Welcome To My World: Where We Live, Jan. 24th 2013: Lynne Stewart

Saturday 26 January 2013

Where We Live, Jan. 24th 2013: Lynne Stewart

Renowned and beloved human rights attorney Lynne Stewart – currently serving a ten-year sentence in Carswell, Texas – faces yet a new challenge that threatens her very life… a cancer – successfully treated prior to her jailing – has now returned … doctors have confirmed cancerous spots in both lungs and her upper back.
Her husband Ralph Poynter says that Lynne’s condition is still “very treatable” and that a cure cannot be ruled out - particularly if prison officials allowed her the expert treatment afforded her previously in a prominent new york city hospital.
As expected - Lynne’s request to be moved to that facility has been denied and she is to be treated in a prison hospital.
As many in our audience may know, Lynne Stewart spent her entire life defending the most vulnerable … among them, prominent revolutionists, dissidents, victims of police violence and others.
On the morning of April 9, 2002, FBI agents arrived with arrest warrants in the front yard of her Brooklyn home. Simultaneously, as they handcuffed her, the FBI invaded her Manhattan office and searched for almost 12 hours.
Then- U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft himself flew to New York to personally announce Lynne’s at a Federal Court news conference.
The indictment against Lynne charged her with providing material support for terrorism, and violating special administrative measures (SAMS) imposed by the U.S. bureau of prisons, which included a gag order on so-called “blind sheik” Omar Abdel-Rahman – an Egyptian cleric who Lynne represented in 1995.
The indictment came a full two years after the alleged act she was charged with - and was based on her public issuance of a press release and overheard, privileged attorney-client interviews and wiretapped conversations with the interpreter and paralegal on the case who were also arrested on terrorism-related charges.
In 2005 Lynne was convicted on five counts of conspiracy-to-aid-and-abet-terrorism and sentenced to 28 months in prison by a trial judge who – in his sentencing remarks – said that Lynne Stewart had spent her life serving the poor and disenfranchised - even to her own detriment.
The government appealed saying the sentence was too light - and on July 15, 2010 -Lynne Stewart was re-sentenced to 10 years in prison. She is now 72.
Ironically, Rachman's freedom is today being demanded by

Egypt's new President Mohamed Morsi.

We are joined in studio by Lynne’s husband of close to half a decade, Ralph Poynterand their daughter, Dr. Zenobia Brown.