large Hashmi family settled in Flushing, New York and soon developed deep roots throughout the tri-state area. Fahad graduated from Robert F Wagner High School in 1998 and attended SUNY Stony Brook University. He transferred to Brooklyn College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2003. A devout Muslim, through the years Fahad established a reputation as an activist and advocate. In 2003, Fahad enrolled in London Metropolitan University in England to pursue a master’s degree in international relations, which he received in 2006. On June 6, 2006, Fahad was arrested in London Heathrow airport by British police based on an American indictment charging him with material support of Al Qaida . He was subsequently held in Belmarsh Prison, Britain’s most notorious jail.

The Charges
The US government accused Fahad of providing material support to Al Qaeda, but a close look at the evidence shows that the charges make little sense. Fahad is NOT charged with providing any money or resources to any terrorists or being a member of al Qaeda. Instead, the US government charged Fahad with allowing an old acquaintance — Junaid Babar — to stay in Fahad’s London apartment for about two weeks in 2004. During that two week period, Babar allegedly kept several raincoats, ponchos, and waterproof socks in luggage that Babar temporarily stored in Fahad’s apartment. The US government then alleges that at some point Babar gave the socks and ponchos to a high ranking member of al Qaeda. 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.

Conditions of Fahad’s Imprisonment
Fahad was held in England’s Belmarsh prison mixed with the general prison population for 11 months without incident. Since his extradition to the United States more than a year ago, Fahad has been kept in solitary confinement and subject to unduly restrictive Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), These draconian measures mandate that he be kept under 23-hour lockdown, be allowed only one visit from an immediate family member a week, and have no other contact with anyone besides his lawyer and prison officials. The SAMs also limit the material that Fahad can read and make it illegal for his family members to pass any messages from him onto friends.
Fahad is not charged with any acts of violence, nor were there any accusations that he attempted to contact any terrorists during his time with the general prison population at Belmarsh, rendering the restrictions he is subject to unnecessarily cruel in a society that treats people as innocent until proven guilty. SAMs are meant to prevent crimes orchestrated from within prison walls, but even if EVERYTHING the government alleges is true, there is no evidence that Fahad would be a danger if he were kept with the general prison population.

The Evidence Against Fahad
Substantial evidence in the case will come from the testimony of Junaid Babar, the man who stayed at Fahad’s London apartment as a houseguest. There is evidence to show that Babar’s testimony may be unreliable. He has taken a plea bargain – he will receive a reduced sentence if he agrees to testify against people like Fahad. It is a common practice for the government to offer a deal to one defendant who’s accused of a lesser crime in order to convict a more serious criminal – in this case his testimony will be used try to convict somebody who gave him a place to sleep for two weeks.

Civil Liberties Concerns
Many in the civil liberties community are gravely concerned by the implications of Fahad’s case. Fahad is facing trumped-up charges as a result of his opinions. It is a dangerous precedent to make people responsible for the actions of their houseguests. Concern also surrounds the conditions of Fahad’s detention. Even were all the charges against him true, the SAMS measures would be unwarranted. The government should exercise extreme caution when deciding when to invoke such severe restrictions. He is in solitary confinement and subject to a regime of severe deprivation. Under the SAM imposed by the Attorney General, Hashmi must be held in solitary confinement and may not communicate with anyone inside the prison other than prison officials. Family visits were not granted for many months and are now limited to one person every other week for one and a half hours, and cannot involve physical contact. Mr. Hashmi may write only one letter (of no more than three pieces of paper) per week to one family member. He may not communicate, either directly or through his attorneys, with the news media. He may read only designated portions of newspapers – and not until thirty days after their publication – and his access to other reading material is restricted. He may not listen to or watch news-oriented radio stations and television channels. He may not participate in group prayer. He is subject to 24-hour electronic monitoring and 23-hour lockdown, has no access to fresh air, and must take his one-hour of daily recreation – when it is given – inside a cage.

Taken from Cageprisoners.com

Aafia Siddiqui was born in Karachi, Pakistan, on March 2, 1972. She was one of three children of Mohammad Siddiqui, a doctor trained in England, and Ismet. She is a mother of three.

