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by Ralph Schoenman and Maya Shone
Tuesday, Mar. 30, 2010 at 5:08 AM
The US government has targeted civil rights lawyer and NYC WBAI Board Member Lynne Stewart for her defense of frame-ups against
Muslim political activists. They tactics to jail lawyers who challenge the US "War Against Terror" are part of the Obama and former Bush administration agenda to shutdown any political defense of civil and human rights.
Lynne Stewart has for forty years defended the poor and the oppressed against arbitrary authority and false charges
Lynne Stewart, together with former Attorney-General Ramsey Clark and Abdeen Jabar defended Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was tried and convicted of plotting to blow up noted landmarks, including the George Washington Bridge, Lincoln Tunnel, Holland Tunnel, Statue of Liberty, and to assassinate Senator Alphonse D’Amato and U.N. Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman was innocent of these charges and had no part in the initiation, planning or execution of these presumptive plots.
Indisputable and massive evidence has demonstrated that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, through its operatives, including Emad Ali Salem, was, in fact, the author of these plots and planned, initiated and financed these and other acts of terror, including the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 in a “false flag” operation
Attorney General John Ashcroft launched a cynical campaign to persecute and prosecute Lynne Stewart for “aiding and abetting terrorism” based upon her serving as defense attorney for Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman
The Justice Department has undertaken the persecution and prosecution of Lynne Stewart because she defended her falsely accused client zealously and refused to be intimidated by the drumbeat of government propaganda arising from its false “war on terror”
Lynne Stewart has been tried and convicted in District Court of JudgeJohn G. Koeltl of aiding and abetting terrorism based solely on the fact that she defended a man demonized by the State, for the purpose of creating a climate of fear in the United States and public acquiescence in global wars of conquest including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and beyond
Judge Koeltl sentenced Lynne Stewart to 28 months in Federal prison, although the prosecution demanded 30 years imprisonment based upon government “sentencing guidelines”
Lynne Stewart at 70 years of age with serious medical issues was remanded to prison, even though her Appeal is under review and her potential further Appeal to the Supreme Court is pending, and remanded her to prison despite the fact that Lynne Stewart had surgery scheduled at a major New York hospital.
The prison authorities have denied Lynne Stewart her proper medication, disallowed her surgery as scheduled and subjected her to treatment in prison that places her survival in jeopardy
Judges on the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have issued additional commentaries pressuring Judge Koeltl to increase the sentence of Lynne Stewart by decades for “enhancing terrorism,” a demand based solely upon Lynne Stewart’s presumptive “violation” of unconstitutional prison administrative measures that require attorneys to agree in advance to abrogate their right to disseminate publicly information pertaining to their client’s status, views or advocacy.
Judge Sack of the Second Circuit Appellate Court, who urged a far more severe sentence for Lynne Stewart, was for many years a law partner of Judge Mukasey, the judge who sentenced Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman to 100 years imprisonment, yet Judge Sack refused to recuse himself and led the charge demanding a massive increase in the sentence imposed on Lynne Stewart
Judge Mukasey advocated in the Wall Street Journal, shortly before becoming Attorney General, that people accused of “terrorism” should be denied due process and condemned to indefinite detention in a “parallel judicial system” that treats such people as ”mental deficients” to be ordered by administrative decree to mental institutions
This persecution and prosecution of Lynne Stewart by a criminal state is a direct parallel to the historic Dreyfus Case that gave rise to the expose of the corruption and cynicism of the French government by Emile Zola in his historic declaration entitled “J’Accuse” (I Accuse!)
The persecution and prosecution of Lynne Stewart is a calculated threat to every lawyer in the United States who defends clients targeted and demonized by a criminal State
The New York Times on March 8, 2010 in its lead editorial entitled “Are You or Have You Ever Been a Lawyer?” raises the alarm that “in this era, demagogues on the right are smearing loyal Americans as disloyal and charging that the government is being undermined from within”
The New York Times editorial states that cynical and dishonest people “twist the role of lawyers in the justice system” and states emphatically that “In representing Guatanamo detainees, they were in no way advocating for terrorism. They were ensuring that deeply disliked individuals were able to make their case in court, even ones charged with heinous acts – and that the Constitution was defended”
The New York Times editorial concludes,“If lawyers who take on controversial causes are demonized with impunity, it will be difficult for unpopular people to get representation – and constitutional rights that protect all Americans will be weakened”
The Justice Department of George W. Bush and Barack Obama in framing an innocent man, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, and the subsequent persecution, prosecution, conviction and draconian sentencing of Lynne Stewart, threaten not merely every defense lawyer, but every inhabitant of the United States with drastic curtailment of democratic rights and civil liberties, and seeks to eliminate our ability to expose and oppose criminal wars abroad and repressive measures at home
Join in this urgent campaign and support public meetings involving a broad coalition of civil rights,human rights, anti-war, 9/11 Truth and labor organizations to defend Lynne Stewart and the fundamental democratic rights now at risk, to which her life has been devoted and that her case embodies.
