AMER JUBRAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – November 6, 2003

(A MORE DETAILED AND COMPLETE REPORT WILL FOLLOW THIS PRESS RELEASE LATER TODAY)

Court Fails to Silence Voices in Defense of Palestine: Fairness, Justice, Objectivity Discarded by Government, AJDC, November 6, 2003

BOSTON – Today’s proceedings in U.S. Immigration Court in the long-delayed case of Amer Jubran saw the complete collapse of all pretenses to fairness, justice, and objectivity. Despite the prosecution’s insistence to the contrary, this case has always been an effort to silence voices that speak out for Palestinian liberation and against the policies of the United States and its client state Israel. The implicit threat made by the government to broaden the persecution of Jubran to include his family and friends, his community, and those who stand with him politically failed.

One year ago, FBI and INS agents raided Jubran’s home, detained him without charges, and threatened him with indefinite detention for refusing to answer questions about his political activism without his lawyer present. When a strong defense campaign won Jubran’s release on bond after 17 days in detention, the government began a sustained attempt to force Jubran from the country based on technicalities in his immigration status specific to his former marriage. This included sending federal agents to intimate Jubran’s witness pool prior to a July 2003 hearing.

In today’s proceeding, Jubran decided to take "voluntary departure" from the United States – despite being innocent of all charges. He did so after being denied adequate time to review 52 pages of new "evidence" submitted by the prosecution a week before today’s final trial. When he dismissed his attorney for making arrangements with the judge and prosecutor regarding today’s hearing agenda without having been informed, Jubran was denied by the judge his fundamental right to be represented by effective counsel. He was then told he would be compelled to testify with no legal representation whatsoever, and would be subjected to direct examination by the judge.

The packet of new "evidence" recently provided by the government comprises 19 separate items and reveals an extensive – and previously secret – investigation involving at least 12 different federal agents. The packet was intended as a threat, but not directly to Jubran; page after page of questionable reports, contradictory testimony, and incomplete forms clearly showed that the government had been harassing more than his ex-wife and her family.

Just as he refused to answer questions without his lawyer present a year ago, today Jubran refused to facilitate the government’s use of these proceedings to conduct an illegitimate investigation not only into irrelevant details of his life, but also – more frighteningly – into the lives of many other immigrants who are vulnerable to government harassment.

"We will continue to build a movement to defend Palestine that looks like the one here today," Jubran told supporters gathered outside the courthouse after the proceeding. "We are different colors, different religions, different sexes, but we stand together to say: ‘globalize the intifada!’ Our voices will not be silenced." 

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