Freedom Socialist Party news update

Appeals Court upholds conviction of civil liberties attorney Lynne Stewart

A U.S. appeals court announced that it has upheld the conviction of movement attorney Lynne Stewart and instructed trial Judge John G. Koeltl to consider lengthening Stewart's 28-month sentence. The three-judge panel also revoked her bail and ordered her to report to prison "forthwith."

Stewart was convicted in 2005 for conveying information from her jailed client to an Egyptian group the U.S. defined as "terrorist." The appeals court took 191 pages to make their case against Stewart, a longtime defense lawyer for political dissidents and poor and oppressed defendants, and an articulate critic of the U.S. justice system.

At a press conference the same day, she assured reporters, "I will keep fighting. I am not a criminal."

Stewart has been unable to work for several years and is in financial straits. Donations for the fight can be sent to: Lynne Stewart Defense Committee, 350 Broadway, Ste. 700, New York, NY 10013.
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November 25, 2009

Freedom Socialist Party Statement

Free Lynne Stewart!

Imprisonment of heroic lawyer for the poor and the persecuted is a travesty of justice

On Nov. 17, a federal appeals court upheld Lynne Stewart’s conviction on terrorism charges, revoked her bail, ordered her to report to prison immediately, and sent the case back to the trial judge to consider increasing the 28-month sentence he had given her. The government had argued for a 30-year sentence for Stewart, who is now 70.

The appellate decision by the 2nd District Court is remarkably harsh and blatantly hostile toward Stewart. It comes on the eve of the first trials in New York City of supposed terrorists held at Guantánamo and of President Obama’s decision about how much he will escalate the war in Afghanistan. The intent to chill free speech and particularly to intimidate lawyers who defend clients accused of terrorism is clear, especially in post-9/11 New York.

Since George W. Bush declared it in September 2001, the “war on terrorism” has always been more about consolidating U.S. corporate and government control both abroad and at home than about repelling threats. Lynne Stewart is a victim of that war, which has spread misery abroad and devastated civil liberties in the U.S., especially for Arabs, Muslims and immigrants. But she is not being shut away quietly.

Targeted for disparate and damaging treatment

A longtime civil rights and criminal defense attorney, Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing support to “terrorist” Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, whom the court had appointed her to represent. He had been found guilty in 1995 of conspiring to attack the United Nations and other New York City landmarks. Eighty years old, blind and suffering from diabetes, he was being held in solitary confinement. After he lost his appeals, Stewart and his other two lawyers were trying to get him transferred to a prison in Egypt.

Stewart’s alleged crime was violating a Bureau of Prisons Special Administrative Measure, a regulation barring the Sheikh from any contact with the outside world, when she delivered a press release from the Sheikh to Reuters in 2000. Before that, her co-counsel Ramsey Clark had released multiple press statements from the Sheikh.

Stewart believes she was singled out for prosecution because she is a woman, a radical, an outspoken critic of the government, and a lifelong defender of unpopular clients. As Stewart often puts it, “I wasn’t Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. Attorney and the son of a previous Supreme Court Justice.” And she believes she is now vindictively being sent to prison before her appeals are over for the same reasons.

Defendants are usually granted bail and allowed to stay out of jail before their trials and while their appeals are pending unless they are considered a flight risk. In Stewart’s case, the trial court granted bail two years ago, and she has not fled the country. Instead, she has continued to exercise her First Amendment rights and has spoken out on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal and other political prisoners, organized against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and taken part in numerous demonstrations and picket lines. A frequent speaker at political events, she was a keynoter for Radical Women’s 40th Anniversary Conference in 2008 in San Francisco. The government might have preferred it if she had fled.

Appeals courts usually give considerable deference to the determinations of lower court judges, who see and hear all the evidence and observe the witnesses firsthand. In this recent decision, however, the three judges of the appellate court panel strained to find a basis to lengthen Stewart’s sentence. They claim that trial judge John Keoltl made a procedural error by not deciding whether Stewart committed perjury when she testified that she believed an exception was built into the Special Administrative Measure allowing Abdel Rahman’s attorneys to issue press releases containing statements by the sheikh as part of representing him. The government also claimed she knew the identity of one of the military leaders in Rhaman’s organization earlier than she acknowledged at trial.

In sentencing Stewart, Judge Koeltl had said that these issues were irrelevant. Taking them into account could neither increase Stewart’s maximum possible sentence nor put his relatively light sentence out of bounds.

A frontline case for the rights of all

The Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) calls on Judge Koeltl to resist the obvious political pressure being exerted by the appeals court and to stand by his well-reasoned original decision.

On her way to prison in New York, Stewart declared: “I will go on fighting. This is a case that is bigger than just me, personally. I am no criminal.”

FSP admires Lynne Stewart’s courage and commitment. She is holding strong in the face of a government attempt — first under Bush, and now under Obama — to justify its profit-driven wars of aggression by creating anti-terrorist hysteria and locking away one of its articulate and unquenchable critics.

Stewart’s defense organization needs financial help. Donations can be made to Lynne Stewart Defense Committee, 350 Broadway, Ste. 700, New York, NY 10013. New York City residents can also support Stewart by attending her next court hearing on Dec. 2. Details of the hearing in Judge Koeltl’s courtroom, news and protest updates, and information about more ways to show solidarity can be found at www.lynnestewart.org.

The FSP stands shoulder to shoulder with Stewart in her fight for freedom. We urge all those who value free speech, due process, and the right to an attorney to join in her defense.

Issued by: Freedom Socialist Party, U.S. section
4710 University Way NE Ste. 100
Seattle, WA 98105
fspnatl@igc.org

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This letter on behalf of the Freedom Socialist Party was presented to civil liberties attorney Lynne Stewart on November 18, the day an appeals court upheld her conviction. FSP comrades had joined Lynne and her supporters at a protest in Foley Square in New York City.

Dear Lynne,

On behalf the all the comrades in the Freedom Socialist Party, I am writing to express our collective outrage at the decision remanding you to prison—a decision that came down like a thunderclap, as you said on WBAI radio this morning. We agree with your allusion to the coincidence of this decision with the impending federal trials of alleged terrorists here in New York City. The system currently is addicted to anti-terrorist hysteria to accomplish its goals.

In this instance and in the cases of many others, some of whom you have defended, capitalism reveals its most brutal and callous side. The prosecution’s attempt in the Federal Appeal Court to impugn your personal integrity with accusations that you lied in your trial in describing your radical politics is slanderous. Here once again, you join the illustrious list of defendants such as Mumia Abu Jamal, Victor Toro, Leonard Peltier, Farouk Abdel Muhti and Eugene Debs in defending our collective Constitutional right to oppose discrimination, political repression, war and genocide.

The government’s greatest crime is that in upending your career we are denied one of the movement’s most brilliant and dedicated lawyers, not to mention the personal consequences that your conviction has caused you and your family.

We stand in solidarity with you and are ready to defend your warrior status by any means necessary.

In solidarity,

Stephen Durham
New York City Organizer