Desmond Tutu Supports Lynne!

March 24th, 2013
Below find a short email from Bishop Desmond Tutu regarding a letter he received from Richard Falk and Ralph Schoenman asking him to sign the petition for Lynne:
Dear Friend,
It is devastating, totally unbelievable. Is this in a democracy, the only superpower? I am sad.
I will sign.
Praying God’s blessings on yr efforts.
+Desmond Tutu.
The letter from Richard and Ralph is below:
The Honorable Bishop Desmond Tutu
Dear Bishop Tutu,
Your moral authority in raising awareness and touching the conscience of people across the world, concerning prevailing injustice and assault upon human rights, emboldens us to enlist your support for the distinguished civil rights and civil liberties attorney Lynne Stewart, whose life is in imminent danger and epitomizes the plight of a courageous prisoner of conscience.
Lynne Stewart had been co-counsel with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and noted civil liberties attorney Abdeen Jabaar for the Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman.
In 2002, George Bush’s Attorney General John Ashcroft charged Lynne Stewart with “material support to terrorism” solely for providing her client with a vigorous defense.
Due process itself and basic democratic rights have been violated, comprising an ominous threat to every attorney who would contemplate providing needed defense for vulnerable people targeted and demonized by the State. It is precisely in situations where lawyers take on politically sensitive clients that protection is most needed.
The government’s consequent vindictive prosecution and persecution of Lynne Stewart has breached all moral constraint, and illustrates the problem of providing unpopular defendants with their full legal rights.
Her bail was revoked even while her case was pending before the courts. A surgical procedure scheduled at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York was thus delayed 18-months until the prison authorities finally arranged for the operation in a Fort Worth, Texas hospital.
Lynne Stewart also is suffering from breast cancer. Her cancer, previously in remission and monitored closely by her physicians at Sloan Kettering, not only has returned but has metastasized, spreading to her lymph nodes, shoulder, bones and lungs, creating a severe threat to her life.
Even when allowed access to prison medical facilities, 73-year old Lynne Stewart is shackled with ten pounds of chains at her wrists and feet. When hospitalized after surgical intervention or for the administration of chemotherapy, one wrist is shackled to a bedpost and an ankle to another. Given the political nature of her alleged “crime” and taking account of her health, such treatment amounts to a constitutional offense known in the United States as “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Lynne Stewart is in a seven-person cell at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, Texas, with toilet and shower facilities difficult to reach as they are down a corridor and the dining facilities are even further away. These conditions are incompatible with appropriate treatment, recuperation from systemic disease and the prospect of survival.
Federal law itself mandates “compassionate release” for prisoners facing life-threatening illness, so that treatment commensurate with their condition may be secured in an environment of nurture and family emotional support indispensable to the prospect of recovery.
We ask your endorsement of the International Petition printed below as a matter of urgency and appeal to you to enlist the support of others.
We should be grateful for your suggestions concerning how to amplify this campaign. We should welcome any further advice that you might provide.
We share your conviction that world conscience so mobilized can speak truth to power and much look forward to hearing from you.
With our highest regard,
Sincerely,
Richard Falk
Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
Research Professor, Global Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara
Ralph Schoenman
Director, The Council on Human Needs