Contents
1. Summary
2. Background
3. Action required
1. Summary
This Ramadan IHRC encourages all campaigners to write letters of support and encouragement to prisoners of faith and political prisoners mentioned below. Campaigners can also send them cards on Eid to raise their spirits and to show them that we remember them.
2. Background
IHRC encourages all campaigners to write letters of support and encouragement to prisoners of faith and political prisoners mentioned below, especially during Ramadan. Many of them have been languishing behind bars for more than five years, in deplorable conditions and treated in the most inhumane manner. We need to raise their spirits and offer them warm words of support so that they know that we have not forgotten them and that we remember them in our prayers.
Ramadan is a month of mercy and compassion and hence is an ideal time to write to these prisoners of faith and remind them that Allah’s mercy encompasses all and that they should never lose hope of His mercy. Ramadan is also a month wherein Allah looks at our competition with each other in good deeds and multiplies the reward for His servants. Therefore we should take this opportunity to do good in this blessed month and should not underestimate the worth of the words we write to uplift and cheer up those in low spirits.
Campaigners can also send Eid cards to these prisoners to raise their spirits. You can visit the IHRC website for a range of IHRC Eid cards: LINK
If you wish, please let us know if you receive a reply to your letter or send us a copy of your letter and/or the reply you received.
3. Action Required
Write to the following prisoners this Ramadan:
a) Imam Jamil al-Amin – USA
Before becoming Muslim Imam Jamil was one of the leading spokespersons against the Jim Crow laws of the 1960s which served to legally segregate whites from blacks in America. After converting to Islam, he became an outstanding Islamic leader and served his neighbourhood community tirelessly. On 16 March 2000, Imam Jamil was sentenced to life imprisonment at Georgia State Prison, in Reidsville, on charges of 13 counts of murder and felony murder for shooting two deputies, one of whom, Deputy Ricky Kinchen, died as a result of the shootings. However, there is ample concern over the fairness of the trial in which he was convicted. For more information, please visit: LINK
Please write to him at:
Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
99974555
U.S. Penitentiary
P.O. Box 8500
Florence CO, 81226
USA
b) Khairat Al-Shater
Khairat Al-Shater, deputy to the supreme guide of Muslim Brotherhood – MB (Ikhwan Al Muslimeen), was arrested with many other influential MB leaders in December 2006 following a protest by student MB members against unfair government policies. Detained MB members were subsequently subjected to trumped-up charges of terrorism, money-laundering and financing a banned organization with little or no evidence to substantiate these claims. After spending over a year in prison, on 15 April 2008, Khairat Al-Shater was given a prison sentence of seven years. He has been given access to medical care and his lawyers, however theirs been no changes in his legal pursuit for justice, and he has been denied presidential pardon which is customary for convicts who have served half of their sentence. Several other MB detainees were sentenced as well. For more information, please visit: LINK
Please write to him at:
Khairat Al-Shater
Turah Jail
Cairo – Turah
Egypt
c) Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman – USA
Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, is the elderly Egyptian sheikh, imprisoned in the US in 1995 under sedition laws last used during the American civil war. He is now 72 years of age and his health has deteriorated significantly; chances of his death are imminent and so his family would like him to spend his last moments in Egypt with his family. For more information please visit: LINK
Please write to him:
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman 34892-054
FMC Butner
Federal Medical Center
P.O. Box 1600
Butner, NC 27509
USA
d) Ghassan Elashi – USA
Ghassan Elashi, a Palestinian-American and chairman of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), formerly the largest Muslim charity in the US, was sentenced to 65 years in prison in May 2009, following a mistrial from 2007. In the trail, federal prosecutors used secret evidence and secret witnesses to establish a connection between HLF and Hamas. The Texas jury was convinced that the HLF materially supported Hamas by giving humanitarian aid to Palestinian charities, amongst which included charities that the United Nations and USAID sent money to. Elashi is currently housed in a Communications Management Unit (CMU) in Terre Haute, Indiana. The CMU prisons have been controversial since their inception as they did not go through the regular approval process and have been described by critics as ‘America’s own Guantanamo bay’.
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“And what reason have you that you should not fight in the way of Allah and of the weak among the men and the women and the children, (of) those who say: Our Lord! Cause us to go forth from this town, whose people are oppressors, and give us from Thee a guardian and give us from Thee a helper.”
Holy Qur’an: Chapter 4, Verse 75
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