To the editor,
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Normally I would have passed over Miner’s article with a cynical nod of disgust at the way this administration regards justice and due process. But our family has been firsthand witness to how the powerful arm of John Ashcroft, and the calloused attitude of Judge Elizabeth Hacker, has wreaked havoc in the lives of our neighbors, the Gazzolo family. We were first made aware of Ibrahim’s background as a refugee from Turkey when he fathered a child with Michelle Gazzolo.
The Gazzolos, our next-door neighbors in Evanston, turn out to be a source of inspiration for us. Barbara Gazzolo, an ordained Lutheran minister, not only preaches the gospel message of “love thy neighbor,” but she also practices it. But the knee-jerk right-wing ruling of Judge Hacker is a source of our profound disillusionment in the rule of law in this country. We, like so many of our friends and neighbors, are frustrated by the slow and seemingly endless grinding of the mill of justice in this case and fear that the forces of bigotry and fearmongering here might triumph in sending Ibrahim back to probable torture in Turkey.