Aafia moved to Texas in 1990 to be near her brother, and after spending a year at the University of Houston, transferred to MIT. Aafia then married Mohammed Amjad Khan, a medical student, and subsequently entered Brandeis University as a graduate student in cognitive neuroscience.

Citing the difficulty of living as Muslims in the United States after 9/11, Aafia and her husband returned to Pakistan. They stayed in Pakistan for a short time, and then returned to the United States. They remained there until 2002, and then moved back to Pakistan.

Some problems developed in their marriage, and Aafia was eight months pregnant with their third child when she and Khan were estranged. She and the children stayed at her mother’s house, while Khan lived elsewhere in Karachi.

After giving birth to her son, Aafia stayed at her mother’s house for the rest of the year, returning to the US without her children around December 2002 to look for a job in the Baltimore area, where her sister had begun working at Sinai Hospital.

Soon after Pakistani authorities arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Aafia and her children disappeared. A report in the Pakistani Urdu press said that Aafiai and her kids had been seen being picked up by Pakistani authorities and taken into custody.

According to Mrs. Siddiqui, Aafia left her mother’s house in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in a Metro-cab on March 30, to catch a flight for Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport. Inside sources claim that Afia had been “picked-up” by intelligence agencies while on her way to the airport and initial reports suggest she was handed over to the FBI.

Aafia Siddiqui had been missing for more than a year when the FBI put her photographs on its website. The press was told that she was an Al Qaeda facilitator. After an FBI conference, a newspaper broke the story linking the woman involved in the 2001 diamond trade in Liberia to Aafia. The family’s attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, says the allegation was a blessing in disguise because it places Siddiqui somewhere at a specific time. She says she can prove Siddiqui was in Boston that week.

In Pakistan, there has been no official report registered with the police regarding her disappearance, and the police are doing nothing to trace her. Mrs. Siddiqui alleges that an intelligence agency official came to her house a week after the incident, and warned her not to make an issue out of her daughter’s disappearance and threatened her with dire consequences.

Both the Pakistan government as well as US officials in Washington denied any knowledge of Aafia’s custody.

On 7th July 2008, a press conference led by Cageprisoners patron, Yvonne Ridley, and Director, Saghir Hussain, in Pakistan resulted in mass international coverage of Aafia’s case as her disappearance was questioned by the media and political figures in Pakistan. It was on 3rd August 2008 that an agent from the FBI visited the home of her brother in Houston, Texas and told him that she was being detained in Afghanistan.

On Monday 4th August 2008, federal prosecutors in the US confirmed that Aafia Siddiqui was extradited to the US from Afghanistan where they allege she had been detained since mid-July 2008. The US administration claims that she was arrested by Afghani forces outside Ghazni governor’s compound with manuals on explosives and ‘dangerous substances in sealed jars’ on her person. They further allege that whilst in custody she shot at US officers (none being injured) and was herself injured in the process.

According to her lawyer, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, “We do know she was at Bagram for a long time. It was a long time. According to my client she was there for years and she was held in American custody; her treatment was horrendous.”

Aafia’s claim is contrary to the heavily contested position of the US administration that she was detained in July by Afghan forces while attempting to bomb the compound of the governor of Ghazni. Her lawyers claim that the evidence was planted on her. The US has previously denied the presence of female detainees in Bagram and that Aafia was ever held there, bar for medical treatment in July 2008.

Aafia remains in a US detention facility in New York, in poor health, subjected to degrading and humiliating strip searches and cavity searches whenever she receives a legal visit or appears in court. She has subsequently refused to meet with counsel. It has been reported that she may suffer from brain damage and that a part of her intestine may have been removed. Her lawyers say her symptoms are consistent with a sufferer of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Charged with providing support to Al Qaeda, Syed Hashmi, a 28-year-old Queens man, has been held in solitary confinement for 15 months in a federal prison in Manhattan.

Syed Hashmi, a Pakistani immigrant who grew up in Queens, has awaited trial for 15 months on charges of helping Al Qaeda.

Andrew Henderson for The New York Times

Mr. Hashmi’s father, Syed Anwar Hashmi, says the charges do not warrant the harsh conditions under which his son is held.