∑ Call upon Judge Koeltl to defy attempts by judges on the Second Circuit to usurp his own proper judgment and jurisdiction by dictating a vengeful sentence that is a death sentence upon the U.S. constitution.
∑ Write accordingly directly to: The Honorable Judge John G. Koeltl, United States District Judge, Southern District of New York, 500 Pearl Street, New York, N.Y. 10013.
∑ Email copies of your letter to Judge Koeltl to Ralph Poynter and Lynne Stewart at Ralph.Poynter [at] yahoo.com / info [at] lynnestewart.org./takingaim [at] pacbell.net and obtain ongoing information.
∑ Mail a copy of your letter to Judge Koeltl to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee at 350 Broadway, Suite 700, N.Y., N.Y. 10013
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FREE LYNNE STEWART – RESIST THE DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS IN AMERICA
Lynne Stewart has devoted her life to defending the poor and the oppressed. After forty years of exposing government targeting of the most vulnerable and exploited in our society, the government has now acted to bury her alive.
The government prosecution, conviction and imprisonment of Lynne Stewart is based solely upon the fact that she joined former Attorney-General Ramsey Clark and attorney Abdeen Jabbar in defending Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman against the trumped up charge that he organized and implemented a terrorist plot to blow up noted landmarks, including the George Washington Bridge, Lincoln Tunnel, Statue of Liberty and United Nations, along with planning to assassinate then Senator Alphonse D’Amato and former U.N. Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali.
These charges were false. The plot was entirely an FBI plan designed to ensnare young men attending the mosque of the Sheikh in order to create a climate of fear in the United States and to provide a pretext for wars abroad and the drastic infringement of democratic rights at home.
These are the stakes in the government’s own conspiracy against all defense lawyers who dare to represent those targeted by a criminal State.
Even federal investigators, high-ranking Justice Department lawyers and Attorney General Janet Reno herself doubted the evidence. The Los Angeles Times reported on August 28, 1993 that “For weeks, federal investigators privately voiced their doubts about the quality of the evidence supporting the government’s case against Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman.”
“But in the end,” the article revealed, “Attorney General Janet Reno overcame her own misgivings, as well as those of her subordinates and concluded that the alleged conspiracy was ‘a case that had to be prosecuted…’”
The then Attorney General was muscled into proceeding with false charges against the Sheikh arising from a plot prepared by the F.B.I. itself, as documented in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and London Times.
Lynne Stewart was herself convicted in a trial where endless hours of footage of Osama bin Laden and the attacks of September 11th, 2001 – all entirely unrelated to the events of 1993 – were allowed by the court to be introduced in trial in a reckless and illegal attempt to frighten and intimidate the jury.
In a case that is a watershed in the direct assault upon democratic rights in the United States, Lynne Stewart has been railroaded to prison in an ominous threat to any attorney who defends people falsely accused and targeted by the U.S. government. If lawyers can be enfolded within the crime imputed to the client they defend, merely for acting as their attorney, no one can get a fair trial in the United States.
The basis of the government’s claim that Lynne Stewart “aided and supported terrorism” by defending Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman is that she released a Press Release to Reuters and other news agencies containing the views of the Sheikh on political events in Egypt!
Unconstitutional restrictions upon defense lawyers had been introduced in the form of new prison administrative procedures called Special Administrative Measures or SAMS. These measures required attorneys to agree not to disseminate information pertaining to their clients.
Thus, while the government uses the Press without restraint to orchestrate official propaganda promoting prosecutorial claims, defense lawyers are to be denied the right to use the press to advocate for their clients and to present their clients opinions and ideas.
The sole penalty for violating these arbitrary administrative restrictions upon the constitutional rights of defense attorneys is that the prison can deny access by the lawyer to the defendant until the matter is resolved.
Even these SAMS – designed to muzzle lawyers and prevent them from exercising their free speech rights and to restrict illegally their ability to defend their clients in the public arena – are strictly administrative rules.
To defy them – as Ramsey Clark and Abdeen Jabbar elected to do – no less than Lynne Stewart - carries no legal consequences for the attorney. To breach these administrative restraints is not a crime or an act for which the perpetrator can be charged or prosecuted.
Yet in a mockery of the entire judicial process, the Second Circuit Appellate Judges have deployed the breach of these prison administrative rulings as a major crime – one of “enhancing terrorism” and of “perjury” for which decades of imprisonment are in order!
