15 January 2004
Dear Friends of Voices,

As we approach the eighth anniversary of the beginning of the Voices in the Wilderness campaign (this Monday, Martin Luther King day) we are very grateful to see the vast network of people that has grown to be a part of Voices in the Wilderness. We feel confident that if this network were to act together for justice on issues such as the one described in this email, our voices would be heard loud and strong.

PLEASE call your Senators and Representative today and ask that they urge the Security Detainee Review Board in Baghdad, Iraq, to swiftly examine the cases of the Palestinian students listed below and seek their immediate release. Kathy Kelly’s article explaining the details of this situation can be found here.

To reach your members of Congress, call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Representative and two Senators. Then ask to speak with the staffer who works on foreign relations. Or, send them an email or written letter with a message such as this:

I urge you to contact the Security Detainee Review Board in Baghdad to secure the release of the following Palestinian students being held as prisoners in Umm Qasr, Iraq: Jayyab Ehmedat Mahmoud Hasan, Mohammed Al-Katib Yousf Kamel, Basel Ali, and Ahmed Badran, (all processed on April 16, 2003), and Ameer Abass Mohaed Namir Abdul Jawad, (captured on June 23, 2003). All of these Palestinian students are being held at Compound 11, Tampa 11, in the coalition prison camp at Umm Qasr, Iraq. (See the bottom of this email for more information on each of these prisoners.)

Recently, representatives from Voices in the Wilderness visited with four of these five Palestinian students (referred to by the military police as TCN’s, or Third Country Nationals) who are being held at the Umm Qasr prison camp, on the Iraq-Kuwait border. These four, along with one other student, were arrested in Iraq and have been in prison for months. When these students asked the Marines what crime they had committed, they were told they were guilty of being Palestinians.

Officers in the Bucca camp have recommended release for these prisoners, but the only people with authority to issue releases are the Baghdad based members of the “Sec-Det,” the Security Detainees Review Board. A prisoner’s best hope for release rests on their paperwork arriving at the desk of the Sec-Det group as part of a “boarding” process. One of these prisoners, Mohammed Al Katib, told Kathy Kelly and Jerry Zawada, “We’ve given up hope. We don’t think we’ll ever get out of here.”

You can help these young Palestinian students the gift of hope by urging the Security Detainee Review Board to release them immediately, according to the recommendations by the officers in the Bucca camp. Thank you!

The situation of these prisoners was verified recently by Kathy Kelly, Jerry Zawada and others when they visited the prison camp in Umm Qasr, Iraq. Please read below for Kathy’s reflections on this visit and visit the Voices in the Wilderness website, www.vitw.org, and Electronic Iraq, www.electroniciraq.net, for other recent updates. You can find more information about detainees in Iraq on the Christian Peacemaker Teams website, www.cpt.org. Thank you for your actions for justice on behalf of these Palestinian youth and all those who are unlawfully detained in Iraq.

In solidarity, Voices in the Wilderness, Chicago