His name was Riad Hamad and he was my friend. A friend with courage and conviction who was not afraid to do the right thing. 
He was found floating in a lake Thursday- suicided after being bound with duct tape in a manner that the complicit Austin Police Department ruled as "consistent with suicide".
(snip)
Witnesses at the scene Wednesday afternoon say the body, now identified as Riad Hamad, 55, an Austin Independent School District teacher, washed up at Festival Beach Park sometime before 2:00 p.m., when one young woman says she called 9-1-1. She told News Radio 590 KLBJ the man's body had been "wrapped with duct tape".
Austin Police Sergeant Joseph Chacon confirms the man was bound with duct tape.
"The bindings, although I cannot go into them extensively, it's possible that he could have done them to himself," Chacon says. "We have not ruled out that foul play might be involved. However, we have no indication right now that that is the case."
(snip)
http://www.590klbj.com/News/Story.aspx?ID=89215
Riad ran the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund (PCWF), a radical Gaza-based "charity" that helped children in Gaza and that we tried to help. Several of you sponsored children from his organization for the measly sum of $10/month that makes such a huge difference in their lives by paying for schoolbooks and medicine.
Those of you who did, I honor from the bottom of my heart. Riad was doing such good work that right wing Likud organizations slandered him by linking him and his charity to Islamic fundamentalist terror in newspaper and Internet articles. He had court cases against several of them including that slimey rat David Horowitz.
Shortly before Riad was suicided, his home had been raided by the feds and his computers were confiscated. It sent shockwaves through the pro-Palestinian community because it was one of the last organizations you could use to help people.
My friend is dead. Found floating in a lake, ductaped by "suidice". Other friends of mine are being persecuted too but they're not suicided yet.
In honor of Riad, I am going to be taking this site back to its root of antiwar activism, pro-Palestinian justice, and doing what we wrote on the homepage which is to yank the Democratic Party back to the Left. Those of you who have different ideas will need to find a new home now or stick to your other sites where you laugh at people who share our vision.
This site is for people who think we can make a difference politically, even if it's just a few baby steps because those babysteps have a tremendous effect on the lives of millions of our victims all over the world.
Riad, this one's for you.
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http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=83835&mesg_id=83869
and here are some pictures below - about how they harassed him
can you believe they put a notice like this in front of someone's house in our country?
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below is what FrontPage said about him
The Palestinian Children’s Welfare Fund (PCWF) is one of a multitude of Islamic children’s charities whose stated goal is “to improve the living standards of the children of Palestine.” One of the ways the PCWF has demonstrated this was to conduct a drawing contest in October of 2002, whereby children won money for drawing gruesome pictures depicting anti-Semitic and violent images.
The PCWF is headed by Riad Hamad. Hamad's resume includes being fired from Austin Community College for allegedly "making racist slurs and sexist jokes in the classroom." He doesn't agree, though; he says he was fired for "making statements against the U.S. government." Hamad is currently an instructor at a different school, in his words, "till I get fired again."
The FBI has on a number of occasions conducted surveillance on Riad Hamad. His neighbors have been interviewed, his co-workers have been questioned, and packages he has sent have been opened - with good reason, it would appear.
Riad Hamad spelled out his anti-Semitic agenda during a response to an online article. According to his version of history, "Britain allowed several hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to land in Palestine despite the opposition of the original inhabitants. In our opinion, they (sic) immigrants arrived illegally and will be deported to their nation of origin… sooner or later." He also helpfully cleared up one of the author's misconceptions: "You are assuming that most of us Arabs recognize the right of Israel to exist."
The Palestinian Children’s Welfare Fund works closely with the Holy Land Trust, a Christian nonprofit organization with offices in the U.S., Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Joseph Farrah, Editor of World Net Daily, has described the Holy Land Trust's activities: “The lies this group tells in the name of Christianity are big and bold. They include the standard lines about Jews robbing the homes of Arabs, stealing their land and brutalizing them in a repressive state of military occupation. These so-called Christians even rationalize terrorism.”
Last December, the co-founder of the PCWF, Bob Rossi, and Margaret Stephens (a.k.a. Margaret Phillips) found themselves held by Israeli authorities in the home of the Executive Director of the Holy Land Trust, Sami Awad, in Bethlehem. Of the event, Rossi states, “One evening, two of our Palestinian colleagues’ homes were seized by Israeli forces.”
That's peculiar, as Israel typically seizes (or destroys) the homes of people aiding and abetting terrorism.
