Photo credit: Osvaldo Perez, courtesy El Diario-La Prensa

 

If you wonder when the federal “Homeland Security” apparatus will move against free speech WBAI, just examine the case of Farouk Abdel-Muhti. This New York-based Palestinian activist and contributing producer of WBAI’s Wakeup Call has been jailed for 14 months by immigration authorities (the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, formerly the INS). Farouk spends 23 hours a day in a windowless isolation cell in a York County, Pennsylvania, jail five hours from NYC—with no sign of when his ordeal may end.

Officials have charged Farouk with no crime, citing only a 1995 deportation order—yet no country has ever agreed to accept this stateless Palestinian. Farouk, a longtime anti-imperialist and pro-worker activist, believes he was targeted for his role as an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights on WBAI. During the brutal Israeli invasion of West Bank towns and cities in March 2002, Farouk arranged several Wakeup Call interviews with Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. One day while he was on the air, federal agents interrogated his son at home. Two weeks later, on April 26, they came back to arrest Farouk.

Farouk’s legal team is working to have him released, based on a Supreme Court decision limiting detention of immigrants facing deportation to six months. But public pressure will surely be the decisive factor in Farouk’s release. The Committee for the Release of Farouk has letter-writing campaigns and weekly Manhattan vigils.

More info: 212-674-9499 • www.freefarouk.org or www.wbai.org