The US Government has held former University of South Florida Professor Sami Al-Arian under arrest since February 2003. Dr. Al-Arian, who was born in Kuwait to parents who were refugees from Palestine, and has spent all his adult life in the United States, has been an outspoken political advocate for Palestinians, and a severe critic of Israel, but the US Government thinks he may have been doing something much more sinister. This is in part because of his association with a former US academic who returned to Palestine and founded the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization, an organization the US Government classifies as a Terrorist organization. The US would like to convict him and continue to imprison him; his family's hope right now is that he would be deported and perhaps start a new life with his mother who lives in Egypt.
Norwegian filmmaker Line Halvorsen was able to spend much of 2003-2006 with Dr. Al-Arian's wife and children and his attorneys, as well as with the US Prosecutor, and also interviewed Dr. Al-Arian in prison, and she has made an amazing, and disturbing film. If you can see this film, which has won a number of film festival awards, I think you will find it amazing. Otherwise see the 12-page Overview prepared for the press.
Information about the film, where it will be shown, where it can be obtained on DVD, is at USAvsAlArian.com.
1 comment:
Bob, sorry but your facts are very inaccurate. First, Al-Arian is out on bail right now waiting trial in a contempt of court case.
Second, while acquitted of the most serious charges in his trial a few years ago, he did plead guilty to conspiring to support a terrorist organization. How? By lying on visa applications for so-called academics who were members of Islamic Jihad.
In my opinion, Sami Al-Arian is not a nice person. He has lived a life of lies and while he never had his finger on a trigger, he was responsible for helping Islamic Jihad killed dozens of people, including my daughter in 1995.
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