More than 100 days later he is still being held, although the only charge against him is that of overstaying a tourist visa. For most of this time he has been in solitary confinement in federal prison in Chicago. Haddad lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the time of his arrest. His case has become a focus of resistance to the roundup and jailing of more than 1,200 Arabs and Muslims by the U.S. government since September 11.

In a letter to those attending the Chicago rallies, Haddad announced that owing to these protests the time he can talk with his family on the phone has been extended and he can now receive family visits. Haddad also said prison officials have told him he will soon be released from solitary confinement.

In an earlier letter, sent from his cell January 27, Haddad described the conditions he faces in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

"I am allowed one 15-minute call to my family every 30 days. My food is handed to me through a slit in the door, two-and-a-half inches by 12 inches. The same opening is used to put the cuffs on me before the door is opened for any reason. I am allowed three showers a week for which I have to be cuffed to walk 10 paces to the shower.

"I have been treated like the worst criminal you can imagine when I have not even been charged with a crime, save overstaying my visa, which I was in the process of remedying.

"All of this has done nothing but harden my will and strengthen my resolve to overcome and persevere."

Haddad was arrested the same day that FBI, US Treasury, CIA, and NATO agents raided the offices of the Global Relief Foundation, a charity with its international office in the Chicago area. He was a co-founder of the foundation which has given emergency relief and aid to people in 22 countries.  
 
Jailings not new
Sami Al-Arian, a tenured professor at the University of South Florida, who has been battling moves by the university administration to fire him, was one of the speakers at the meeting.

Al-Arian is being targeted because of his defense of the fight of the Palestinian people against Israeli occupation and of the rights of Palestinians in this country. Despite the widespread support his case has received, not only from students, faculty, and others in the Tampa area, but also nationally, the university is not backing off its plans to fire him.

Al-Arian pointed out that the U.S. government's arrest and jailing of immigrants on the basis of secret evidence is not new. Between l996 and l998, he said, there were at least 29 cases of people jailed and held solely on the claim of federal officials that secret evidence in their possession allows them to do so.

Other speakers at the meetings, which were sponsored by the Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, included Cliff Kelly, prominent talk show host on Black radio WVON; Mahmud Ahmad of the Committee for a Democratic Palestine; and Jose Lopez, director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago.

Lopez is a longtime leader of the campaign to free Puerto Rican political prisoners in U.S. jails. He said that many Arab prisoners today are being held in the same "basically antihuman conditions, in isolation, with no contact with families," faced by Puerto Rican liberation fighters.

Lopez said those targeted internationally by the so-called campaign against terrorism are the people who are resisting oppression and colonialism. An example, he said, is "the heroism and courage of the Palestinian fighters, who are teaching the whole world an incredible lesson in resilience."  
 
 
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