Terrorizing Dissenters at the RNC - National Lawyers Guild

Notable
Past President Peter Erlinder Receives American
Muslim Alliance Malcolm X Award
Peter Erlinder received the Malcolm X
Freedom Award, presented at the 2008
American Muslim Alliance National
Convention in Boston, Massachusetts,
on October 12, for his work “opposing
secret evidence deportations and defending
Muslim and Palestinians unjustly
accused of terrorism, following 9/11,
as well as speaking out against the
PATRIOT Act…early on.”
As Guild Notes readers know, Dr.
Al-Arian, was charged with being a
leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
in February 2003. After spending three
years in prison, a Tampa jury acquitted
him of the most serious charges and
deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal on others.
In December 2005, Time Magazine
reported the verdict as one of the
Justice Department’s most embarrassing
post-9/11 defeats.
Al-Arian eventually pleaded guilty to a
single count of conspiracy, in return for
the promise to release him in May 2006
and to facilitate immediate voluntary
removal from the United States. The trial
judge extended his sentence for a year
based on violent conduct of which the
jury had acquitted him. Erlinder
appealed the “acquitted conduct” issue
to the United States Supreme Court. A
few days later, federal prosecutors in
Virginia called Al-Arian before a grand
jury. Al-Arian refused to testify and
criminal contempt charges were filed
earlier this year. Recently, however,
Judge Leonie Brinkema postponed the
contempt trial indefinitely because of
irregularities in the indictment and a
pending Supreme Court appeal. She
also released Al-Arian to house arrest.
A motion to dismiss the indictment is
pending.
Erlinder represented Al-Arian in the
4th and 11th Federal Circuit Courts and
in a cert petition to the U.S. Supreme
Court. He has been a professor of law at
William Mitchell Law School since 1982.
He is a defense attorney at the U.N.
International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda and the former president of
the National Lawyers Guild. Peter has
beenquoted extensively about the case
in international media and has written
anarticle on the case in the forthcoming
University of Southern California
Journal of Social Justice. •
Lawyers Needed for NLG
Green Scare Hotline
1-888-NLG-ECOL
The Guild’s toll-free “Green Scare” hotline, for environmental and
animal rights activists, has been operational for one year. The calls are
still coming in, and we seek Guild attorneys around the country to be
on a list that we can refer callers to. Please let us know if we can add
your name to our referral panel. We especially need lawyers with
experience counseling individuals who have been visited by the FBI.
If you can be available to handle a few calls a year, please email Heidi
Boghosian at director@nlg.org
Socially responsible activists have told us how much they appreciate
this service—the Guilds hotline is the only one that we know about!
David Kairys
Philadelphia Freedom
Available now for only $20
EMAIL REQUESTS TO FRONTDESK@NLG.ORG
30 • GUILD NOTES • WINTER 2008