James Landrith
PO Box 8208
Alexandria, VA 22306-8208<\/p>\n
January 6, 2004<\/p>\n
The Honorable John William Warner
United States Senate
225 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4601<\/p>\n
The Honorable George F. Allen
United States Senate
204 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4604<\/p>\n
Dear Senators Warner and Allen:<\/p>\n
As a constituent, I urge you to oppose the new extradition treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States. It contains a number of ill-considered erosions of judicial review and would threaten the due process rights of Americans.<\/p>\n
I have read that the new treaty eliminates the American judiciary’s role in determining whether an extradition request should be denied on the basis of the political offense exception. This centuries-old provision protects Americans and others from political, religious or other impermissible persecution, and prevents the extradition of individuals who would become political prisoners in their home countries.<\/p>\n
I understand that the treaty has far-reaching implications. The treaty would eliminate the statute of limitations as a defense against extradition, allow for “provisional arrests” and detentions, which can last for as long as sixty days with no formal extradition request providing supporting details — and for the treaty to be applied retroactively.<\/p>\n
I strongly believe this agreement would hinder free speech. If the new treaty were ratified, an American who opposed British policy –- for example, an investigative journalist who wrote of police abuses in Northern Ireland for an Irish American newspaper –- could face arrest and extradition without having any ability to challenge, in an American court, whether the criminal charges are really a pretext for the punishment on account of race, religion, nationality or political opinion.<\/p>\n
As the founder, editor and publisher of The Multiracial Activist<\/a> and The Abolitionist Examiner<\/a>, I find this prospect quite chilling. Once again, I urge you to oppose the new treaty and to support proper judicial review of extradition requests.<\/p>\n I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter.<\/p>\n Sincerely,<\/p>\n James Landrith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 6, 2004 Letter to Senators Warner and Allen James LandrithPO Box 8208Alexandria, VA 22306-8208 January 6, 2004 The Honorable John William WarnerUnited States Senate225 Russell Senate Office BuildingWashington, DC 20510-4601 The Honorable George...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[60,9],"tags":[142],"class_list":["post-1058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters-to-government-agencies-signed-by-tma","category-advocacy-and-letters","tag-advocacy-letters"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-h4","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Advocacy-Work.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4028,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058\/revisions\/4028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}