USA vs Al-Arian

Norway 2007 / 99min.
Director Line Halvorsen / Producer Jan Dal Chow

Admired by some for his passionate pro-Palestinian activism and branded by the US Government as the most dangerous man in the United States, Professor Sami Al-Arian was charged with terrorism and held in prison without trial for two-and-a-half years.

Director Halvorsen constructs a deeply affecting and damning portrait of the strains of Al-Arian’s trial, a battle waged both in court and in the media more for his beliefs rather than his actions. His tight-knit Arab-American family unravels as trial preparations, strategy and spin consume their lives.

In spite of the prosecution’s best efforts, the jury fails to find him guilty. Dissatisfied, the prosecutors keep him in jail as they attempt to retry him.

In May 2006, he agrees to plea bargain to a lesser charge of aiding members of a militant Palestinian group in exchange for a simple deportation to facilitate a reunion with his family. However no sooner had the ink dried on his guilty plea than the judge disregarded the terms of the pleas bargain, sentencing him to a further 19 months in jail.

The film challenges democracy in the post-9/11 culture of fear, where “security measures” trump free speech and punishment is meted out in the name of protection.

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