The three men, along with Ghassan Zayed Ballut, from Tinley Park, Illinois, were arrested on a 50-count federal indictment. Many of the 50 are "conspiracy" charges.

Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the indictment at a high-profile press conference in Washington. Federal officials declared that Al-Arian was secretly a top leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is on a list of organizations deemed "terrorist" by the U.S. government. The indictment relies largely on the wiretapping of Al-Arian’s phones under the authorization of a secret court--"evidence" admitted in court under the USA Patriot Act.

Four other men abroad--Bashir Musa Mohammed Nafi of Oxfordshire, England, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah of Damascus, Syria, Mohammed Tasir Hassan Al-Khatib of Beirut, Lebanon, and Abd Al Aziz Awda of the Gaza Strip in Palestine--were indicted but have not been arrested.

The bail hearing was postponed until March 24 at the request of the defense attorneys to allow them to prepare their case that the defendants present no danger and are not a flight risk.

At the demonstration, Leena Al-Arian read out loud a handwritten statement from her father that declared, "I address you today as a prisoner of conscience. My freedom has been taken not because--God forbid--I’m a criminal or have ill will toward this great nation. But I’m crucified today because of who I am: a stateless Palestinian, an Arab, a Muslim, an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights, but more significantly a persistent defender of civil and constitutional rights on the home front."

He stated, "I’ve declared a hunger strike to protest this unjust persecution of me, because of my beliefs and opinions."

Al-Arian has long been a prominent supporter of the Palestinian struggle. A Palestinian born in Kuwait, he became a U.S. permanent resident in 1975. In 1986 he became an assistant professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida (USF) here.

In 1988 he helped form the Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP) to educate on the Palestinian intifada (rebellion) in the United States. He helped initiate the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), which sponsored academic programs on the Mideast in conjunction with USF. Al-Arian is a director and Hammoudeh is an administrator of the Islamic Academy of Florida, a private school with classes through grade 12.

In early 2002, Al-Arian was an organizer and a keynote speaker at several demonstrations to protest the Israeli army’s destruction of West Bank towns. On November 3 he was a speaker at a protest at MacDill Air force Base against the U.S.-led drive toward war on Iraq.

The indictment accuses Al-Arian of being the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a member of its "shura council." It alleges he is responsible worldwide for its finances and that the Iranian government funds the group. It also asserts that the Islamic Committee for Palestine, WISE, and the Islamic Academy of Florida were fund-raising "fronts" for the Jihad. In an indication of the scope of government spying on Al-Arian, the indictment lists numerous phone calls and faxes from 1995 and earlier that the government claims are evidence of "ties" to the group.

The indictment cites a 1995 presidential executive order labeling Islamic Jihad and other organizations and individuals as "terrorists. In 1997, using the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, U.S. officials labeled Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas as "foreign terrorist organizations," barring "material support" to them.

Al-Arian has stated that he has helped organize charitable contributions for families of people who have died in the Palestinian struggle.

The main charges include conspiracy to commit "racketeering," to commit murder through suicide attacks in Israel and the occupied territories, to provide "material support", and to make or receive financial contributions. The "conspiracy" charges mean no actual illegal act is alleged.

The authorization of the massive wiretaps and spying against the arrested men was granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret court created in 1978 whose existence was not known publicly until recently. Under this court, fewer protections against unreasonable search and seizure exist. Evidence obtained under these procedures had not been used in prosecutions until the passage of the 2001 Patriot Act. Ashcroft wrote new rules allowing the use of this material in criminal prosecutions.

Local media were invited to witness the 5:15 a.m. arrest of Al-Arian. The newscasts were full of pictures of FBI agents taking him away in handcuffs and cops leaving his home with boxes of so-called evidence. Leena Al-Arian said they took all of the family’s cellular phones and computers, including hers, which contained a paper she had written for school.

In 1995 the FBI, INS, and the Customs service raided Al-Arian’s home, campus office, and WISE offices. They seized videotapes, documents, and computer hard drives. In May of that year, the Tampa Tribune published a two-part series claiming that the ICP and WISE were linked to "terrorism."

In 1997 Mazen Al-Najjer, Al-Arian’s brother-in-law, was arrested and held for three and a half years without charges. He was finally released after a court ruled he could no longer be held on secret evidence. He was rearrested and deported to Lebanon last August.

On September 26, 2001, Al-Arian appeared on a TV program called "The O’Reilly Factor." He was questioned about alleged "terrorist" ties and a statement attributed to him saying, "Death to Israel." O’Reilly suggested that FBI spying against him was justified. The next day the university received numerous phone calls about Al-Arian and threatening violence.

USF suspended him and banned him from campus, saying his presence was a threat to security. They accused him of not stating that he spoke as an individual and was not speaking for the university. In response, a popular button was distributed by members of the faculty union that said, "I do not speak for USF."

Because he was now a tenured professor, the United Faculty of Florida at USF filed a grievance on his behalf. The university announced its intention to fire Al-Arian and asked a judge to determine if they could do so. The faculty senate voted to oppose the firing and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) threatened to censure USF if he were fired. On December 16 a U.S. district judge threw out USF’s lawsuit.

After Al-Arian’s arrest the university fired him. University president Judy Genshaft said the indictment showed that he "has misused the university’s name, reputation, resources and personnel."

Jonathan Knight of the AAUP replied, "The administration has, in effect, found him guilty of the charges. We have a situation where there has been no action of any sort at the campus to look into the charges, and the charges brought by the federal government have yet to be proven."  
 
 
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