Paintball Practice to Prison

[ranxer]

These guys were practicing self defense because of the harrasment they recieved for being muslim, including threats and graffiti on thier homes.

http://www.democracynow.org/article....4/06/16/151233
....
In Virginia, a judge sentenced three men to prison Tuesday, including one to life and another to 85 years, on terrorism charges connected to a game of paintball. But the sentence is coming under intense criticism – from the judge herself who described the sentence as "appalling" and "Draconian." We talk to one of the defendant’s attorneys who says the ruling marks "the greatest miscarriage of justice of any case" he has ever seen.
...
JOHN ZWERLING:
this case was conceived in ignorance and a misunderstanding of what Islam is all about. And under a rush to prosecute Muslims, I really believe that. I didn't believe that when I first got into the case, but I came to believe that. They misused the term jihad throughout the entire trial. You're even now referring to it as the Virginia Jihad Trial because that's the name that the government gave it so it would have a flashy ring in the press. And jihad, as you probably know and many of your listeners probably know, means a struggle for good or struggle for God and it is everything from depriving yourself from certain pleasures in service of God, to trying to live a good life, to improving violent struggle through self-defense. But always within the laws of the land that you live in. This is my understanding from having spent about a year in this case and according to a lot of people. And, you know, when a group of young men started to play paintball, some of them were doing it in what they said were preparation for jihad. But they didn't mean that by going abroad and killing people, they meant preparing themselves to be able to respond to whatever the future might hold, whether it was defending the family from attacks, as many Muslims were required to do after 9/11, including my client, who's home was defaced to people banging on doors, to just being prepared. And he got it all twisted around. It was very sad. Very sad to see.

[ScruU2wice]

What did they get arrested for in the first place?

I mean did a group of police just approach them while they were playing paintball and arresst them for that?

[ranxer]

dunno, i heard the lawyer and judge about the case is all.. since then i've heard that one individual had ties to the taliban, so its not as outrageous as i thought.

its pretty disturbing though that you could get 85years for associating with someone who once visited the taliban.

there's another case covered by democracy now yesterday of a muslim that had set up website links to a suspected suicide bombing advocate that was found not guilty but only after over a year in detainment.. damn, that's a bit much.

i've really got to double check links i've set up now. the tactic is all about fear.. like the cia agent valerie plaim(not sure of the name atm) her husband said this is not about valerie but about making an extreem example of some people to make others affraid to speak out. or i guess, put weblinks on thier websites.. or associate with muslims.. or etc. sad days in this country.