The comments by judges in the Second Circuit are without even the pretence of a judicial or legal basis. They are political rants and reckless threats to Judge Koeltl demanding that he increase the28 month sentence of Lynne Stewart to decades in prison.
The statements by several Second Circuit Judges are injudicious, hysterical assertions that the Sheikh is one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. The Second Circuit judges cite a speech that Lynne Stewart gave to a public meeting of law students – patent hearsay derived from newspaper reports - in which Lynne is quoted as stating that she had done nothing wrong in advocating for her client and would do it again.
Second Circuit Judges assert that their statements are “a wink and a nod” to Judge Koeltl, letting him understand that unless he increases the sentence of Lynne Stewart to decades in prison, the U.S. government will appeal again and send the case right back to the Second Circuit, at which time these Second Circuit judges will take matters into their own hands and mandate a sentence of decades in prison.
On the basis of this speech, these judges label Lynne a “recidivist enhancer of terror” and a “perjurer.” Rarely has their been so brazen an abandonment of judicial impartiality and respect for the law as exhibited by these hanging judges of the Second Circuit.
It is a measure of the subversion of the entire judicial process and of constitutional protections and basic democratic rights that these judges emulate Alice in Wonderland with scarcely veiled threats to Judge Koeltl as they proclaim “Off with her head!”
Lynne Stewart at 70 years of age has survived cancer, suffers from high blood pressure, has been deprived of her medication and denied the surgery that was scheduled prior to her being remanded to prison in a crass display of contempt for common decency.
The Second Circuit judges revoked her bail in November 2009 ignoring the fact that her Appeal remains under review and a potential Appeal to the Supreme Court is pending.
∑ Mobilize in defense of Lynne Stewart and against the architecture of the fascist State under rapid construction in America. ∑ Proclaim that Lynne Stewart’s is the Dreyfus Case of our time and that today as then a criminal state wages wars of genocide abroad and authoritarian repression at home while seeking to scapegoat a heroic defender of the oppressed, thus betraying the legacy of the American revolution.
∑ Organize large numbers of people to gather outside and inside Judge Koeltl’s Courtroom at 500 Pearl Street in lower Manhattan when Lynne Stewart is scheduled to be re-sentenced on July 15.
∑ Write personal letters to Judge Koeltl opposing the destruction of democratic rights and the threat to all attorneys embodied in the reckless persecution and prosecution of Lynne Stewart
∑ Remind the Judge that Lynne Stewart has, in his own words, been a national treasure reflecting a lifetime of devoted public service and that he should treat her accordingly and reserve draconian sentencing for the torturers and the wagers of wars of aggression.
∑ Call upon Judge Koeltl to defy attempts by judges on the Second Circuit to usurp his own proper judgment and jurisdiction by dictating a vengeful sentence that is a death sentence upon the U.S. constitution.
∑ Write accordingly directly to: The Honorable Judge John G. Koeltl, United States District Judge, Southern District of New York, 500 Pearl Street, New York, N.Y. 10013.
∑ Email copies of your letter to Judge Koeltl to Ralph Poynter and Lynne Stewart at Ralph.Poynter [at] yahoo.com / info [at] lynnestewart.org./takingaim [at] pacbell.net and obtain ongoing information.
∑ Mail a copy of your letter to Judge Koeltl to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee at 350 Broadway, Suite 700, N.Y., N.Y. 10013
TAKING AIM with Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone email: rbs1 [at] pacbell.net
www.lynnestewart.org/
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LATEST COMMENTS ABOUT THIS ARTICLE
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These comments are anonymously submitted by the website visitors.
TITLE |
AUTHOR |
DATE |
deranged legal system |
justice |
Tuesday, Mar. 30, 2010 at 3:57 PM |
damn |
wow mom |
Tuesday, Mar. 30, 2010 at 7:37 PM |
sometimes they work together |
spooks n feds?! oh my?! |
Wednesday, Mar. 31, 2010 at 8:13 AM |
"the Is really spook" |
not laughing |
Wednesday, Mar. 31, 2010 at 4:40 PM |
Landmarks Case |
FBI Killers |
Wednesday, Mar. 31, 2010 at 6:26 PM |
"framed" |
still not laughing |
Wednesday, Mar. 31, 2010 at 7:04 PM |
yup, framed |
spooks and FBI killers |
Wednesday, Mar. 31, 2010 at 11:24 PM |
still waiting for answers |
COINTELPRO spotter |
Thursday, Apr. 01, 2010 at 8:30 AM |
yes |
we all want answers |
Thursday, Apr. 01, 2010 at 9:00 AM |
keep talking, G-Man |
keep talking, COINTELPRO man |
Thursday, Apr. 01, 2010 at 1:43 PM |
"squatted here for years on end" |
spook wank |
Thursday, Apr. 01, 2010 at 1:50 PM |
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