The Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti issued an action alert urging that messages be sent to immigration officials to demand that he be freed immediately and to protest the abusive treatment against him. A march and rally to demand Abdel-Muhti’s release were called for Saturday, November 29, at 12:30 p.m. in Newark, New Jersey (see calendar).

Defenders of Abdel-Muhti report that the incident began when prison officials carried out a search of all cells in a wing of the Bergen County jail where 62 immigration detainees are being held. In the cell where Abdel-Muhti is being held, they went through his reading material, including the Militant, the Revolutionary Worker, Northstar Compass, and pamphlets by the Partisan Defense Committee—publications which the Palestinian activist receives regularly, as allowed by the prison’s own rules.

“The two officers became abusive, calling the publications ‘antigovernment’ and telling Abdel-Muhti to ‘shut the f___ up’ and to ‘go back to Palestine,’” the defense committee bulletin reported. They shoved him against the wall, kicked him to the ground, and punched him on the side of the head. Then they confiscated his publications, address books, and medicine, which was prescribed for high blood pressure and a thyroid condition. “Abdel-Muhti, who is 56 and in poor health, did not resist in any way,” the defense campaign bulletin noted. The next day, prison authorities filed a disciplinary report against Abdel-Muhti, claiming he was concealing medicine. As the Militant goes to press, he is still being denied medicine and medical attention.

Abdel-Muhti was recently transferred to the Bergen County Jail from the York County Jail in York, Pennsylvania. As part of the authorities’ unsuccessful efforts to break his spirit and isolate him, the political activist has been moved around to several county jails, first in New Jersey and then in York.

A well-known advocate of Palestinian self-determination, Abdel-Muhti was arrested in New York on April 26, 2002. He faces the threat of deportation from the United States, where he has resided since the 1970s. The immigration police have kept him locked up for the past 19 months without a hearing and without filing any criminal charges against him. Behind prison walls, Abdel-Muhti has continued to speak out and write about the Palestinian struggle and other fights for justice, and has been receiving newspapers and other publications.

Militant editor Argiris Malapanis stated, “We are demanding that the prison authorities immediately return all of Farouk’s reading materials and other possessions. Their assault on him, the denial of medical care, and the attempt to suppress his right to literature are outrages that should be protested by everyone who supports elementary human rights.”

Protest messages should be sent to David Venturella at the Office of Detention and Removal, Department of Homeland Security: fax (202) 353-9435; tel. (202) 514-8663; e-mail: davidventurella@dhs.gov, with copies to the defense committee at freefarouk@yahoo.com.
 
 
Related articles:
Free Farouk Abdel-Muhti!  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home