Exonerated in terror case, 4 brothers still locked up (40 months later)

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/01/25/MNGAUB00GU1.DTL

Los Angeles -- Four Iranian brothers have spent the past 40 months locked up in federal detention despite a court ruling last summer clearing them of terrorism-related charges leveled by the Department of Homeland Security.

The men, real estate agents in the Los Angeles area, are accused of being members of an Iranian group that is on the U.S. government's terrorist list, although the group is regarded by some American lawmakers as a legitimate resistance organization.

The Mirmehdi brothers -- Mohsen, Mojtaba, Mohammed and Mostafa -- have been detained since October 2001 by the Department of Homeland Security under the Patriot Act. Marc Van Der Hout, a San Francisco lawyer who is leading the Mirmehdis' defense, calls his clients "victims of post-9/11 hysteria."

"It's clear that some people in government want them kept in jail and want a hard line on them," he said.

more

[DebJ]

1. "liberty" "freedom" "liberty" "freedom" "liberty" "freedom" etc n/t

[wtbymark]

2. that is the most insane situation i've ever read

it's right in line with our schizophrenic administration. Publically arrest MEK members and label them terrorists when the administration houses and protects them in Iraq. Members of congress have attended and even suppoted (at least morally) their group. Someone really needs to bash the entire administration in the head with a shovel and put them, and us, out of misery. What-fricken-next?

[NNN0LHI]

4. More about the MEK. Ashcroft is big buddies with these guys

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041128/news_1n28brothers.html

<snip>The brothers are part of a different category: an untold number of immigrants labeled national security threats because they allegedly belong to one of 27 organizations designated as terrorist groups by the State Department. And like the brothers, most if not all of these immigrants are not charged with terrorism. The brothers' attorney and government critics say innocents are caught in a net that has been cast too widely. Even if the government allegations were true, attorney Marc Van Der Hout said, "all they have done is associate themselves with an organization that (Attorney General) John Ashcroft himself publicly praised a few years ago."

The organization is Mujahadeen Khalq, or MEK, which hopes to overthrow the Islamist government of Iran and replace it with a democracy. This is a goal shared by numerous members of Congress, many of whom decry Iran's human rights violations and its efforts to develop uranium enrichment programs. They see the MEK as freedom fighters.

The MEK began in the 1960s as one of many groups opposing the shah of Iran. But after the shah's downfall in 1979, it ran afoul of the Islamist regime and its members went into exile. Although the State Department declared MEK a terrorist organization in 1997, the group has attracted wide support among Democrats and Republicans in Congress, including Ashcroft, who was then a senator from Missouri. More than 250 members signed a petition in 2000 asking the State Department to drop the MEK from its terrorist list. Some of that support eroded after the Sept. 11 attacks.

more

[jayfish]

6. Sounds Like Any Old Two-Bit Dictatorship To Me.

What's the big deal. :shrug:

Jay

[EFerrari]

3. This country has gone completely insane.

How can we even read these stories and not run screaming into the streets? Maybe because there's SO MANY of them.:nuke:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. I eagerly await the mental gyrations of RW punishists

trying to tell us this is NOT a violation of rights.