In the early morning hours of February 20th, 2003, armed FBI agents stormed a private apartment in Tampa, Florida. Family members stunned by fear watched the father, Sami Al-Arian – a university professor and civil rights activist, being handcuffed and taken away.

A dozen FBI agents searched the family’s apartment for 12 hours. Boxes of private papers, diaries, letters, books, photo albums, CD’s and VHS cassettes were confiscated. That night, US Attorney General John Ashcroft held a national press conference where he claimed to have caught the leader of a global terror cell. Free Professor Sami Al-Arian Now!

This case of Sami Al-Arian effects all of us around the US. The campaign to harass and fire Left Wing oriented professors on campuses around the US began with the attack on Sami Al-Arian and will not end until he is freed. Do we really want a country where only Right Wing zealots can hold academic posts? Do you want to be a student, or have your child be a student, where only dumb idiots can be teachers? Do you want an increasingly stupid America to be pushed by an already stupid and backward corporate-run government?

How will any world ecological problems ever be solved when only Right Wingers are in all key academic positions? What if all the professors of economics are total nitwits? What if history and political science positions are chosen only if approved by Right Wing assholes? We are headed in this direction now. Free Professor Sami Al-Arian Now!