A coalition of Palestine advocacy groups has launched a renewed effort to free members of the Holy Land Five who were imprisoned 14 years ago in what is widely considered a grave injustice by the Bush administration at the height of the “War of Terror.”
Holy Land Foundation President Shukri Abu Baker writes from a maximum security prison in Beaumont, Texas: “I was only 4 yrs old when Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, 1963. In that speech King dreamt of a day when people of all races would be able to sing with a ‘new meaning’, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” I sang, and I’m still singing. Even from the tight emptiness of my cell I’m singing, but I’m yet to savor the new meaning King spoke of. I’m yet to feel the breeze of liberty against the stark landscape of incarceration. Perhaps my singing carries too strong of an Arabic accent, or a hint of Islamism, or a touch of Palestinianism. Perhaps the song, was not meant for me.”
Orwah Hammad, 14, was killed last October by Israeli forces in a West Bank village. Shukri Abu Baker offers a poem inspired by his death
Shukri Abu Baker writes a poem about the agony of being separated from his family while in prison as part of the Holy Land Foundation 5.
On 11/24/2008 a Texas Jury found Shukri Abu Baker and his comrades in the HLF case guilty of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Shukri Abu Baker shares his “sarcastically serious” thoughts on our sixth anniversary of the decision.
On Thursday, Holy Land Five supporters rallied outside Barack Obama’s presidential campaign headquarters in Chicago.…