Vol. 73/No. 19      May 18, 2009

The government’s case against three Albanians, a Jordanian, and a Turkish immigrant—known as the Fort Dix Five—was built on entrapment by paid informants, who themselves were threatened with deportation. It was these very informants who encouraged the men to watch al-Qaeda videos and pressed them to take action—which they never did. They were, nevertheless, found guilty of “conspiracy.” The informants secretly taped hours of their conversations with the defendants.

All of the Fort Dix Five were denied bail. At trial the prosecuting attorney asserted that under conspiracy charges the government need not prove the defendants had a plan to attack—only intent. “Just talk is powerful evidence,” he said.

Four of the five were handed life sentences; the judge added on 30 years for three of the men. The fifth was sentenced to 33 years.

In the second case a Pakistani immigrant, Javed Iqbal, plea-bargained in the face of a possible 15-year sentence for broadcasting satellite programs from a TV station in Lebanon. Al-Manar station is part of the Arab State Broadcasting Union and its Web site can be easily accessed in several languages. Among the many programs broadcast by the station are speeches by leaders of Hezbollah, a bourgeois party in Lebanon that has members in parliament.

In sentencing Iqbal to nearly six years, the judge claimed he was not being prosecuted for the content of the broadcast but for providing “material support” to a station on the government’s “terrorist” list and selling its programming to customers in the United States.

These attacks on democratic rights and the use of frame-up “conspiracy” charges are part of the government’s broader attack on the rights of all working people. It is part of the rulers’ preparation for the resistance they sense will inevitably deepen inside the United States as the capitalist economic crisis bears down on workers, farmers, and other working people.

The sentences against the Fort Dix Five and Javed Iqbal are a blow to all working people. We should demand their freedom.
 
 
Related articles:
‘Ft. Dix 5’ sentenced in frame-up for ‘conspiracy’
Free speech violated in N.Y. ‘terrorism’ case
Poets festival in Toronto backs world fight to free Cuban Five
FBI interrogates Somali students in Minneapolis  
 
 
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