In 2003, a group of young Muslim men residing in Metropolitan Washington, DC, became the targets of a federal indictment that charged them with, among other things, the alleged violation of the “Neutrality Act.” The case was officially known as the “Virginia Jihad Network” case, but to the local Muslim community and civil liberty advocates it became known as the “Paintball Case.”
At his sentencing in June 2004, Masaud Khan (one of the defendants) stated:
“I am an American citizen, born in this country, and will always maintain my innocence of conspiring and intending to bring any harm upon the American people. I have no doubt that I am innocent of the charges brought against me and that surely justice will prevail in good time. … The government has tried to say that I am following a brand of Islam that is ruthless, demonic, and which tries to force its will upon others. There can be nothing further from the truth.”
For an aspirational offense, according to the government, Masaud Khan was given a sentence of life imprisonment (without the possibility of parole); and he is not alone. There are scores of other young Muslims throughout America who have been made subject to that same barbaric sentencing scheme; including Muslim women such as Aafia Siddiqui.
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a Pakistani national who came to the US as a young student in 1990. She graduated with honors from MIT and Brandeis University, and has a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. In 2002, after 12 fruitful years in the US, Dr. Siddiqui returned home under a cloud of suspicion – for no other reason than her academic prowess and Islamically-based extracurricular activities.
Within months of her return, Dr. Siddiqui was targeted for rendition based on bad “intelligence.” She was suspected of being an undercover female functionary for Al-Qaeda, and was disappeared (along with her three young children) in March 2003. Dr. Siddiqui was not heard from again until the summer of 2008 – when she was shot by an American soldier in Afghanistan under an unbelievable scenario, brought back to the United States (barely clinging to life), and subjected to a show trial in New York City approximately a year and a half later.
Despite all of the evidence in her favor, both forensic and testimonial – evidence that contradicted what she was accused of (attempted murder of US personnel in Afghanistan in 2008) – Dr. Siddiqui was found guilty of all charges and given a sentence of 86 years! Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has described her plight as the “worse case of individual injustice I have ever witnessed.”
On Tuesday, January 17th, the day after the nation’s celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – and all that his legacy has come to represent for the better of the ‘two Americas’ – civil libertarians, human rights activists, and impacted family members of Muslim political prisoners, will gather in the Lisagor Room of the National Press Club in downtown Washington, to call upon President Barack H. Obama to give compassionate relief to at least some of these families before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.
For additional information: (202) 246-9608
E-mail: peacethrujustice@aol.com
President Obama has commuted all but four months of the remaining prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former US Army Intelligence Analyst serving 35-years for releasing classified information. Chelsea’s attorney Nancy Hollander, who spoke with President Obama’s counsel earlier today, confirms that “Chelsea will walk out of Fort Leavenworth a free woman in four months, on May 17th.”