Bob and Margaret publish Northwest Ethnic Voice, an Oregonian newsletter that endorsed an ANSWER protest against President George Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The Northwest Ethnic Voice website links to ramallahonline.com, a radical site that features anti-Israel poems, petitions and favorable pictures of terrorists, including one of Osama bin Laden. There is also a link to the website of rapper The Iron Shiek, who believes that Israel’s control of the Palestinian territories is far worse than suicide bombings. He raps, “Ariel Sharon, a real cabron/I’d like to meet him in a dark alley and it’s on/He’d be the Penguin and I’d be Batman/My flurry of fists would sink that fat man.” The PCWF ordered 100 of his CDs for a recent fundraiser.
Fundraisers are important for the PCWF, because how else can they afford to give out an $8,000 scholarship, whereby they force the winner to “wear a Palestinian flag or a pin every day he/she attends classes in the United States”?
(snip)
The Palestinian Children’s Welfare Fund and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund are two of the many Islamic charities in the United States alone, which claim to be non-political yet exploit national and international politics to the utmost. Why would they allow someone into their staff that obviously harbors affection for suicide bombers? And into whose hands goes is she delivering “welfare” and “relief”? Is it those children that are truly innocent, or is it those that make up Shadya Hantouli’s gallery?
(snip) http://frontpagemag. com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8394 (You'll have to remove the space. I don't want to link to those pigs
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here is the letter he wrote to George Bush in 2002
To: George Bush,
President of the United States of America
Washington, DC
I was very amused last week when I was trying to get into my car in the morning on my way to work, when my neighbor across the street came out and asked me if we could talk. Although I was in a hurry since I was late, I listened to him since he said that the topic was important. My neighbor told me that he was approached by the FBI and was asked many questions about me and was asked to put a camera in his house to watch me. The request was denied, as my neighbor, who happened to be a Libertarian, did not trust the motives of the FBI. Also, my neighbor told him that, "Riad is my friend and I would not spy on him." Apparently, the agent did not give up and told my neighbor that he would call on him again.
Although I knew and expected such activities by the FBI, I was surprised about their lack of professionalism and the absence of decency. I carry my Iraqi flags to every rally and I am always the loudest and the most obvious. Hundreds of people come and ask me about the flags as they do not know which countries the flags stand for, and I have to say, "These are the flags of the countries that your tax money is paying to occupy, kill and maim," since not many of them knew the colors of the flags of Palestine or Iraq. For the FBI to have to go and knock on my neighbor’s doors is very unprofessional and illegal. Besides, the FBI has been harassing members of the International Solidarity Movement and monitoring their phone calls, e-mails and movements around the nation. I assume this is an effort to harass them, intimidate them, and scare them from going around the United States to expose your lies, and that of your administration, about the real situation in occupied Palestine.
I have lived, went to college, and worked in the United States for over 30 years. I have no criminal record and not even a suspicion of committing a crime, such as your cocaine addiction, drunk driving, and going AWOL during your National Guard duty in Texas. Also, I have never sold shares of a bankrupt company to the pension fund of Bahrain National Oil Company like you did, which is nothing but fraud and insider trading.
I work with a group of individuals around the globe called the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund in association with the Holy Land Trust out of Bethlehem, Palestine. We bring olive wood and embroidery from Palestine and raise money in the United States for the women and the children of the refugee camps. We are non-political and non-religious, and our donors and supporters are Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others who know better than to believe your message of hatred and aggression. Every penny we receive is accounted for and every penny we spend is accounted for on our Web site that I am sure that you have monitored and observed. Also, we sponsor only civilians who are either orphans or not affiliated with any political or religious groups and their only crime is that they are Palestinians.
As a patriotic citizen of this country, and to make sure that I give you a hand in combating "terrorism," I have posted a sign near in our neighborhood letting people know that we are under surveillance. And asking our neighbors and the passers by to inform the FBI of any suspicious activities and the sign and the pictures of the house with the sign is on the Web page link.
Over the past weekend, several of our neighbors came by and apologized for your stupidity and that of the FBI and other officials. One of them told me that, "I am ashamed to say that I am an American since George Bush became president." Others tried to apologize, and I had to remind that I am also ashamed of you and your actions and that of your administration. I have not been outside the United States since you became president, to avoid showing my passport and avoid associating with you and your administration. Besides helping you monitor me by posting the sign near our home, I will help you find some terrorists that I know and I believe that they are threat to the safety and the security of the United States. You do not have to look far to find them and apprehend them, and if you do not soon, WE THE PEOPLE will some day soon. These terrorists are now in Washington and you see them every time you have a cabinet meeting and I am afraid you are one of them.
George,
Get the hell out of my life and take your FBI thugs from our neighborhood because they are not wanted.
Riad Hamad Austin, Texas
Poster Comment:
the poor man - he took seriously the idea that America is a free country.