For the past year, a 28-year-old Muslim American student, Sayed Fahad Hashmi—the first person extradited to the United States from Britain to face charges of terrorism—has been held at the Manhattan Correctional Center under conditions of confinement that are the very definition of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment."
He has not been charged with being a member of Al Qaeda or for providing any money or resources to any terrorist. He is here—for a trial months away in 2009—for letting a former acquaintance, Junaid Babar, stay for a couple of weeks in his London apartment, where Babar stored several ponchos, raincoats, and waterproof socks in a suitcase. (Hashmi was still in London after receiving a master's degree from London Metropolitan University.)
Babar—not Hashmi—gave these socks and ponchos, it is alleged, to a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda.
A Brooklyn College Grad Experiences the Constitution in a Cage
The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately...
The US Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into a Mississippi sheriff’s department...
Today, Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) delivered a speech on the House floor urging Missouri Governor Mike...
Earlier this year, Oklahoma state lawmakers passed a historic law requiring reduced sentences for survivors of...
