Guantanamo at Home: The Case of Fahad Hashmi

Fahad Hashmi is an American citizen being held in solitary confinement in Lower Manhattan, facing several years in prison for the crime of providing and conspiring to provide material support and making and conspiring to make a contribution of goods or services to Al Qaeda. The conditions under which he has been held, for two and a half years, are frightening: he is allowed only one visit every other week from one of his parents, and has been punished for shadowboxing alone in his cell.

Jeanne Theoharis, associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College, CUNY and Fahad’s former professor, wrote of the expansion of Guantanamo-like conditions in The Nation:

“Guantánamo is a particular way of seeing the Constitution, of constructing the landscape as a murky terrain of lurking enemies where the courts become part of the bulwark against such dangers, where rights have limits and where international standards must be weighed against national security. It is an outgrowth of a “war on terror” with historical precedents that took root under Clinton (in legislation like the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act), spread like kudzu under Bush and infiltrated the fabric of the justice system. It is a pre-emptive strategy where stopping terrorism has come to mean detaining and prosecuting people who may not have committed any actual act of terrorism but whose religious beliefs and political associations ostensibly reveal an intention to do so.”

Theoharis, along with actor Kathleen Chalfant and actor, playwright and author Wallace Shawn of Theaters Against War, joins us to talk about Fahad’s case, free speech and why we need to speak up for people like Fahad.