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February 5, 2004 Government Again Refuses to Release Palestinian Immigrant: Press Conference at 12:30 PM, Friday, February 6
For Release: Late on Wednesday, February 4, attorneys for the US government filed a response to U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane claiming that the continued detention of New York-based Palestinian immigrant Farouk Abdel-Muhti is justified because he has not "cooperated" with his own removal from the US. Abdel-Muhti is a stateless Palestinian, born in Ramallah district in 1947; under Israeli law he is not permitted to return to the West Bank, and no other country has agreed to accept him. The government has kept him in jail for more than 21 months, claiming it needs to hold him while arranging his deportation. Abdel-Muhti is 56 years old and his health is deteriorating. Abdel-Muhti's lead attorney, Shayana Kadidal of the New York- based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), is seeking an order from Judge Kane for his client's immediate release. Kadidal says papers previously filed show conclusively that Abdel-Muhti's detention is not lawful under the US Supreme Court's June 2001 Zadvydas v. Davis ruling, which mandates the release of detainees whose deportation orders cannot be carried out within a reasonable period of time--generally six months. The thrust of the government's argument is that because Abdel- Muhti misrepresented himself in the early 1960s when he was a teenager, nothing he does now to correct the record can be considered cooperation. The government says Abdel-Muhti should be actively seeking to prove his identity and to obtain travel documents--but it provides no explanation of how he could do so. In earlier filings, the government claimed that Abdel-Muhti may be either Palestinian or Honduran and that in either case he could easily be deported. Honduras has now backed Abdel-Muhti's insistence that he is not Honduran, while the Palestine National Authority representation in Washington, DC, has reiterated that it cannot issue travel documents for him. Abdel-Muhti's lengthy detention has generated significant media attention and a public pressure campaign that includes rallies, pickets and numerous letters and calls to immigration officials. His supporters say the government is holding him because of his constitutionally protected advocacy for an equitable, negotiated solution to the conflict in his homeland. Abdel-Muhti was arrested on April 26, 2002, one month after he began working regularly at the New York radio station WBAI-FM arranging interviews with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Members of Abdel-Muhti's legal team will hold a press conference and update on the case on Friday, February 6, 2004, at 12:30 pm at 26 Federal Plaza (Broadway at Worth Street) in Manhattan. It will be preceded by a brief rally starting soon after 12 noon. WRITE to Farouk:
Farouk Abdel-Muhti
Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti
www.freefarouk.org |