In Syracuse, the trial of an Iraqi-American doctor charged with sending money to Iraq in defiance of the U.S. sanctions is set to begin today. Rafil Dhafir is the only person to be criminally prosecuted or jailed for violating the sanctions. He has been detained for the past 20 months awaiting trial. On Friday, Dhafir’s defense team was dealt a setback when the presiding judge ruled attorneys could not argue that Dhafir was being selectively prosecuted because he was a Muslim. In addition the doctor’s attorneys will be barred from delving into the government’s original motives for investigating him. When he was first detained, government officials hinted he had ties to terrorists; but no terrorism charges were ever filed — instead the government ended up charging him with violating the sanctions as well as Medicare fraud and tax evasion.

21 Arrested at ACT UP Protest At Bush-Cheney HQ
Police yesterday arrested 21 protesters at the Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters in Virginia participating in a demonstration organized by the AIDS advocacy groups ACT UP and Housing Works. Robert Codero of Housing Works said “We are here to protest the failures of the Bush administration’s AIDS policies. There are 40,000 new infections per year in the United States, more people uninsured, more people who need housing.”