You're Right, You Are Nothing Alike

Ian Werkheiser

On Monday, February 14th, the head of New York's Republican Party Stephen Minarik made a very inflammatory statement. "...the Democrats simply have refused to learn the lessons of the past two election cycles, and now they can be accurately called the party of Barbara Boxer, Lynne Stewart and Howard Dean." Outrage was immediate and intense. Howard Dean, the new head of the DNC, demanded that he either retract his "character assassination" and apologize or resign. The democratic blogosphere reposted the story decrying the Republican "Hate Machine".

Even George Pataki, the Republican of New York, scorned his fellow Republican: "The Democratic Party doesn't have anything to do with Lynne Stewart, obviously. She was found guilty of a heinous criminal act and that is not something within the realm of appropriate political discourse in New York state." The best rebuke I read though came from Howard Wolfson, Senator Clinton's top advisor: "Don't accuse the 5.5 million Democrats in this state of treason if you hope to win our votes. And, if you make that mistake again, you best be prepared to make it to my face, because we love this country much too much to allow you to ever question our patriotism."

So why is lumping the Democratic Party with Lynne Stewart such fighting words? Who is this woman and traitor, this human pariah who taints anyone associated with her?

On February 10th, in the same New York courtroom where the Rosenbergs were convicted of treason decades ago, attorney Lynne Stewart was found guilty on all counts. Her crime: representing her client. She was the lawyer for Shiekh Omar Abdel-Rahman, "the blind shiekh", who is serving a life sentence in the US on terror charges. She held a press conference where she delivered a message from her client, namely that he didn't personally agree with a cease-fire that had been declared in his native Egypt, and though he deferred to the judgement of those one the street, he wished they would discuss it carefully. This, the government claims, led to violence in Egypt.

Even granting that it did, why is causing violence in Egypt a crime in the United States, and a crime that the attorney merely delivering a message for their client can be arrested for? Other than vague statements about the international war on terror, the main legal argument are the "SAM's" (Special Administrative Measures) the government forced her to sign in order to be allowed into the prison, documents which dissolved much of the attorney-client relationship, including her ability to let her client have any contact with the outside world. She, wanting to see her client, simply signed and ignored them, much as former US Attorney General Ramsey Clarke did when he was the shiekh's lawyer.

The primary evidence used to convict Stewart was secret wire taps made of the conversations between Shiekh Abdel-Rahman and Stewart in her capacity as his lawyer. That such evidence was allowed in the court, when there was a clear expectation of privacy on the part of the shiekh, is ludicrous. In similar tactics, the prosecution tied all three defendants together, Ms. Stewart, Ahmed Sattar who functioned as a paralegal for the shiekh, and Mohammed Yousry, who worked as a translator. It's always useful to conflate the different charges and suspicions about several defendants, creating a cloud of guilt that hangs over all of them.

In Mr. Sattar's case, he was tried on charges of conspiracy to kill or commit kidnapping in a foreign country, though the judge allowed the prosecution to keep secret the intended victim, the weapon that was to be used, and even what foreign country this was supposed to happen in. The Attorney General's office, first under Ashcroft and now under Gonzales, clearly thought this conviction was important. The first time charges were brought against Stewart in 2002, they were dismissed as being too vague. The justice department then recast the charges and found a sympathetic judge.

The reasons for the importance of this trial to the Justice Department should be obvious. If lawyers can be prosecuted for representing their clients, then the first and best line of defense for people accused of crimes is removed. Further, many lawyers will be hesitant to take such cases in the first place when the retribution of a corrupt prosecutor can reach them as well. Stewart is an easy target. Unlike Ramsey Clarke, Stewart is a political progressive, famous for defending those that are accused of terrible crimes, for whom no one wants to speak. She has done so for years, and now, a grandmother in her sixties, she still refuses to surrender.

As she said in a recent interview when asked if she would do it all again, knowing that she would be convicted, "...the fact of the matter is, even with what has happened, it was the right decision. You can't start saying, 'Well, maybe I will do this, but I won't do that.' It has to be that within the rules of ethics, what vigorously and zealously defending a client means you carry through on it and you do so wholeheartedly. I believe with my mind and heart that it was the right thing to do. I don't like the consequences. I feel for the people who care so much about me personally and the terrible destruction that has brought. But I do feel that it was the right thing to do and that that is what we do. I think that Ramsey said it very well on the witness stand. It was the right thing to do for the client." (Democracy Now, Feb. 11, 2005)

Is it right for Republicans to lump her in with the Democrats? Of course not. It is another example of the McCarthyism we see in politics today, as the Right cynically tries to link political opponents with the new commies, terrorists. But the fact that main-stream Democrats are enraged at a comparison to Stewart is disgusting. She has more bravery and more willingness to stand up to the far Right that has captured our government than they could ever hope to have. In that respect the Democrats are nothing like her, and should be deeply ashamed for it.

Lynne Stewart is still fighting in appeals. To find out how you can get involved in her case, and the cases of the translator and paralegal convicted with her, visit her website at www.lynnestewart.org.