Local activist Jared Hoey explained, “Rasmea Odeh has been a tireless activist in her community, working to advocate for women’s rights and immigrants’ rights as the Associate Director of the Arab American Action Network. It is ironic that this strong worker for social justice is on trial this election day.”

Danya Zituni a student at the University of South Florida stated, “Students for Justice in Palestine stands with Rasmea, as we stand for all political prisoners. We demand justice for Rasmea, as well we demand for all Palestinians under occupation.”

An immigrant rights leader, Marisol Marquez, spoke out against the potential deportation of Odeh, “We fully support Rasmea Odeh because she is an immigrant from Palestine. Like many immigrants who to come to the U.S., she was forced to come here as a result of the actions of the U.S. government in the Middle East” Marquez continued, “Like many of us in Raices en Tampa know, the errors on immigration papers are expensive, and heavily felt in the homes of immigrants.”

Gage Lacharite of Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society said, “What the United States government failed to realize is that as long as they continue to spy on us, as long as they continue to frame us for crimes, as long as they continue locking us up for speaking out against their crimes, we will only get stronger. Our case against them only gets more damning. Our resolve to see this through till the end becomes greater, and our understanding that it becomes a struggle of us against them becomes clearer.”

Alongside Odeh’s case, Jared Hamil spoke on the railroading of Sami Osmakac. Osmakac is a young man suffering from mental illness who was coerced into a crime by FBI informants. Hamil announced, “Tomorrow at this courthouse, Sami Osmakac will be sentenced for bogus charges, trumped up by an FBI entrapment case. This is part of an ongoing repression of Arab-Americans and Muslims in the United States. Hundreds of cases like Sami’s have happened as a way to fuel the “War on Terror” and as a way to silence those from occupied countries.”

For more information, please visit www.stopfbi.net and www.supportsami.wordpress.com.

Video here:

#TampaFL #PoliticalRepression #RasmeaOdeh #SamiOsmakac

Tampa, FL – On July 1, at the Sam Gibbons Federal Courthouse, activists and family of Sami Osmakac spoke against the verdict from his recent trial. They talked about how Osmakac's case, like hundreds of others in the U.S., was a result of pre-emptive prosecution. Pre-emptive prosecution is the prosecution of people who have not committed any crimes, and who pose no danger to people. Usually the FBI targets Muslims and Arab-Americans and uses informants and agents to push them into carrying out fake plots invented by the FBI.

Sami Osmakac is a mentally ill man who was recently found guilty of charges related to terrorism. The FBI had placed informants in local Tampa mosques that pushed Osmakac into making “radical YouTube videos.” They later gave him money to buy their fake weapons so he could carry out a ‘terrorist plot’ that they had created.

Jared Hamil, a local activist with the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, said, “The FBI took advantage of a mentally ill man and pushed him to commit plots that the FBI had invented.” He went on to say, “The U.S. government is targeting people not because of crimes they commit but because of their beliefs, nationality and ideology.”

Avni Osmakac spoke of his brother's interactions with FBI informants. “Everything my brother knew about religion came from them [the FBI]. They were behind the scenes the whole time.”

He said the FBI had spent years working on Sami Osmakac. They pushed him away from his family and away from medical treatment. “We tried to get my brother to go to the doctor, but he would always refuse saying that they would kill him. That's why he went to the mosques. And the government keeps informants in the mosques and that's where they got a hold of my brother.”

Jared Hoey, also with the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, spoke of other cases around the country. “The government is currently targeting long-time activist Rasmea Odeh. She has done nothing wrong and committed no crime. The harassment of Muslims, Arab-Americans and anti-war activists needs to end. The only thing these people are guilty of is being Muslim or Arab-American in a country that targets them for repression.”

#TampaFL #FBI #CommitteeToStopFBIRepression #PoliticalRepression #SamiOsmakac

Speaking for the family of Sami Osmakac, his brother Avni Osmakac stated, “The whole trial was unfair from the beginning. The FBI terrorized my brother, who is a sick person. They're the ones really committing the crimes. They destroy lives, destroy families, and destroy democracy.” He went on to say, “The justice system has been thrown out of the window.”

The US government used informants and spies to coax Osmakac into making “radical YouTube videos”. The FBI eventually got him to buy fake weapons, with money the FBI gave him, and then arrested him on felony charges. Osmakac's trial is like many others in the US, where the government prosecutes Muslims and Arab-Americans for pre-emptive crimes—crimes the FBI sets up, but that are not actually committed. Osmakac's defense said that the FBI entrapped a mentally ill man.

