Fight Back News Service is following statement from the Rasmea Defense Committee, Committee to Stop FBI Repression, and U.S. Palestinian Community Network.

The Rasmea Defense Committee, Committee to Stop FBI Repression, and U.S. Palestinian Community Network are urging everyone to join us in Detroit, August 17, to show our love and support for Rasmea at her sentencing in federal court. The will be her last court appearance and Rasmea is planning to make a statement.

The plea agreement that has already been reached states that Rasmea will not get additional jail time – but she will have to leave the U.S.

Given the near daily attacks on Rasmea in the right-wing and pro-Israeli media, we expect that a fair amount of attention will be focused on the sentencing. It is critical that the courtroom be filled with her supporters.

WHEN: Thursday, August 17, at 1:30 PM Eastern Time (rally at 1:30 PM, hearing starts at 3 PM)

WHERE: U.S. District Court, 231 W. Lafayette Blvd., downtown Detroit, Michigan

#UnitedStates #ImmigrantRights #PoorPeoplesMovements #WomensMovement #PeoplesStruggles #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #PoliticalPrisoners #PoliticalRepression #RasmeaOdeh #FreeRasmeaNowJustice4Rasmea

Detroit, MI – A major mobilization is underway to support Palestinian American leader Rasmea Odeh at her appearance in Detroit Federal Court, on Tuesday, April 25, at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. A solidarity rally at starts at 1:00 PM and the hearing begins at 2:30 p.m., at U.S. District Court, 231 W Lafayette Boulevard, downtown Detroit.

A statement from the Rasmea Defense Committee states, “It is essential that we fill the courtroom in support of our leader and shero Rasmea Odeh, who accepted a plea agreement two weeks ago and will be forced to leave the U.S. soon.”

Speaking about the political context of the plea agreement, the Rasmea Defense Committee noted, “The prosecution team is now under the regime of racist Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and a new superseding indictment re-frames this as a case about ‘terrorism’ rather than immigration. There is the great likelihood that a jury would be prejudiced by hearing the Zionist Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel call Rasmea a ‘terrorist’ and her supporters ‘mobs and hordes,’ as he has done many times before. As a Palestinian who has dedicated her life to the cause of liberation, it is impossible for Rasmea to expect a fair trial in U.S. courts.”

Supporters from Chicago and other parts of Illinois, as well as from Milwaukee, Detroit/Dearborn, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Cincinnati, Indiana, and other Midwest areas are already committed to attend.

#DetroitMI #ImmigrantRights #PeoplesStruggles #PoliticalPrisoners #PoliticalRepression #RasmeaOdeh #FreeRasmeaNowJustice4Rasmea

WHEN: Tuesday, April 25th, 2017, at 1:00 PM Eastern Time (rally at 1:00 PM, hearing starts at 2:30 PM)

WHERE: U.S. District Court, 231 W. Lafayette Blvd., downtown Detroit, Michigan

The Rasmea Defense Committee is calling on everyone to mobilize for Rasmea’s final court appearance in Detroit on April 25th, and

#UnitedStates #ImmigrantRights #WomensMovement #PeoplesStruggles #PoliticalRepression #RasmeaOdeh #FreeRasmeaNowJustice4Rasmea

One motion calls on Judge Gershwin Drain to suppress all evidence procured through torture. Citing the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the constitution, and international law, including the Convention against Torture, Deutsch argues that any evidence based on Odeh’s confession to the Israelis in 1969, which came as the result of an illegal arrest and subsequent torture, cannot be allowed a hearing in court.

In a second motion for discovery, Deutsch is asking the prosecutors for all evidence relating to Odeh’s arrest and torture, including the names of her torturers and any “use of force” guidelines the Israelis used in the late 1960s. Israel still regularly employs the use of torture against Palestinians, including children. In court, these documents will help to prove the systematic nature of decades of Israeli torture of Palestinians, and as it relates to this case.

In Odeh’s case, her torture was documented by the United Nations, and again by psychologist Dr. Mary Fabri, a world-renowned torture expert, during Fabri’s clinical evaluation and subsequent diagnosis of Odeh’s post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In her written affidavit to the court, Dr. Fabri recounts the horrific details of Odeh’s torture at the hands of the Israelis, including physical beatings, intentional medical neglect, psychological torture, and sleep deprivation; being forced to witness the torture of her friends and family; and, of course, the sexual assault and violence to which she was subjected.

These new motions follow the filing weeks ago of one that takes aim at a “vindictive” superseding indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney following the appellate court decision that reversed Odeh’s conviction. The new indictment accuses Rasmea Odeh of “terrorism” by alleging she was a member of a Palestinian political party on the U.S. State Department’s list of designated foreign terrorist organizations. The most important question Judge Drain will consider at the upcoming hearing is whether to allow the new indictment at all, which is being challenged by the defense on a number of legal fronts, including for violating the statute of limitations.

