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World Court to Israel: Tear Down This Wall
July Surprise: Is Bush Pressuring Pakistan to Capture Bin
Laden During DNC?
Felon Disenfranchisement: Purging the Minority Vote
The Case of Sami al-Arian
World Court to Israel: Tear Down This Wall
The International Court of Justice is set to rule today
that Israel has violated international law by building a 425-mile
wall through the West Bank. According to Ha'aretz, the U.S.
representative is the only judge on the 15-person panel backing
Israel. We go to outside the court in the Hague to speak with
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary general of the Palestinian National
Initiative.
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz is reporting the International
Court of Justice will rule today that Israel must tear down
the 425-mile wall that stretches through much of the West
Bank. According to documents obtained by the paper, the court
will also rule Israel must pay compensation to Palestinians
who have lost land because of the construction of the wall.
Fourteen out of 15 judges voted against the security wall.
The sole backer of the wall was U.S. Judge Thomas Buerghenthal.
The court wrote in its majority opinion: "The wall,
along the route chosen, and its associated regime, gravely
infringe a number of rights of Palestinians residing in the
territory occupied by Israel, and the infringements resulting
from that route cannot be justified by military exigencies
or by the requirements of national security or public order."
The International Court in The Hague, was asked to rule on
the legality of the separation wall by the United Nations
General Assembly last December.
Israel has repeatedly said it will not recognize the court's
ruling. Ha'aretz is reporting the United States is expected
to help block the United Nations Security Council from making
any move to enforce the decision.
Both President Bush and Senator John Kerry have backed Israel's
right to construct the wall through the West Bank. In a new
policy paper, Kerry wrote: " The security fence is a
legitimate act of self defense erected in response to the
wave of terror attacks against Israeli citizens... the security
fence is not a matter for the International Court of Justice."
July Surprise: Is Bush Pressuring Pakistan to Capture
Bin Laden During DNC?
An article in The New Republic charges that the Bush administration
may be pressuring Pakistan to deliver a so-called "High
Value Target" before November - ideally at the height
of the Democratic National Convention. We speak with the reporter
who broke the story.
In the latest in what have become regular, uninformative
announcements from the Bush administration on possible terror
threats, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned yesterday
that terror groups may attempt to attack the United States
in an effort to disrupt the November elections. In making
the announcement, Ridge and several news outlets cited the
bombings in Spain ahead of that country's elections earlier
this year as an example of what could happen here in the US.
In reporting on Ridge's announcement yesterday, CNN host Miles
O'Brien said that in Spain, the terrorists had shifted the
elections "in their favor." In that election, Socialists
ousted the right wing government of Jose Maria Aznar.
Yesterday's announcement follows previous warnings from Ridge
and other administration officials about possible attacks
at the Republican and Democratic conventions this summer.
Meanwhile, an explosive new article has just come out in
the new edition of The New Republic magazine called "Pakistan
for Bush: July Surprise?" It charges that the Bush administration
may be pressuring Pakistan to deliver a so-called "High
Value Target" before November-ideally at the height of
the Democratic National Convention at the end of this month.
Such a move would surely eclipse John Kerry's moment in the
national spotlight and could lessen the boost in the polls
Kerry is expected to gain during the convention.
Recent moves by the Bush administration regarding Pakistan
policy also indicate that a deal could well be in the works
that would reward Pakistan for a big bust at a time convenient
for the Bush reelection effort. We are joined now by the lead
journalist on the story.
- John Judis, senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting
scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
His latest piece is called "Pakistan
for Bush: July Surprise?"
Felon Disenfranchisement: Purging the Minority Vote
As the 2004 election nears, we take a look at how former
felons - many of them African American Democrats - were wrongly
included on a Florida state list of voters to be purged. We
speak with an attorney with the ACLU who threatened to sue
the state, a Florida elections supervisor who has publicly
refused to purge voters based on the potential felons list
and the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging felon disenfranchisement
statutes in New York State.
