Yassin Aref
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September/October 2007, pages 19-20, 23
Justice For All?
From Sting to Frame-Up: The Case of Yassin Aref
By Stephen Downs
Yassin Aref hugs a friend after being released from jail upon posting bond, Aug. 26, 2004 (Photo Will Waldron, Copyright Albany Times Union).
FOR THE PAST three years, I have witnessed the federal government’s attempt to destroy the life and family of Yassin Aref, a Muslim imam from Albany, New York. In 2004, the government brought bogus terrorism-related charges against him in an FBI sting operation. In October 2006 Yassin was convicted of some of the charges, and in April 2007 he was sent to the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana to serve a 15-year sentence. There he was placed in the Communication Management Unit (CMU), a special wing of the prison formed in December 2006 for the purpose of isolating prisoners, especially Muslims whose offenses include anything even indirectly related to terrorism (see May/June 2007 Washington Report, p. 12). Continue reading . . .
Read the Amicus brief filed by Project SALAM for Yassin Aref
Read the full text of the FBI's post-sentencing press conference.
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2007, pages 5-6
Letters to the Editor
Appalled and Outraged
MY FIRST FOCUS IS, and will remain, on the endlessly tormented people of Palestine. But I was appalled and outraged at the mistreatment of Imam Yassin Aref and his family, reported with such articulateness by Stephen Downs in your Sept./Oct issue (“From Sting to Frame-Up: The Case of Yassin Aref,” p. 19). America has become a cruel parody of a freedom-loving, justice-serving nation, and we are all shamefully complicit in one way or another. Continue reading . . .