Free Lynne Stewart Rally July 1, 2013

Lynne Stewart supporters rally at the Manhattan courthouses led by her husband Ralph Poynter responding to denial of compassionate release of Lynne Stewart from federal prison. Ralph Poynter was just informed that Lynne received a three-paragraph letter on July 1st from Kathleen Kenney, General Counsel for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, that Compassionate Release has been denied on the grounds that Lynne's "health is improving." This claim is at once cynical and false. Lynne Stewart's cancer continues to spread in her lungs. She remains in isolation as her white blood cell count remains so low that she is at risk for generalized infection. She weakens daily. Her so-called crime of terror was a mere triffle, passing along a press release from an imprisoned blind Egyptian cleric to his parishoners. Her original sentence for this was 28 months but the Obama Justice Department appealed her sentence and got our disgraceful bunch of Federal Judges of the Second Circuit to increase the sentence to 10 years, in effect making it a life sentence. Their stated reason for insisting on the increase was that after receiving the 28 month sentence, she tried to comfort her supporters outside the courthouse, who were disappointed that she was not acquitted, by saying it wasn't such a long sentence, she could do it standing on her head. Hope is now focussed on the trial judge Koeltl who had asked Prison authorities that she be released to the Sloan Kettering cancer hospital