Decry persecution of Muslim professor
A national press conference to demand the immediate release of Dr. Sami Al-Arian was held at the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center in Harlem on April 15. Al-Arian was in the 44th day of a hunger strike to demand that the government abide by the terms of his release. He has been imprisoned for more than five years....Al-Arian, a tenured professor at the University of South Florida, was
arrested in 2003. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft trumpeted it as the
"arrest of the most dangerous financier of Islamic Jihad in the Western
world." This case of a Palestinian who raised funds for orphans and charities back home is viewed as one of the most extreme examples of racist and anti-Muslim persecution. ...
