About 75 demonstrators staged a vigil Saturday morning in Butner, N.C., to protest the imprisonment of a former university professor accused of aiding Palestinian terrorists.
Sami Al-Arian, a former professor of computer science at the University of South Florida and a North Carolina State University graduate, is being held at the Federal Medical Facility near Butner for refusing to testify in a terrorism-related case before a Virginia grand jury.
To protest his imprisonment, Al-Arian embarked on a two-month hunger strike Jan. 22 in a Virginia prison and was moved to the medical facility after he collapsed Feb. 13.
At the urging of his family, Al-Arian, a diabetic, ended his hunger strike on Friday and is currently taking liquid nutrients, said his son Abdullah Al-Arian, Trinity '02.
"He's lost about 45 pounds," said Abdullah Al-Arian, a former Chronicle columnist. "He was on a full hunger strike for 60 days and we were extremely concerned for him."
The vigil was organized by the Durham Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the Orange County Bill of Rights Defense Committee, North Carolina Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, North Carolina Stop Torture Now and the Al-Arian family.
Several protesters, including a handful of members from the Duke faculty, student groups from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and area residents, held up signs demanding Al-Arian's release, said Salma Mirza, a sophomore at UNC and a member of Solidarity with Palestine through Education and Action at Carolina, a UNC student group.
The protesters also wore orange jumpsuits and held up a large cardboard cutout of the Statue of Liberty emblazoned with the phrase "Bush, Free Dr. Sami."
"[The purpose of the protest] was two-fold-one, to show solidarity with the family," said Joan Walsh, co-chair of the Durham Bill of Rights Defense Committee. "The other purpose was just to get the word out that this is happening here."
Al-Arian was initially arrested in February 2003 in Tampa, Fla., for allegedly aiding Palestinian terrorist organizations. After a two-year trial, he was acquitted of eight charges.
The jury was hung on nine other charges, with 10 jurors in favor of acquittal and two in favor of conviction.
"The decision to prosecute came down from [former U.S. Attorney General John] Ashcroft and from the administration targeting Muslim activists in the U.S.," Abdullah Al-Arian said. "When politics enters into the justice system, it can easily be corrupted."
In May 2005, Al-Arian agreed to a plea bargain in which he admitted to helping individuals with ties to terrorist organizations. The agreement also stipulated that he would be deported after an 18-month prison sentence.
"There is absolutely not a shred of evidence against him," said miriam cooke, a professor of Asian and African languages and literature at Duke and a demonstrator at the vigil.
Al-Arian was set to be released in April with credit for time already served, but is being detained indefinitely after refusing to testify in another case in Virginia and being held in contempt of court.
"I think he will not be released until the situation in the Middle East is settled," said Margaret Misch, the facilitator of the Orange County Bill of Rights Defense Committee. "There is a political climate in the U.S. such that people are able to put pressure on the administration."
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