Free Rasmea Yousef Odeh!
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SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 2013 3 Rasmea Yousef Odeh, the associate director of the Arab American Action Network in Chicago, has been arrest ed by agents of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She is charged with an act of immigration fraud from 20 years ago.
Rasmea, 65, was horribly tortured for 10 years in an Israeli prison, accused of being involved in a murder and of be ing a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. She was re leased in a prisoner exchange and came to the United States.
After decades in the U.S., authorities arrested her on Oct. 22 for falsifying the papers she had filled out for immi gration purposes. She apparently had checked a box stating that she had never been arrested, believing that the refer ence was to the U.S. and not Palestine. For this they have threatened to give her 10 years in prison.
She also faces being stripped of her citizenship, and of being deported after serving her sentence.
Rasmea is closely associated with the 23 Palestinian and antiwar activists who were victimized by FBI raids three years ago, and are still awaiting the decision of the government regarding their subpoenas. Both the Committee to Stop FBI Repression and the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) are supporting her case.
The following statement was issued by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Solidarity Legal Support, and signed by 64 other organizations, including Socialist Action:
Statement of Solidarity
The below-signed organizations are deeply disturbed by and stand opposed to the indictment yesterday of Rasmea Yousef Odeh, a Palestinian-American community activist who has dedicated 10 years to the Chicago Arab-American community, working with women on issues ranging from promoting literacy and political education to addressing domestic violence and anti-Arab and Muslim sentiment.
Rasmea’s indictment for alleged immi gration fraud comes at a time when ad vocates for Palestinian rights and immi gration rights activists have been facing increasing pressure all over the country. Exactly three years ago, 23 anti-war and Palestinian rights activists were sub poenaed to testify before a Grand Jury, and several of their homes were raided by the FBI. There have been no indict ments against the 23 activists subpoe naed in 2010, presumably because of a lack of evidence. It is no coincidence that federal prosecutors are now target ing Rasmea, who is a pillar in the same community.
The 2010 raids, the Grand Jury sub poenas that accompanied them, and this indictment against a 65 year old woman who suffered for a decade in Israeli pris ons before coming to the U.S. in 1995, are a clear signal that federal authori ties, along with Israel and its support ers in the U.S., are continuing to search for ways to intimidate and silence those who are effective advocates for Arab American communities, and who speak out for Palestinian rights.
In the last year alone, Palestine Solidar ity Legal Support, in partnership with the Center for Constitutional Rights, and in collaboration with the National Lawyers Guild and other organizations, has documented over 75 cases of intimi dation and legal bullying. These include perceived surveillance, FBI contacts, and discriminatory enforcement of laws against advocates for Palestinian rights.
Rasmea’s arrest and indictment must be viewed within this wider context of widespread attempts to intimidate people into silence on one of the most pressing human rights issues of our time. Rasmea’s indictment is also an il lustration of increasingly draconian en forcement of immigration laws, which have left immigrant communities dev astated at the hands of Obama’s Depart ment of Homeland Security.
Rasmea is an exemplary citizen who recently finished a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice and has a law degree from Jordan. She has overcome amazing odds after being convicted by the Israeli military court system in 1969 for her al leged association with a leftist Palestin ian nationalist group that the U.S. desig nated a terrorist organization.
The military courts operate exclusive ly to subjugate occupied Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. They rou tinely bypass all but a modicum of due process, and justify holding individuals without charge or trial for months and years, often in abusive conditions and subject to torture.
Rasmea’s activism against the Israeli occupation in the 1960s resulted in her imprisonment in Israeli prisons for 10 years, and it is surely her community ac tivism in the U.S. that has made her, and by extension, the community that relies on her, the target of this indictment.
We call for solidarity with Rasmea as she undergoes a difficult legal battle. Please support Rasmea at her Novem ber 1 appearance in federal court in De troit, Michigan. For further action items, please see the Arab American Action Network alert. n
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Tony Savino / Socialist Action