Sample Text (you will be able to edit it in step 2):
RELEASE DR. SAMI AL-ARIAN IMMEDIATELY!
To: President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Attorney General Mukasey, Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff, Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional leaders, U.N. Secretary General Ban, and Major media representatives:
I am writing to express my grave concern for the life, health and liberty of Dr. Sami Al-Arian and request his immediate release from custody and deportation from the United States. Dr. Al-Arian remains in prison after five years, despite acquittals and agreements for his release and deportation. Since March 3, he has been on a life-threatening hunger strike.
Dr. Sami Al-Arian, 50, was a highly respected member of his university, a leader in his Florida community, and a national leader in Arab-American affairs when Attorney General Ashcroft announced his arrest with great fanfare. Dr. Al-Arian was an award-winning tenured professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida. He was arrested in February 2003 and charged in a bloated 53-count terrorism conspiracy case. A jury acquitted him of all the serious charges in December 2005, and was unable to agree on the remaining counts, though ten jurors voting for acquittal. The six-month trial is believed to have cost U.S. taxpayers $50 million and was a total failure.
Threatened with retrial on the nine counts on which the jury could not agree, and realizing he has already served more than three years since his February 2003 arrest, which would apply toward any sentence imposed, and aware of the cost and time consumed in a second trial, Dr. Al-Arian agreed to plead guilty to a single minor count as the quickest way to end the government's actions against him and rejoin his family.
His agreement to the plea was contingent on the condition that he would not be forced to cooperate with prosecutors in any further investigation. The plea agreement was viewed as a face saving device for the U.S. government.
On May 1, 2006, the U.S. Attorney's office recommended in open court that all remaining charges against Dr. Sami Al Arian be dropped and that he be released and deported from the U.S. on completion of the sentence imposed based on his plea. Based on that sentence, Dr. Al-Arian should have been released in April 2007, at the latest. In fact, prosecutors recommended the minimum sentence, which would have seen him released almost immediately (leaving no time or consideration for the possibility of cooperation).
Instead of release and deportation, however, Dr. Al-Arian has been held and repeatedly summoned to testify before federal grand juries in Virginia, where he has steadfastly refused to testify based on his plea agreement, and strong recommendations by his attorneys that the subpoenas are in fact a perjury trap. The government's purpose can only be to force testimony against friends and associates to sow divisions in the community and implicate other innocent individuals whom the government has for years investigated unsuccessfully. If the testimony does not incriminate friends and associates, Dr. Al-Arian could then face perjury charges. This is a classic catch-22 situation. Based on the past practices of the prosecutor in Virginia, Dr. Al-Arian's attorneys have correctly called it a perjury trap. What knowledge can Dr. Al-Arian possibly have after more than five years in prison, most of it in total isolation, especially after his failed prosecution that could possibly aid any future prosecution?
Dr. Sami Al-Arian was finally scheduled for release and deportation on April 11, 2008, but with threats of further grand jury subpoenas and criminal contempt prosecution still hanging over him. He was transferred from judicial to immigration custody on April 11 and moved to several immigration facilities, without his counsel or family being informed, or the basis for his present detention being revealed.
I urge you to act immediately to assure Dr. Al-Arian's release from U.S. custody and deportation without further delay, as is promised in his agreement with the U.S. government. His death in U.S. custody or serious impairment of his health will cause universal condemnation of our country.
Dr Sami Al-Arian's courage and enormous dignity under extreme conditions have earned him world attention and respect. This case is closely watched across the U.S. and throughout the world. Because of an award-winning Norwegian documentary: USA vs. Al-Arian, millions of people in Europe and around the world have been informed of the gross injustices suffered by Dr. Al-Arian at the hands of our government.
In the Middle East and Muslim world and wherever people are concerned about wrongful seizures, detentions, prisoner mistreatment and political prosecution, he has become a symbol. Palestinians know Sami Al-Arian's only crime was compassion for their suffering. As the trial in Florida clearly demonstrated, the funds he worked so hard to raise in the United States were solely for humanitarian relief, basic food, medicine, and shelter for those in need. The U.S. will be judged by whether it honors its promise to finally release Dr. Al-Arian.
Sincerely,
(Your signature will be appended here based on the contact information you
enter in the form above)