Mr. Hashmi is not allowed to speak to other inmates or pray with other Muslims. He has no access to television or radio news, his lawyer said. Once every two weeks, one member of his immediate family is allowed to visit for an hour and a half.

Mr. Hashmi cannot speak to reporters, and his lawyer, Sean M. Maher, is not allowed to discuss what his client tells him, unless it relates to Mr. Hashmi’s defense.
Three of the pretrial SAMs cases in the nation are being tried by prosecutors in New York. They include Oussama Kassir, a Swede who is charged with helping to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and operating Web sites that the authorities said contained bomb-making instructions.

In Minnesota, another defendant, Mohamed Abdullah Warsame, who is accused of providing material support to Al Qaeda, has been held for more than five years. A judge in that case recently ordered that he be moved from solitary confinement.

Mr. Hashmi was arrested in London in 2006 as he prepared to board a flight to Pakistan. He was quickly depicted by the authorities as an example of the dangers of homegrown terrorism.

In a 2007 memo to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Peter D. Keisler, who was the acting attorney general, requested that the special measures be imposed in part “based upon information provided to me of Hashmi’s proclivity for violence.”

The government has also accused Mr. Hashmi of belonging to the New York chapter of Al Muhajiroun, a radical Islamist group that was based in Britain and is now banned there. Members of the group, the government, “promote the overthrow of Western society.” In court papers, the government seemed to cite Mr. Hashmi’s beliefs as a basis for some of the SAMs: giving him a Muslim cellmate or allowing group prayer, they argued, “runs the serious risk or increasing the radicalization of inmates and the likelihood of attacks on prison officials.”

A disputed incident last August, in which prison guards said Mr. Hashmi was practicing “martial arts” in his cell and Mr. Hashmi said he was simply exercising, led to a 90-day suspension of his social visits, according to court papers.

Law enforcement officials have said that in London, Mr. Hashmi conspired with Mohammed Junaid Babar, a convicted terrorist who is now a witness for various governments in terrorism trials around the world. Mr. Babar is expected to testify against Mr. Hashmi, but since much of the evidence in the case is classified, it is impossible to know what exactly he will say.

Mr. Hashmi’s family and supporters said the charges against him hardly warranted the strict measures. They say that he has not been directly implicated in a terrorist plot, and that the government has shown no evidence of a “proclivity for violence.” And they said that Al Muhajiroun was far from a shadowy group, and in New York, it was never banned. In an affidavit, Mr. Hashmi denied he had threatened officers who arrested him at Heathrow, as the government has alleged.

And the military gear Mr. Hashmi is accused of supplying, Mr. Maher said in court, was actually raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks.

Mr. Hashmi’s family says he is being prosecuted for his outspokenness and for his religious beliefs. His father, Syed Anwar Hashmi, said he sometimes worried about his son’s political activism, but added, “I was also confident it was according to the law.”

As Mr. Hashmi awaits his trial in the spring, a network of committed activists is working on his behalf. A petition signed by hundreds of academics, including Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard, calls Mr. Hashmi’s detention “draconian.”

In a court hearing last month, Mr. Hashmi, smiled at the throng of supporters who had come to see him. During the hearing, he rarely stopped whispering in Mr. Maher’s ear.

Prosecutors have said Mr. Hashmi, a Pakistani immigrant who studied political science at Brooklyn College, conspired with an associate linked to Al Qaeda to provide military gear to the group while Mr. Hashmi was living in London. They also allege that he allowed the associate to use his cellphone to call Omar Khyam, who was convicted in April 2007 of conspiring to set off bombs in Britain.

Mr. Hashmi has denied that he was part of conspiracies to help Al Qaeda, or that he ever gave gear to anybody to pass on to the terrorist group.

The government says the charges against Mr. Hashmi warrant the restrictions, called “special administrative measures” or SAMs. Created in 1996, the measures are intended to prevent dangerous inmates — those accused or convicted of crimes including terrorism, espionage and mob or gang activity — from ordering violence or harming other inmates.

The measures were expanded after Sept. 11, 2001, extending the limit to one year from 120 days and permitting the monitoring of communications between the inmates and their lawyers in certain circumstances.

Lawyers defending clients under the SAMs have complained that the restrictions can hinder their work and say the mental toll of solitary confinement can create improper pressure for plea deals. In court, Mr. Maher presented an affidavit from a psychiatrist who has studied the effects of isolation on inmates, and says that confinement can lead to rage, panic and in some cases, self-mutilation.

Prosecutors and prison officials, arguing the necessity of the regulations, point to people like Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted in 1995 of conspiracy to blow up New York landmarks, who, through a lawyer, sent a message to his followers from jail.

In court late last month, Mr. Maher called the restrictions on Mr. Hashmi too severe and asked a federal judge to lift some of them, perhaps allowing Mr. Hashmi to have a cellmate.

But the judge, Loretta A. Preska, echoed the government’s contention that the evidence against Mr. Hashmi was “strong” and ordered the measures to remain in place, saying they served a “legitimate penalogical interest.”

The dispute over SAMs cases may soon have wider implications, as officials consider whether the 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, which President Obama has ordered closed, should be moved to federal prisons.

Last month, Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, recommended modifying the SAMs to take into account the mental health of prisoners and issues related to lawyer-client privilege.

Although the SAMs have been the subject of debate in federal courtrooms over the years, they have been only a footnote in the larger discussion about terrorism detention. Karen J. Greenberg, the executive director of the Center on Law and Security, said that was partly because suspects in domestic terrorism trials had received far less attention than those at Guantánamo.

Once it closes, she said, conditions at federal prisons will be examined more closely. “We’re about to add a new population,” Ms. Greenberg said. “How well do we handle these guys?”

Of the more than 200,000 federal inmates, 46 are held under SAMs, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Department of Justice. Of those, 30 are imprisoned on terrorism-related convictions.

Much of the debate has centered on a smaller group of suspects, like Mr. Hashmi, who are awaiting trial. Mr. Boyd said 6 of the 46 were being held under SAMs in pretrial detention, 4 on terrorism charges. He declined to provide the names of the inmates, citing department policy.

The Center on Law and Security found that since Sept. 11, at least eight terrorism suspects have been held under pretrial SAMs, and more than a dozen have been detained on other restrictive rules, including solitary confinement.

Joshua L. Dratel, who has represented three defendants under SAMs, said the cumulative effect of the rules posed obstacles for defendants. “Their world shrinks dramatically,” he said, adding that in defending them, he spent “an inordinate amount of time on mundane confinement issues.”

He said that in New York’s Southern District, the SAMs are applied “reflexively,” and that judges seem unwilling to challenge them.

One Day We’ll All Be Terrorists
AP / Mary Altaffer

Syed Fahad Hashmi can tell you about the dark heart of America. He knows that our First Amendment rights have become a joke, that habeas corpus no longer exists and that we torture, not only in black sites such as those at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or at Guantánamo Bay, but also at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan. Hashmi is a U.S. citizen of Muslim descent imprisoned on 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-Qaida. As his case prepares for trial, his plight illustrates that the gravest threat we face is not from Islamic extremists, but the codification of draconian procedures that deny Americans basic civil liberties and due process. Hashmi would be a better person to tell you this, but he is not allowed to speak.

This corruption of our legal system, if history is any guide, will not be reserved by the state for suspected terrorists, or even Muslim Americans. In the coming turmoil and economic collapse, it will be used to silence all who are branded as disruptive or subversive. Hashmi endures what many others, who are not Muslim, will endure later. Radical activists in the environmental, globalization, anti-nuclear, sustainable agriculture and anarchist movements—who are already being placed by the state in special detention facilities with Muslims charged with terrorism—have discovered that his fate is their fate. Courageous groups have organized protests, including vigils outside the Manhattan detention facility. They can be found at www.educatorsforcivilliberties.org or www.freefahad.com. On Martin Luther King Day, this Jan. 18 at 6 p.m. EST, protesters will hold a large vigil in front of the MCC on 150 Park Row in Lower Manhattan to call for a return of our constitutional rights. Join them if you can.

