...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Friday, April 25, 2003
      ( 3:26 PM )
 
It's Up to Us to Stop Unjust Imprisonment

I'm a little late on the bandwagon today, but I want my voice to join the chorus. Thanks to Emma over at Notes on the Atrocities (another fabulous Oregon blogger), here is notice on a rally being held in downtown Portland on Tuesday, April 29 (that's this coming Tuesday, kids) in support of Mike Hawash. I've blogged about Mike a couple of times, as have many Oregon and non-Oregon bloggers. He is the local fellow here in the portland area, a U.S. citizen, who was taken into custody by the federal government a month ago and has been held since then with no charges against him. Supposedly he is a "material witness" though God only knows what the hell that means. All we know at this point is that John Ashcroft says that if you're a "material witness" then they can hold you incommunicado endlessly without charging you.

I hope tons of people turn out for the support rally in Portland, and in other cities.

This issue is the watershed issue for the citizens of this country to take back control of our rights and our Constitution. Not only is it unjust for a U.S. citizen (or anyone, for that matter) to be held secretly in this way, it opens up a slippery slope of police-state tactics that we should do everything we can to keep from happening in our country. This kind of imprisonment smells of the British tactic of Internment used in the north of Ireland in the early 70's. While that particular internment made use of massive sweeps of people based on very faulty intelligence and kept hundreds imprisoned indefinitely without charges, this kind of internment is just as insipid. It is no less than a terror tactic used by the state against its citizens. While we are able, we the citizens must be the last gatekeepers of our own rights and freedoms. Standing up against abuses of justice like what is happening to Mike Hawash is not only the right thing to do, it is imperative. We are without excuse. It is our own fault if we allow our elected government to take us down the road to a police state where we have no right to counsel, to silence, to privacy or to due process .

Could you live with yourself if there was a time you could have spoken out and you didn't?

See you at the courthouse on Tuesday.

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