Family "stunned" by condition of Palestinian hunger-striker in federal prison
From the St. Petersburg Times, March 20:
Al-Arian's gaunt condition stuns his family
Sami Al-Arian has been on a hunger strike for 58 days to protest being held beyond his prison sentence. On a water-only diet, he has lost 53 pounds. The former University of South Florida professor can no longer walk, speaks in a whisper and trembles constantly because of low body temperature, said family members who visited him last weekend at a federal medical prison in Butner, N.C."We were stunned when we saw him. His deterioration is shocking," said Al-Arian's son, Abdullah, 26.
Al-Arian, 49, is bedridden in an isolation cell. A nurse checks on him twice a day, and a video camera records his every move, say officials from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Three hot meals are placed in his cell every day, for two hours at a time. Then they are removed, untouched.
"We will not let him die. We will force feed him before that happens," Nikki Credic, a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service said.
But Al-Arian's family is calling his condition "dire."
"We are extremely worried for his life," said his wife Nahla.
Al-Arian went on the strike Jan. 22 to protest being held in jail beyond his sentence because he refused to testify before a Virginia grand jury.
Last May he pleaded guilty, as part of a plea agreement, to helping associates of a terrorist group with nonviolent activities. The plea agreement came after a jury acquitted Al-Arian of eight terrorism-related charges and deadlocked on nine lesser counts.
While no explicit language was written into the plea agreement about Al-Arian's exemption from testimony before a grand jury in Virginia, federal prosecutors in Tampa agreed with defense attorneys that Al-Arian would not have to testify in Virginia. That verbal agreement was recorded in court transcripts. Seven months later, he was transferred to a Virginia jail and ordered to testify.
Al-Arian, who is 6 feet tall, weighed 202 pounds when the hunger strike began, and is now 149 pounds.
See our last posts on Al-Arian's case, the immigration crackdown and Palestinians caught in the web. Palestinians haven't been doing so well lately elsewhere in the diaspora either.
Recent Updates
12 min 27 sec ago
48 min 27 sec ago
1 hour 16 min ago
1 hour 27 min ago
1 hour 36 min ago
1 hour 49 min ago
2 days 16 hours ago
1 week 3 days ago
1 week 3 days ago
2 weeks 2 hours ago