“If the indictment is thrown out, we know that Rasmea can win this case at trial,” said Muhammad Sankari of the Rasmea Defense Committee in Chicago. “If it’s not, Rasmea and her team are ready for a fight. She survived brutal torture at the hands of the Israelis, and that should not be used to help the U.S. government persecute her today.”

Judge Drain will rule on all the motions at the next pretrial hearing, which has been moved from April 4 to April 25,or shortly thereafter.

The Rasmea Defense Committee is urging supporters to pack the courtroom in Detroit. The defense committee states, “We are calling on all of Rasmea’s supporters to meet us on Tuesday, April 25, in front of the U.S. District Court at 231 W. Lafayette Blvd in downtown Detroit, Michigan, at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, for a rally before the 2:30 p.m. hearing.”

#DetroitMI #ImmigrantRights #Palestine #US #PeoplesStruggles #PoliticalRepression #RasmeaOdeh #FreeRasmeaNowJustice4Rasmea

Today, Jan. 31, the lawyers defending Palestinian American activist Rasmea Odeh moved to dismiss the new indictment that was brought against her in December 2016. The motion and supporting brief argue that the government’s “superseding indictment has substantially broadened the scope of the trial and the evidence that will be relevant and at issue.”

It also states that the new indictment, filed well beyond the statute of limitations in immigration law, is so different from the original 2013 indictment that it cannot be accepted by the court. The statute of limitations for the alleged 2004 offense is ten years. This new indictment tries to bring fundamentally different charges against Odeh.

Finally, Odeh’s defense exposes the U.S. Attorney’s filing of the superseding indictment as a retaliatory and vindictive act. The conviction that the prosecutors won in court in 2014 was overturned in 2016 because the court violated her right to a full defense. Odeh was not allowed to present expert testimony that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the torture she suffered at the hands of her Israeli captors in Palestine in 1969. Now the desperate prosecution is trying to bring terrorism charges against her. This is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to prejudice the jury by using buzz words such as ‘terrorism’ to paint an unfavorable view of Odeh.

When she was first falsely charged with a crime by the Israelis in 1969, Odeh had been arrested along with close to 500 others in Jerusalem. The occupation forces of the Israeli military singled her out to force her into a confession, through the use of physical, psychological and sexual torture. It is well known that Israeli documents from that unlawful conviction were the ones used by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Detroit to bring charges against her in 2013. Odeh’s attorneys had previously challenged the judge’s allowance of these documents into evidence, since they were procured by documented torture in another country.

During her first trial, Judge Gershwin Drain repeatedly stated that he would not allow the retrying of Odeh for the allegations against her from 45 years earlier. The motion filed today states, “Now that this Court has properly ruled that the PTSD testimony is admissible, the government wants to convert this trial into a political one about terrorism, and the defendant’s acts and affiliations almost fifty years after the fact.”

“We believe that we have a strong case,” said Bassem Kawar of the Rasmea Defense Committee. “It is clear that the prosecutors are desperately trying to levy ridiculous charges at Rasmea, in hopes that they can confuse the jury and distract them from the evidence of torture and PTSD that will be presented at the new trial.”

#DetroitMI #ImmigrantRights #PeoplesStruggles #PoliticalRepression #RasmeaOdeh #FreeRasmeaNowJustice4Rasmea

Please continue to support the defense fund by making a generous donation NOW!

After an unjust conviction in Detroit, Rasmea started 2016 facing a sentence of 18 months and the loss of her U.S. citizenship. With your support, and an incredible legal team, Rasmea led the continued fight for justice. You worked hard to share Rasmea’s story at events and actions in cities across the country, and more than once, you got #Justice4Rasmea trending on Twitter. When word came of victory in Rasmea’s appeal, you mobilized to Detroit for the June hearing to ensure she would get a new trial; and you were prepared to go there again for the retrial, where Rasmea would finally tell her story of brutal torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

Feeling the heat just weeks before that trial date, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade announced a new attack on Rasmea – a new grand jury indictment that aims to ensure Rasmea stand before a jury as an accused terrorist. This move lays bare what we have said all along – the immigration charge against Rasmea is a pretext for a broader attempt to criminalize the Palestine liberation movement. Undoubtedly, prosecutors also hoped this desperate move would drive Rasmea’s supporters away. We are counting on you to prove them wrong!

As Frank Chapman, Field Organizer for the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and one of the main supporters of the Rasmea Defense Committee, has said on many occasions, “Rasmea's is the most important political trial in the U.S. today!” A new trial date has been set for May 16, 2017. Rasmea’s wonderful defense team – Michael Deutsch, Jim Fennerty, Dennis Cunningham, Bill Goodman, Huwaida Arraf, and other legal workers, clerks, and volunteers – have a mountain of work to prepare the courtroom defense. At the same time, we will have more pre-trial hearings, plus the trial itself, to mobilize supporters to Detroit. So we are going to need at least another $50,000 in the days ahead, for the legal and community organizing expenses.

So we’re asking for your support. Please donate generously to Rasmea’s defense, as we prepare for the next round of this fight.