The Florida Division of Elections has done an about-face
and decided it will allow voting by nearly 2,500 citizens
whose restored voting rights had been threatened with revocation.
The former felons - many of them African American Democrats
- had been wrongly included on a state list of voters to be
purged.
The agency originally said that state law required former
felons be deleted from the voters rolls because they had registered
to vote before they received clemency. But Secretary of State
Glenda Hood backtracked yesterday amidst pressure from civil
liberties groups.
Florida is one of seven states that does not automatically
restore civil rights to felons after they have served their
prison sentences. And regaining the right to vote can be a
long and difficult process.
The law caused hundreds or possibly thousands of votes to
be discounted in the 2000 election because of errors in a
state purge list of former felons.
- Becky Steele, Director of the American Civil Liberties
Union West Central Florida Office.
- Joseph "Jazz" Hayden, campaign director at
Unlock the Block and lead plaintiff in Hayden v. Pataki,
a lawsuit challenging felon disenfranchisement statutes
in New York State.
- Ion Sancho, Supervisor of Elections for Leon County in
Florida. He has publicly refused to purge voters based on
the potential felons list.
The Case of Sami al-Arian
We take a look at the case of Palestinian Professor Sami
al-Arian, who has been imprisoned for over a year and is awaiting
trial on charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit
murder. We speak with his attorney Linda Moreno.
At 5:30 am on a February morning in 2003, officers from
the FBI and Joint Terrorism task Force raided the south Florida
home of Professor Sami al-Arian. The officers grabbed him
and took him from the house as his wife and 3 children watched
in horror. At a press conference later that day, Attorney
General John Ashcroft accused al-Arian of funding the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad, calling it "one of the most violent terrorist
organizations in the world."
That day, the Justice Department handed down a sweeping 50-count
indictment against Al-Arian and seven other men, charging
them with conspiracy to commit murder, giving material support
to an outlawed group, extortion, perjury, and other offenses.
An indictment against Al-Arian had been rumored for months,
but the one returned by a federal grand jury in Tampa was
more expansive than most observers had expected. It accused
Al-Arian of masterminding a terrorist support group that thrived
in south Florida for nearly 20 years.
Sami Al-Arian was a tenured professor of computer science
at the University of South Florida. In his personal life,
he was known as an outspoken Palestinian activist and frequently
spoke on college campuses. He had had previous encounters
with the FBI in the mid-1990s, when the office of a group
he established was raided by federal agents and al-Arian was
under investigation on suspicion of aiding terror groups.
Though Al-Arian was investigated for two years, he was never
detained or charged with a crime and continued to work for
the school...that is, until he got a call from the FOX News
Channel.
In late September 2001, al-Arian was invited to be a guest
on The O'Reilly Factor. Al-Arian thought he was going to be
discussing Arab-American reactions to the attacks. Instead,
host Bill O'Reilly went on a tirade against him, basically
accusing al-Arian of supporting terrorism and terrorist groups.
O'Reilly dug up comments al-Arian had made 15 years earlier
and suggested that he should be followed everywhere he went.
All of this on live international television and just weeks
after the 9-eleven attacks. Here is an excerpt of that program
on September 28, 2001. O'Reilly begins by referring to al-Arian's
connections to former colleague Ramadun Abdullah Shallah who
later resurfaced as head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
(Tape)
The O'Reilly Factor, September 28, 2001.
Beginning the next day, the University of South Florida,
where al-Arian worked was barraged by hundreds of threatening
letters and emails. Thirty-six hours after the interview,
the university put Al-Arian on paid leave. In October of 2002,
a few months before his house was raided and he was put in
prison, I had a chance to interview Sami al-Arian at an antiwar
demonstration in New York, commemorating the one year anniversary
of the US invasion of Afghanistan.
(Tape)
Interview with Sami al-Arian October 6, 2002.
Sami al-Arian has now been in jail for more than a year and
his trial is set to begin in January 2005.
- Linda Moreno, lawyer for Sami al-Arian, who is imprisoned
and awaiting trial on charges of racketeering and conspiracy
to commit murder.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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