Dr. Al-Arian Suffers Under Deplorable Prison Conditions
May 11, 2006

TAMPA-

The persecution of Dr. Sami Al-Arian in the U.S. prison system continues. On Thursday, May 4, Dr. Al-Arian was hauled from Orient Road Jail in Tampa at 3:45 a.m. to a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida. He was placed in the Special Housing Unit (SHU), a section of the prison reserved to temporarily house convicted inmates who violate prison rules. Prison administrators said they received a letter, believed to be from federal marshals, which contained the ridiculous allegation that Dr. Al-Arian is a danger to other inmates. This claim was made to justify the torturous conditions under which Dr. Al-Arian has been placed in Tallahassee.

Dr. Al-Arian's family, supporters and all people of conscience would be shocked and outraged by this claim because Dr. Al-Arian is a well-known community leader, respected professor, and political prisoner, who not only has no connection to violence but was acquitted by 12 jurors of any connection to violence after a 6-month trial in December 2005. Even the government conceded in its plea deal with Dr. Al-Arian that he has no connection to violence.

Once again, Dr. Al-Arian is being held in solitary confinement, a constant in his three and a half year imprisonment. Violent, hardened criminals are given more rights and treated more humanely
than Dr. Al-Arian. He is clearly being subjected to especially harsh conditions because of his political beliefs, ethnicity and religion. It is further evident that this vindictive treatment is a deliberate attempt to break him physically and psychologically.

Furthermore, as he has no watches or clocks, Dr. Al-Arian feels disoriented and cannot properly carry out the five daily Muslim prayers. He was only able to leave his cell twice in one week for
one hour each; the law states that inmates in solitary confinement must be given one hour a day. He was allowed only one phone call with his family, exactly a week after he was moved. His family was extremely worried and distraught when they did not hear from him for a week. Moreover, Dr. Al-Arian was not able to contact his attorneys, nor were they able to reach him to discuss pressing legal issues with deadlines that passed during the week he was deprived from communication.

In the course of his detention and during the critical time preparing for his trial, Dr. Al-Arian spent 27 months in the SHU unit of Coleman Federal Penitentiary. The legal limit of placing regular inmates in the SHU is one year. Again, the stark discrepancy in treatment undoubtedly demonstrates that he is being singled out.

Conscious of the infamously abusive treatment of conditions in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison, the international community is closely watching the treatment of political prisoners in the United States. The discrimination against Dr. Al-Arian and other political prisoners in the U.S. and their excessively harsh treatment will embolden dictatorships to do the same, and remain a dark spot in this country's human rights record.