The trial was marked by many problems. The government's case was based on a small number of recordings pieced together over multiple years. However, the US government kept thousands of other recordings secret, sighting “national security”. As well, the prosecution brought in paid witnesses unrelated to the case. Evan Kohlmann, a consultant who makes a living testifying in terrorism trials for the US government was hired to fabricate a “Hollywood” story to sway the jurors.

The trial is especially difficult for Osmakac's family. Like trials similar to this one, it is hard to find a lawyer who will work on this type of case. Eventually the family had to sell their house in order to raise money for the lawyer's costs that run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Antiwar and civil liberty activists are speaking out against the trial, and the persecution of Muslims, Arab-Americans and political activists. In Tampa, Mel Underbakke of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms said, “The really sad thing about these entrapment cases is that it traumatizes the whole family, not just the target of the entrapment.”

For the future Avni Osmakac hopes an appeal goes through. He said, “Where is all the evidence? Why are they hiding it all? People need to stop believing the government. If people want the real truth about Muslims, people should go out on the street and talk to one.”

#TampaFL #FBI #FBIRepression #PoliticalRepression #SamiOsmakac

Osmakac immigrated with his family from Kosovo in the aftermath of the war in 2000. As a devout Muslim, Osmakac attended mosques throughout the Tampa Bay area. He later became a U.S. citizen. He frequently talked about the local homeless problem in the Tampa Bay area and helped give food to those in need. He also has no prior criminal record.

Osmakac was arrested in January 2012 after allegedly trying to buy weapons off of undercover FBI agents. Since then, he has spent almost two and a half years in solitary confinement. Currently he is housed in the medical area of the Pinellas County jail under suicide watch. Before his arrest he had been diagnosed with mental illnesses.

Mel Underbakke, education committee director of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms (NCPCF), is a local activist who had previously worked on the Sami Al-Arian trial in Tampa and is speaking out against this injustice. Underbakke said, “This is the third ‘terrorism’ trial I have attended at Sam Gibbons Federal Courthouse. The first two resulted in not guilty of terrorism verdicts by juries, but in both cases, the defendants had spent months and years in solitary confinement before the trial. Sadly, once again the defendant Sami Osmakac has not been accused of committing any violence, but nonetheless has been held in solitary confinement for two years before his trial began. Solitary confinement is torture and has the same lasting effects as physical torture.”

The federal prosecutors are using recordings from two FBI informants who had been spying on Osmakac or months. However, he had been talking with and led on by FBI informants for much longer. Sami Osmakac’s brother Avni Osmakac, said he had “seen agents around his house every day since 2010.” Their house frequently had undercover police vehicles parked nearby. Back then Sami had worked as a grocery stocker for a local market. This is where they think he met the first government informant. From there he spent over a year being coaxed and pushed by agents into making “radical YouTube videos”. He was eventually guided into buying fake weapons with money given to him by the FBI. Government videos show FBI informants teaching and pushing Sami into committing acts of terrorism.

The U.S. government has been trying to build a case of lies and doctored evidence to portray a mentally ill man as a terrorist. Accidental recordings between informants and their FBI supervisors have revealed other important information. From the beginning it shows, the supervisors were telling the informants to get them a “Hollywood ending.” And that the recordings of Osmakac were “gifts” for the government prosecution. It also revealed what the informants thought of Sami. At one point they said Sami was “wishy-washy” and doubted whether or not he would even carry out the FBI's planned “attack”.

Like in the other trials, the U.S. government tries to portray Muslims, Arab-Americans and even anti-war activists as terrorists. Jared Hamil, of the Tampa Committee to Stop FBI Repression says, “They do so for two reasons – for propagandizing for their wars on countries in the Middle East and to scare other Muslims and Arab peoples from speaking out against U.S.-led invasions and occupations. Just as we see with the case of Rasmea Odeh, the U.S. government will do whatever it can to silence those who are outspoken and calling them out.”

Avni Osmakac states, “the real terrorism is going on in the courtroom.” Activists in the area plan to speak out against this trial in the coming weeks.

#TampaFL #PoliticalPrisoners #Islamophobia #politicalRepression #InjusticeSystem #SamiOsmakac