Thank you again, and Happy Holidays from Rasmea Odeh and the Rasmea Defense Committee!

#Justice4Rasmea #DropTheChargesNow

Visit www.justice4rasmea.org for more information.

#UnitedStates #PeoplesStruggles #PoliticalRepression #RasmeaOdeh #FreeRasmeaNowJustice4Rasmea

Over 100 people from all over the Midwest gathered in Detroit to support Rasmea Odeh as she, her attorneys, and the prosecution appeared before Judge Gershwin Drain for a status conference on Monday, June 13, 2016.

After the conference ended, Rasmea joined the waiting crowd chanting her name, and Michael Deutsch, her lead attorney, addressed the media, explaining that a tentative date for a new trial has been set for January 10, 2017!

This is what the Rasmea Defense Committee has been anticipating ever since the appellate court decision a few months ago. Rasmea was convicted of a politically-motivated immigration charge in 2014, and sentenced to 18 months in prison and deportation last year. In February 2016, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Judge Drain, saying he had wrongfully barred the testimony of a torture expert that was critical to Rasmea’s defense. At the trial, Rasmea was not allowed to tell the entire story of Israel forcing her to falsely confess to alleged bombings in 1969, when she endured over three weeks of vicious sexual, physical, and psychological torture at the hands of the Israeli military.

Rasmea suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because of this torture, which, according to world renowned psychologist, Dr. Mary Fabri, caused her to suppress the horrible recollection of the arrest when she answered questions on her immigration application. Judge Drain excluded Fabri’s testimony from the trial, and disallowed any evidence about the rape and torture. Appeals court judges sided with the defense, and wrote in their opinion that if the judge cannot determine new legal avenues to exclude the expert testimony, Rasmea must be granted a new trial, which it appears will happen.

At the status conference yesterday, the government called for a “Daubert hearing,” which is used to challenge the validity and admissibility of expert testimony (in this case, Fabri’s), and also requested to examine Rasmea with its own expert. If the hearing is granted by Judge Drain, it will happen on November 29 of this year, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

Two other positive developments occurred yesterday as well. Deutsch requested to have Rasmea’s “burdensome reporting requirements” to probation authorities reduced from once a week to once a month. Judge Drain did not object, commenting that his earlier concerns about her being a flight risk “have been alleviated.” He also suggested that he would be willing to ease travel restrictions and allow Rasmea to occasionally travel within the U.S. The government wants to speak to the probationary authorities before agreeing to the end of the travel ban.

And speaking of the government, we all remember the Zionist, right wing ideologue Jonathan Tukel, the lead prosecutor on the case, who was handled deftly by Rasmea during his disrespectful cross examination of her, and who described us as “mobs and hoards [sic]” while trying to criminalize our organizing of Rasmea’s political defense. Well, he’s GONE. He is off the case, and we are happy that we do not have to deal with his racist arrogance any longer.

While waiting for Rasmea and her defense attorneys to join them, her supporters—who hailed from Chicago, Detroit, Dearborn, Ann Arbor, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Minneapolis, and even as far away as Texas, and included about a dozen leaders from the Arab Women’s Committee that Rasmea leads—rallied outside of the downtown courthouse for almost three hours, chanting and picketing and listening to solidarity speeches from organizers and activists who have traveled many times to be with Rasmea at previous court appearances.

Frank Chapman of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression opened the program with a pledge to continue to fight for #Justice4Rasmea and to “free all political prisoners in the U.S.” Linden Gawboy and Mick Kelly brought greetings from the Welfare Rights Committee (WRC) and the Committee to Stop FBI Repression (CSFR) in Minneapolis. Kelly called the case “a political trial carried out by an empire trying desperately to shore up an increasingly unpopular and unstable Israel,” and Gawboy’s WRC mobilized more people to pack the courtroom for Rasmea’s trial in 2014 than any other organization outside of Chicago.

Fariba Nourian, an Iranian-American with the Cincinnati Palestine Solidarity Coalition ended her statement with a quote from Assata Shakur: “It is our duty to fight. It is our duty to win!” Nadine Darwish, a leader of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Loyola University-Chicago, discussed the importance of Rasmea’s life and work to students everywhere. And Detroit poet Tawana Petty (aka Honeycomb) joined Kristian Bailey, member of both the Black Youth Project (BYP) 100 and the National SJP, to talk about Black-Palestinian solidarity and recite a poem from the powerful video, WHEN I SEE THEM I SEE US.

As Rasmea herself stated during the press conference, “We want you to continue to help build our movement across the country as we seek justice. I need you now more than ever. It is together that we can win.”

And as we continue to chalk up victories, you can continue to help by donating to the defense, organizing educational events in your communities, staying in touch through justice4rasmea.org, and shifting the demand to Drop the Charges Now!

Rasmea Defense Committee, led by U.S. Palestinian Community Network and CSFR Tuesday, June 14, 2016

#DetroitMI #PoliticalRepression #RasmeaOdeh #FreeRasmeaNowJustice4Rasmea