An Interview with Dr. Ralph D Fertig regarding his upcoming Supreme Court Case, and his activism for the Kurdish People By Soraya Fallah Exclusive vokradio more information
Comments and letter from friend of mine:
An Interview with Dr. Ralph D Fertig
regarding his upcoming Supreme Court Case, and his activism for the Kurdish
People By Soraya Fallah Exclusive vokradio
Dear Soraya, I want to thank you and as counsel to Dr. Ralph Fertig.
Indeed, I read in the Journal Amaricain concerns of Dr. Ralph for the
liberation movement in Kurdistan and I thank him. If I resume the situation.
Ralph Fertig, president of the Humanitarian Law Project, wants to encourage a
similar change within the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a violent separatist group
in Turkey also known as the PKK (its Kurdish initials). But he worries that
doing so will expose him to prosecution for providing “material support” to a
terrorist organization, a crime Congress has defined so broadly that it
includes a great deal of speech protected by the First Amendment. When it hears
Fertig’s case next week, the Supreme Court will have a chance to correct that
error.
Fertig, a civil rights lawyer and former administrative law judge, seeks, as
the district court described it, to “provide training in the use of
humanitarian and international law for the peaceful resolution of disputes,
engage in political advocacy on behalf of the Kurds living in Turkey and teach
the PKK how to petition for relief before representative bodies like the United
Nations.” Fertig says he also wants to “advocate on behalf of the rights of the
Kurdish people and the PKK before the United Nations and the United States
Congress.”
Another plaintiff in the case, an American physician named Nagalingam
Jeyalingam, wants to do similar work with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE), a violent separatist group in Sri Lanka that, like the PKK, appears on
the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. In the words of the
district court, Jeyalingam seeks to “provide training in the presentation of
claims to mediators and international bodies for tsunami-related aid, offer
legal expertise in negotiating peace agreements between the LTTE and the Sri
Lankan government, and engage in political advocacy on behalf of Tamils living
in Sri Lanka.”
Whether you think Fertig and Jeyalingam are humanitarian heroes, naive dreamers
or inadvertent flacks for terrorists, the projects they have in mind clearly
amount to “pure speech promoting lawful, nonviolent activities,” as their
attorneys say. Yet the federal law they are challenging seems to make such
speech a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Under the law, it is a crime to provide an organization on the State
Department’s list with “training,” defined as “instruction or teaching designed
to impart a specific skill, as opposed to general knowledge”; “expert advice or
assistance,” defined as “advice or assistance derived from scientific,
technical or other specialized knowledge”; “personnel,” which means any person,
including oneself, who works under the organization’s “direction or control”;
or “service,” which is not defined at all.
These terms (especially that last one) could easily be construed to cover the
activities proposed by Fertig and Jeyalingam, even though they would be trying
to discourage terrorism and promote peaceful alternatives.
During oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit,
which ruled that several aspects of the “material support” ban are
unconstitutional, the government’s lawyer said you could go to prison for
filing a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a listed group, for pressing
its case at the U.N. or even for asking Congress to take the group off the
list. “Congress wants these organizations to be radioactive,” he explained.
initially I sent you the letter I sent to U.S. President, Mr Bucsh in a second
time my article on the decision ed the European Court of Human Rights which
annulled the Decisions of the Council Europe has put the PKK on the list of
terrorist organizations. The action before the European Court of Rights was
made by my friend Prof. Ismet Sheriff Vanly, Professor Emeritus of
International Law at the University of Geneva.
I contacted the head of the organization on this subject. I want to see her
Friday, February 26th at the Conference at French Parliament on the situation
of Kurdish people in Turkey.
We are available to Dr. Fertig Raplh for all evidence.
Best regards.
Dr Ali Kilic
