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Holy Land Foundation Case Update
Hosts talk with Noor Elashi, Noor is the daughter of Holy Land Foundation prisoner Ghassan Elashi. Ghassan is currently being held in the Communications Management Unit in Marion, Illinois and has now had his visitations canceled. Noor says visitations have been cruelly obstructed by a Texas prison guard while at the prison in Seagoville Texas in October 2009. Noor’s brother Omar is 9 and has Down’s syndrome, during a visitation, Omar ran up to his father to give him a hug and the guard says “What Mr. Elashi, you think you’re an exception?” After the visit, the guard filed a complaint against Ghassan for not following instructions. The same prison guard during Thanksgiving that year, prevented his sons from entering the room during a visit. Ghassan called the guard evil and compared him to a guard at Abu Ghraib. The guard filed another complaint. After an internal investigation, Ghassan’s visitations were banned for 6 months. The visitation doesn’t usually apply when an inmate transfers to another prison, but when Ghassan was transferred to the CMU in Marion, the visitation ban was upheld. www.Freedomtogive.com
As many listeners may know, Holy Land Foundation was the largest Muslim charity in the United States, the Bush administration shut it down after the September 11th attacks, and arrested five people from the charity. During the trial, the prosecution used unrelated video of suicide bombers to emotionally sway the jury.
- Book in progress: Eyes Like My Father, A Daughters Narrative of Displacement
- Father was sentenced to 65 years in prison for giving material support in the form of humanitarian aid to Zakat committees – Palestinian charities in the West Bank and Gaza, that prosecutors were alleging were fronts for Hamas.
- These are the very same Zakat committees that USAID, the Red Cross and UN NGOs were giving money to.
- The Holy Land Foundation, co-founded by Ghassan Elashi, was the largest charity in the US until the Bush Administration with an executive order shut it down 3 months after 9/11.
- The material support law is a very flawed law and singles out Muslim charities and with the recent upholding of the material support law by the Supreme Court, I feel that Americans are at risk.
- There were 2 trials (for Ghassan Elashi) the first in 2007 which looked at the Zakat committees. Jury deadlocked on most counts against the HLF. The prosecution showed the jury scenes of terrorism, buses being blown up expecting the jury to be prejudiced by seeing this and convict Ghassan Elashi, and they didn’t.
- In the second trial, the prosecutors were more aggressive, the defense attorneys, families and civil libertarians around the world were flabbergasted, when the jury delivered all guilty verdicts after 9 days of deliberation.
- Trials took place in Dallas, Texas. Ghassan Elashi, Noor’s father and the CEO of the Holy Land Foundation recieved a 65 year sentence. Other fund raiser reps were sentenced between 15 and 20 years.
- Ghassan Elashi currently in a CMU – Communications Management Unit in Marion, Ilinois – termed “little Guantanamos.”
- As far as visitations go, those in and of themselves are cruel and unusual punishment because you travel all that way and you can’t touch, there is a plexi-glass between you and its monitored live in Washington DC.
- Four of the defendants are being held in CMUs, 2 in Marion, Illinois and 2 in Terra Haute, Indiana.
- My father is hopeful and optimistic, he does yoga and pilates, reads the Quran.
- It was New York Senator Chuck Schumer who co-authored the anti-terrorism law in 1996 that strengthened the material support provision.
- I’m the eldest of 3 boys and 3 girls. It’s a double tragedy, these convictions that were made possible by “fear” in the courtroom and the 65 year sentence. Appeal: they have until August 3 to file briefs.
- Humanitarian Law Project Supreme Court Case upheld the material support provision.
- During both trials, the prosecutors brought in an anonymous Israeli intelligence officer who testified under a fake name. He said could smell Hamas.
- During the testimony, the court benches were cleared except for the family.
- Michael Ratner: After 9/11 they made it extremely dangerous to give money to Muslims anywhere in the world.
- Everybody is at risk at this point, even Jimmy Carter
Guest – Noor Elashi, the daughter of Holy Land Foundation prisoner Ghassan Elashi. She is a writer based in Dallas, Texas. After receiving a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Texas, she worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In July 2008, she won the 3rd place Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Award for her manuscript titled “Displaced,” which she plans to expand into a memoir about the displacement of three generations of Palestinians: her grandmother, father, and herself. She can be reached at noorelashi@gmail.com.
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Austerity: Why and for Whom? – Rick Wolff
We are very pleased to have with us Professor Rick Wolff to update us on where we’re in this ongoing global capitalist crisis. Austerity has appeared in the titles of many recent articles on the global capitalist crisis. What is it? Rick Wolff writes in his article titled Austerity: Why and for Whom? the efforts to broaden the recovery beyond one year have failed and that failure has cost Washington trillions in borrowed funds from lenders. Those lenders now demand guarantees that those loans will be repaid to them with interest. The guaranteed demanded by lenders is “austerity.” To collect this austerity, the banks (lenders) want governments to raise taxes or cut government spending or both. Economic Recovery for the Very Few by Rick Wolff. An extreme burden imposed on the global economy. Rick asks, Why not collect austerity from tax exempt multinational corporations, churches and private institutions?
- Governments around the world borrowed enormous amounts of money, never seen before surge of borrowing. The urgency of the second impending crisis of capitalism, the second major collapse of capitalism in 75 years was so intense, the terror in the ranks of business was so complete, that nobody stopped to worry, just lend us lots of money, take toxic assets off our books and so on.
- Suddenly, the creditors who are lending to the governments are beginning to get nervous. They’ve been going to the governments and saying we don’t want to be stuck with a debt that your people might not pay back.
- Lenders: You either have to raise taxes on your people, save it and put it into a special account which will only be used to pay us interest on the principle or you cut your programs, your public services and put that into the same account.
- The name of the government’s response to the demand of its creditors is “austerity.” Imposing on society a severe regimen of rising taxes, or cut government spending to please and satisfy creditors.
- Yale, a multi-billion dollar corporation with billions of annual income, pays no taxes. Rather than increase the taxes of individual persons, why don’t we do what should have done long ago.
- Take a look at California, they’re laying thousands and thousands of state employees.
- No Economic Crisis: Annual world wealth report, the income of the top wealthiest people 2009 rose 17 percent.
- Banks are the buyers of government debt. The bankers produce a crisis, the government bails them out. The government borrows from the banks to bail them out. The bankers know there is popular opposition.
- French action against austerity: trade unions organizing general strike which will close everything in September in France. Will the pressure rise within US politicians to re-negotiate this debt?
- The state of Oregon, the democratic party controls both houses of legislature. To pay for the 700 million dollar gap over a 2 year period they raised taxes on business and wealthy people.
Guest – Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan.