Freedom Socialist • Vol. 25, No. 4 • October-November
Lynne Stewart on trial in New York: civil liberties vs. the new McCarthyism
by Monica Hill
For years, the government has been spying on New York attorney Lynne Stewart — to such an extent that civil liberties defenders say the Department of Justice ought to be arrested and tried for its actions. Instead, it is Lynne Stewart who is on trial, in a courtroom battle that pits the political Left against the far Right, the Constitution against the Attorney General, and the liberty-loving U.S. public against an empire determined to repress its critics and dump due process.
June 22, New York City:
Lynne Stewart on the opening
day of her trial.
It all adds up to a crucial fight against the neo-McCarthyism that has been ignited by the "war on terrorism."
Inventing the crime to fit the punishment. Stewart's saga began in 1995, when the FBI charged Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine others with conspiring to bomb several New York landmarks. Abdel-Rahman, an Islamic fundamentalist leader known as the "blind cleric," was connected to a group in Egypt that was on the Secretary of State's list of terrorist organizations. A judge appointed Lynne Stewart to be the indigent sheik's attorney. Her legal team included translator Mohammed Yousry and paralegal Ahmed Sattar, who are both now codefendants in the Stewart case.
Sheik Abdel-Rahman was eventually convicted of conspiring to blow up the UN, kill Egypt's president and bomb highway tunnels in New York. Historically, the government resorts to charges of conspiracy (contemplation of illegal acts) when it cannot prove illegal activity. The two key witnesses in the trial were informants. One was a former Egyptian army officer who made a million dollars spying for the FBI. The other was one of the alleged conspirators who pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government.
After the conviction, Stewart continued to act as the sheik's legal representative. Abdel-Rahman, a major political and religious figure in the Middle East, was anxious not to disappear into the black hole of U.S. prisons. Stewart insists she was doing her job when, in April 2000, she released the cleric's press statement to Reuters for the Egyptian media.
That's when the government began heavy-duty spying on Stewart, culminating in her arrest two years later. Attorney General Ashcroft jailed Stewart and her legal team for "aiding and abetting a terrorist organization." The highly publicized crackdown was calculated to silence dissidents and scare lawyers from defending them.
Stewart's attorney Michael Tigar defines the case as "an attack on the First Amendment right of free speech, free press and petition" and on "the right to effective assistance of counsel."
"The 'evidence' in this case," he says, "was gathered by wholesale invasion of private conversations, private attorney-client meetings and private faxes, letters and e-mails. I have never seen such an abusive use of governmental power."
The people's heroine. Instead of being intimidated, Stewart took the principled and courageous road of bringing her case to the court of public opinion. A defense committee sprang up. Lawyers and civil liberties experts across the country denounced the arrests. Law students at City University New York (CUNY) gave her their annual award for public interest lawyer of the year. Stewart is invited to speak all over the country and a steady stream of supporters troop into the courtroom.
In the post-9/11 chill characterized by brazen government detentions of people from the Middle East, Stewart is the first attorney targeted by the Justice Department. She attributes this to the fact that she is a radical and a woman.
Long before she met Sheik Abdel-Rahman, Lynne Stewart's life and politics were decidedly leftist. She has marched and demonstrated, spoken up for and represented countless protesters. Her clients have included Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, the Ohio Seven, the Black Liberation Army and busloads of less visible cases. "My whole entire career," she says, "has been about the government expanding its powers to make more and more criminal what could be considered political."
The rightwing Front Page Magazine sees Stewart as evil incarnate: "the most notorious terrorist advocate ... a self proclaimed champion of terrorism and an avowed Communist..." With enemies like these, Stewart must be doing something right!
Inside the courtroom. The best way to get a picture of the trial is to read Stewart's fascinating blog (web journal) at www.lynnestewart.org. The government has been presenting its case for nearly two months and, as Stewart puts it, it's sheer "Snoozeville." Witnesses play damaged surveillance tapes and grainy videos. They read endless, poorly translated speeches by the sheik that are intended to show he's a terrorist and hence, by association, so must be Stewart and her codefendants. Innuendo and smears are the government's favored tactics. For example, shortly before the third anniversary of September 11, the prosecution showed the jury a four-year-old video of Osama bin Laden calling on Muslims to fight for Sheik Abdel-Rahman's freedom.
The bright side of the trial is the show of public support for Stewart, Yousry and Sattar. Courtroom visitors have included Sharon Salaam, mother of one of the wrongly convicted youths in the Central Park jogger case; Kathleen Cleaver, former Black Panther leader; Rafael Anglada, an attorney who has defended Puerto Rican independistas and is on the defense team for the Miami Five; and one of Stewart's clients, Nasser Ahmen, who was held three years in solitary confinement on the basis of fraudulent secret evidence. "This is the face of my America," Stewart writes.
Sometime in October, the defense will finally get to tell its story. It will resonate with the half-million people who marched against the Republican National Convention in New York City in August and with the millions across the country who are not fooled by the government's criminal "war on terror."
Warns Stewart, "We are in our time the Communists of the Fifties, the Scottsboro Boys [of the 1930s], the Anarchists [in the late 1800s]. And now the Terrorists — whatever Imperial America can frighten the people with. Judges included."
Help keep Stewart and her codefendants out of prison by publicizing this fight and, if possible, attending the trial. Send donations to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee, 350 Broadway, Ste. 700, New York, NY 10013. For more info, call 212-625-9696 or e-mail info @ lynnestewart.org. Strike back for civil liberties!
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