There’s an extremely moving blog post on Huffington Post today from Laila Al-Arian. Here’s an excerpt:

Laila Al-Arian: My Family’s Nightmare Caught on Film – Politics on The Huffington Post
Prosecutors in Northern Virginia may soon charge my father with criminal contempt, according to a recent report in The New York Sun. This maneuver would be a shameless abuse of the criminal justice system and an abominable waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars. If prosecutors charge my father with criminal contempt, it will be obvious to everyone watching that it’s nothing more than a case of sour grapes.

Earlier in her post Laila refers to boilerplate language having been eliminated–apparently strategically so–from an agreement her father had signed, which opened him up to a raft of more trouble. As I read on and saw such things as the case against her father being centered on his “political profile,” a juror saying “the State hadn’t met its own standards” for conviction, and that “Kromberg and his DOJ cronies are abusing their power to lock him up indefinitely,” I said to myself, “This is boilerplate bureaucratic abuse.”

In my case I was prosecuted for my politcal profile, as it were, and certainly not for any professional malfeasance. (The original complaint against me had once been investigated and completely dismissed, before it was somehow mysteriously reopened with no new evidence.) Also in my case the state didn’t meet its own standards for conviction. The appeal judge cited three requirements necessary for a finding of malpractice, and the state didn’t come close to meeting even one of those requirements. Lastly, in my case as well, the bureaucrat who drove the process appeared to be intent on tying me up in red tape as long as possible, to do as much damage to me as possible.

There are certainly more parallels between my case and Al-Arian’s, as well as untold numbers of others, which need not be belabored here and now. My purpose of the moment is twofold: to point out that the pattern is the same, regardless of what level of government bureaucratic abuse we’re talking about; and to say that a clear pattern can also lead to developing clear remedies.

And that will take lots of research and lots of making noise.

In the meantime, please go read all of Leila Al-Arian’s post; and if you have a chance to see the film about her family’s experience, do that, too.
Peace.

Deborah Alicen