The case against Hashmi, like most of the terrorist cases launched by the Bush administration, is appallingly weak and built on flimsy circumstantial evidence. This may be the reason the state has set up parallel legal and penal codes to railroad those it charges with links to terrorism. If it were a matter of evidence, activists like Hashmi, who is accused of facilitating the delivery of socks to al-Qaida, would probably never be brought to trial.

Hashmi, who if convicted could face up to 70 years in prison, has been held in solitary confinement for more than 2½ years. Special administrative measures, known as SAMs, have been imposed by the attorney general to prevent or severely restrict communication with other prisoners, attorneys, family, the media and people outside the jail. He also is denied access to the news and other reading material. Hashmi is not allowed to attend group prayer. He is subject to 24-hour electronic monitoring and 23-hour lockdown. He must shower and go to the bathroom on camera. He can write one letter a week to a single member of his family, but he cannot use more than three pieces of paper. He has no access to fresh air and must take his one hour of daily recreation in a cage. His “proclivity for violence” is cited as the reason for these measures although he has never been charged or convicted with committing an act of violence.

“My brother was an activist,” Hashmi’s brother, Faisal, told me by phone from his home in Queens. “He spoke out on Muslim issues, especially those dealing with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His arrest and torture have nothing to do with providing ponchos and socks to al-Qaida, as has been charged, but the manipulation of the law to suppress activists and scare the Muslim American community. My brother is an example. His treatment is meant to show Muslims what will happen to them if they speak about the plight of Muslims. We have lost every single motion to preserve my brother’s humanity and remove the special administrative measures. These measures are designed solely to break the psyche of prisoners and terrorize the Muslim community. These measures exemplify the malice towards Muslims at home and the malice towards the millions of Muslims who are considered as non-humans in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The extreme sensory deprivation used on Hashmi is a form of psychological torture, far more effective in breaking and disorienting detainees. It is torture as science. In Germany, the Gestapo broke bones while its successor, the communist East German Stasi, broke souls. We are like the Stasi. We have refined the art of psychological disintegration and drag bewildered suspects into secretive courts when they no longer have the mental and psychological capability to defend themselves.

“Hashmi’s right to a fair trial has been abridged,” said Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Much of the evidence in the case has been classified under CIPA, and thus Hashmi has not been allowed to review it. The prosecution only recently turned over a significant portion of evidence to the defense. Hashmi may not communicate with the news media, either directly or through his attorneys. The conditions of his detention have impacted his mental state and ability to participate in his own defense.

“The prosecution’s case against Hashmi, an outspoken activist within the Muslim community, abridges his First Amendment rights and threatens the First Amendment rights of others,” Ratner added. “While Hashmi’s political and religious beliefs, speech and associations are constitutionally protected, the government has been given wide latitude by the court to use them as evidence of his frame of mind and, by extension, intent. The material support charges against him depend on criminalization of association. This could have a chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of others, particularly in activist and Muslim communities.”

Constitutionally protected statements, beliefs and associations can now become a crime. Dissidents, even those who break no laws, can be stripped of their rights and imprisoned without due process. It is the legal equivalent of preemptive war. The state can detain and prosecute people not for what they have done, or even for what they are planning to do, but for holding religious or political beliefs that the state deems seditious. The first of those targeted have been observant Muslims, but they will not be the last.

“Most of the evidence is classified,” Jeanne Theoharis, an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College who taught Hashmi, told me, “but Hashmi is not allowed to see it. He is an American citizen. But in America you can now go to trial and all the evidence collected against you cannot be reviewed. You can spend 2½ years in solitary confinement before you are convicted of anything. There has been attention paid to extraordinary rendition, Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib with this false idea that if people are tried in the United States things will be fair. But what allowed Guantánamo to happen was the devolution of the rule of law here at home, and this is not only happening to Hashmi.”

