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The great news this week
is that Attorney General John Ashcroft is leaving
the Justice Department.
His contempt for those concerned about civil
liberties, his confrontational approach to critics
from both parties, and his readiness to distort
constitutional protections in the name of national
security are just a few of the reasons to be glad
he's gone.
And while his successor, White House Counsel Alberto
Gonzales, raises his own set of red flags by calling
the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and by helping to
establish the scandalous detention center at
Guantanamo Bay, it's far too early to predict what
he will do in this role.
I for one am hopeful.
He appears to possess a reasonableness and an
openness that Ashcroft never had.
What I hope most is that Gonzales will immediately
re-examine all of the people who have been detained
by the United States government in the name of
terrorism since 9-11 and ask far better questions
than Ashcroft ever did about why they are still
being held.
He should start with Ibrahim Parlak.
Ibrahim Parlak is a 42-year-old Kurd born in Turkey
who came to the United States in 1991 in search of
political asylum. He was tortured and imprisoned at
home for fighting against the oppression of the
Kurds by the Turks. When he arrived here, U.S.
officials knew of his conviction, his imprisonment
and his torture. That's why the United States
granted him asylum.
He settled in Harbert, Mich., opened a modest Middle
Eastern restaurant called Cafe Gulistan and became
an active and honorable member of the community.
That's where his 7-year old daughter, Livia, was
born. That's where he built a new life.
But after 9-11 and with the Patriot Act in hand, the
Justice Department took an entirely different view
of what had happened to Ibrahim Parlak back in the
1980s. In 2002 the government began proceedings to
deport him.
Parlak did not run nor did he hide. He did what
every one of us would do. He scraped together some
money, hired a lawyer and faithfully attended at
least three hearings in order to argue his case.
Meanwhile, the government of Turkey told our own
government it neither wanted Parlak to serve more
jail time nor did it want him back. None of that
seemed to matter.
On July 29 federal agents took Ibrahim Parlak away.
He has been held without bond in Battle Creek, Mich.,
ever since. His next day in court is not until Dec.
7.
Parlak is not a rich man, but he is rich in friends.
His case has attracted a team of lawyers who are now
working full time -- and many of them for free -- to
right what is so terribly wrong about this case. One
of them is Jay Marhoefer of Latham & Watkins in
Chicago, who believes the case of Ibrahim Parlak
could become a national test case for the incoming
attorney general and the Justice Department.
"There are significant ramifications in the Parlak
case, if adopted, that could affect in major ways
the Patriot Act and immigration law," says Marhoefer,
who argues the government has gone too far. "No one
wants to see national security weakened. We don't
want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
There are bad people out there but Ibrahim Parlak is
not one of them."
All the government will say to any of this, when I
called, was that it has a strong case.
Maybe they have to say that, given that the Justice
Department's current track record against suspected
terrorists has been pitiful, even embarrassing. As
the New York Times put it Thursday, it's a litany of
"dismissed charges, misidentified suspects and minor
convictions of minor figures."
Today, if you drive the Red Arrow Highway into
Michigan and through the small vacation communities
on either side of Harbert, you'll see the signs.
"Free Ibrahim" is painted on storefronts, garages,
and cardboard signs placed in people's windows or
planted in their yards.
One of those yard signs is mine.
Free Ibrahim
http://www.suntimes.com
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