As the tenth anniversary of September 11th is commemorated across the country, most public attention to the civil liberties and human rights abuses of the US ‘War on Terror’ still focuses overseas – to the abuses at Guantánamo, Bagram, and CIA rendition sites.
Renowned human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, along with stage and screen actors DannyGlover, WallaceShawn, and KathleenChalfant, and 2011 PEN/Faulkner Award winner Deborah Eisenberg will co-host an evening focused on the stories of families whose loved ones are suffering rights abuses in terrorism cases being prosecuted within the American federal judicial system.
Family members will tell their own stories of the human and civil rights violations here in US courts and prisons – stories of the inhumane conditions of confinement terror suspects face pre-trial and post-conviction; of over-reaching material support charges often accompanied by flimsy evidence; of years of intrusive and often illegal government surveillance; of FBI informants disrupting mosques and instigating conspiracies.
Featured speakers will include family members of the Newburgh Four, Fahad Hashmi, Lynne Stewart, the Holy Land Five, Tarek Mehanna, the Fort Dix Five, Ahmed Abu-Ali, and ShifaSadequee among others.