Hashmi was, like so many of those arrested during the Bush years, briefly a poster child in the “war on terror.” He was apprehended in Britain on June 6, 2006, on a U.S. warrant. His arrest was the top story on the CBS and NBC nightly news programs, which used graphics that read “Terror Trail” and “Web of Terror.” He was held for 11 months at Belmarsh Prison in London and then became the first U.S. citizen to be extradited by Britain. The year before his arrest, Hashmi, a graduate of Brooklyn College, had completed his master’s degree in international relations at London Metropolitan University. His case has no more substance than the one against the seven men arrested on suspicion of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower, a case where, even though there were five convictions after two mistrials, an FBI deputy director acknowledged that the plan was more “aspirational rather than operational.” And it mirrors the older case of the Palestinian activist Sami Al-Arian, now under house arrest in Virginia, who has been hounded by the Justice Department although he should legally have been freed. Judge Leonie Brinkema, currently handling the Al-Arian case, in early March, questioned the U.S. attorney’s actions in Al-Arian’s plea agreement saying curtly: “I think there’s something more important here, and that’s the integrity of the Justice Department.”

The case against Hashmi revolves around the testimony of Junaid Babar, also an American citizen. Babar, in early 2004, stayed with Hashmi at his London apartment for two weeks. In his luggage, the government alleges, Babar had raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks, which Babar later delivered to a member of al-Qaida in south Waziristan, Pakistan. It was alleged that Hashmi allowed Babar to use his cell phone to call conspirators in other terror plots.

“Hashmi grew up here, was well known here, was very outspoken, very charismatic and very political,” said Theoharis. “This is really a message being sent to American Muslims about the cost of being politically active. It is not about delivering alleged socks and ponchos and rain gear. Do you think al-Qaida can’t get socks and ponchos in Pakistan? The government is planning to introduce tapes of Hashmi’s political talks while he was at Brooklyn College at the trial. Why are we willing to let this happen? Is it because they are Muslims, and we think it will not affect us? People who care about First Amendment rights should be terrified. This is one of the crucial civil rights issues of our time. We ignore this at our own peril.”

Babar, who was arrested in 2004 and has pleaded guilty to five counts of material support for al-Qaida, also faces up to 70 years in prison. But he has agreed to serve as a government witness and has already testified for the government in terror trials in Britain and Canada. Babar will receive a reduced sentence for his services, and many speculate he will be set free after the Hashmi trial. Since there is very little evidence to link Hashmi to terrorist activity, the government will rely on Babar to prove intent. This intent will revolve around alleged conversations and statements Hashmi made in Babar’s presence. Hashmi, who was a member of the New York political group Al Muhajiroun as a student at Brooklyn College, has made provocative statements, including calling America “the biggest terrorist in the world,” but Al Muhajiroun is not defined by the government as a terrorist organization. Membership in the group is not illegal. And our complicity in acts of state terror is a historical fact.

There will be more Hashmis, and the Justice Department, planning for future detentions, set up in 2006 a segregated facility, the Communication Management Unit, at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. Nearly all the inmates transferred to Terre Haute are Muslims. A second facility has been set up at Marion, Ill., where the inmates again are mostly Muslim but also include a sprinkling of animal rights and environmental activists, among them Daniel McGowan, who was charged with two arsons at logging operations in Oregon. His sentence was given “terrorism enhancements” under the Patriot Act. Amnesty International has called the Marion prison facility “inhumane.” All calls and mail—although communication customarily is off-limits to prison officials—are monitored in these two Communication Management Units. Communication among prisoners is required to be only in English. The highest-level terrorists are housed at the Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, known as Supermax, in Florence, Colo., where prisoners have almost no human interaction, physical exercise or mental stimulation, replicating the conditions for most of those held at Guantánamo. If detainees are transferred from Guantánamo to the prison in Thomson, Ill., they will find little change. They will endure Guantánamo-like conditions in colder weather.

Our descent is the familiar disease of decaying empires. The tyranny we impose on others we finally impose on ourselves. The influx of non-Muslim American activists into these facilities is another ominous development. It presages the continued dismantling of the rule of law, the widening of a system where prisoners are psychologically broken by sensory deprivation, extreme isolation and secretive kangaroo courts where suspects are sentenced on rumors and innuendo and denied the right to view the evidence against them. Dissent is no longer the duty of the engaged citizen but is becoming an act of terrorism.

Chris Hedges, whose column is published on Truthdig every Monday, spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. He has written nine books, including “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009) and “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2003).