I am the organizer of this campaign on behalf of my uncle Onsy and my aunt Fadia
My name is Susan Gillis and I am the organizer of this campaign on behalf of my uncle Onsy and my aunt Fadia.
I had truly wanted to be the first signature on this petition (or at least make the first page), but thankfully, there are so many people who support this cause that before I had the opportunity to write my comment, there are now over three pages worth of signatures and comments. I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has given of their time to support Onsy and Fadia.
Having complete and intimate knowledge of the entire situation and having lived through it myself, I am so grateful to God first and foremost that finally there are others that see and feel the tremendous injustice that Onsy and Fadia have lived through for almost 10 years now and that I have been trying to bring out to light for the past 5 years.
My uncle Onsy is one of the kindest most amazing spiritual, God loving people I have ever known in my life. His wife Fadia is a remarkable, faith based loving women. They both have great hearts and are very honorable people.
Despite all that has happened to them, my uncle and aunt forgive those who have caused them this great suffering and injustice and simply have faith in God that: God always stands with the innocent person and that they will be vindicated and reunited.
Onsy and Fadia have a love and a bond that is unmatched. They are literally one spirit in two bodies. They had never been apart in almost 40 years until now. They have not been able to see each other in the last 5 years while Onsy has been wrongfully incarcerated. They talk on the phone two times each and every day with no exception and tell me that they feel as though they have never been separated.
There is not enough room in this petition or time for me to go into the unbelievable events that led them to this point and the injustice that they have suffered. I am also not allowed to go into details about the criminal case that is pending. I can honestly say however, that I am truly disgusted with our systems and what it does to people.
I have developed such strong opinions on the issue and again, there is not enough room or time for me to express my disappointment in what our justice system has become, or what our immigration system is. I recognize the great need for both systems, and have to say that we are blessed that we even have systems that can work once in a while compared to other countries, but the more I have learned in the past few years and what I have seen, I cannot abide by. Because we are who we are, the United States Of America, the leader of the free world, our systems and those associated with it such as attorneys and prosecutors should be held to much higher standards.
I used to think that justice always prevailed and truth won out and fairness and common sense had a place in these systems, but the sad truth is that they do not.
I am often asked by people how this has affected the extended family. How do you describe having to choose between your family members who have caused great harm to an innocent man, another family member, who can not even help himself? How do you describe having to give up and grieve for a family that is not dead in order to do what is right before God. How do you describe fearing for the souls of people that you spent your life loving and living for because of their actions before God? How do you describe trying to get through to people that are part of a system that does not work and who are overwhelmed or do not care? How do you begin to think about living with the consequences if you fail and your efforts go nowhere?
The only thing that I can honestly say is that I still have great faith in God and I know that he is bigger than any problem or circumstance. My faith drives me. It drives this effort. My faith in the goodness that I knew was still present in people has been resurrected by the support we have received. I also know that forgiveness is not something that belongs to us but to God. Only HE has that authority. Ours is to pray to him and ask him to forgive those who have hurt others as I believe that when you cause harm to another human being, you cause harm to God.
So, here we are, despite all these efforts by so many, these two elderly wonderful people who have never hurt anyone and who just wanted to live together in peace and faith, may still have the most tragic ending of all. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Onsy is returned to Egypt, he will likely never see the light of day again given his circumstances.
Everything that I have learned and all that I have been told about his fate makes me ill.
As time grows very near, a five year effort will be coming to an end for me, an end that I can not begin to live with.
The realty is that I still need help to change what is imminent: their deportation.
We need to be able to pay Onsy's legal council so that they would continue their representation of him. We need people to make a non-taxable donation on behalf of Onsy to the NCRJ. http://www.ncrj.org/ (please specify that it is for Onsy Zachary).
We need people in position of power and who can help to step up and help. We need people to write letters and fax them and email them and call: (please go HERE to see a contact list of officials you can write to and other ways to help).
When Onsy was first put into the prison system here 5 years ago, he was badly abused and beaten in the shower by other inmates because of the fact that he is Egyptian and because of the nature of his wrongful conviction. He was hospitalized in prison for weeks, after which he remained for months in solitary confinement where he would not be allowed to take a shower for up to two or more weeks at a time. It took everything we knew how to do to get him to a prison where he thankfully has been safe. Now he is facing being taken to another one of these prisons on September 16, 2007 when he is released from prison into the custody of ICE to await his deportation. Onsy may not even survive to be sent back to Egypt at witch time, he will not survive.
What I ask for, pray for, plead for, is that someone who is in a place to help me stop this and allow this man at least to go home to his loving caring wife to take care of him so they can be together and safe until this is sorted out to step forward and help us.
I am also asking anyone who can donate to the legal fund to do so; otherwise, his case will stop. Thank you all for reading this and for your prayers and support. God bless.
You can contact me at saveonsy@aol.com
I had truly wanted to be the first signature on this petition (or at least make the first page), but thankfully, there are so many people who support this cause that before I had the opportunity to write my comment, there are now over three pages worth of signatures and comments. I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has given of their time to support Onsy and Fadia.
Having complete and intimate knowledge of the entire situation and having lived through it myself, I am so grateful to God first and foremost that finally there are others that see and feel the tremendous injustice that Onsy and Fadia have lived through for almost 10 years now and that I have been trying to bring out to light for the past 5 years.
My uncle Onsy is one of the kindest most amazing spiritual, God loving people I have ever known in my life. His wife Fadia is a remarkable, faith based loving women. They both have great hearts and are very honorable people.
Despite all that has happened to them, my uncle and aunt forgive those who have caused them this great suffering and injustice and simply have faith in God that: God always stands with the innocent person and that they will be vindicated and reunited.
Onsy and Fadia have a love and a bond that is unmatched. They are literally one spirit in two bodies. They had never been apart in almost 40 years until now. They have not been able to see each other in the last 5 years while Onsy has been wrongfully incarcerated. They talk on the phone two times each and every day with no exception and tell me that they feel as though they have never been separated.
There is not enough room in this petition or time for me to go into the unbelievable events that led them to this point and the injustice that they have suffered. I am also not allowed to go into details about the criminal case that is pending. I can honestly say however, that I am truly disgusted with our systems and what it does to people.
I have developed such strong opinions on the issue and again, there is not enough room or time for me to express my disappointment in what our justice system has become, or what our immigration system is. I recognize the great need for both systems, and have to say that we are blessed that we even have systems that can work once in a while compared to other countries, but the more I have learned in the past few years and what I have seen, I cannot abide by. Because we are who we are, the United States Of America, the leader of the free world, our systems and those associated with it such as attorneys and prosecutors should be held to much higher standards.
I used to think that justice always prevailed and truth won out and fairness and common sense had a place in these systems, but the sad truth is that they do not.
I am often asked by people how this has affected the extended family. How do you describe having to choose between your family members who have caused great harm to an innocent man, another family member, who can not even help himself? How do you describe having to give up and grieve for a family that is not dead in order to do what is right before God. How do you describe fearing for the souls of people that you spent your life loving and living for because of their actions before God? How do you describe trying to get through to people that are part of a system that does not work and who are overwhelmed or do not care? How do you begin to think about living with the consequences if you fail and your efforts go nowhere?
The only thing that I can honestly say is that I still have great faith in God and I know that he is bigger than any problem or circumstance. My faith drives me. It drives this effort. My faith in the goodness that I knew was still present in people has been resurrected by the support we have received. I also know that forgiveness is not something that belongs to us but to God. Only HE has that authority. Ours is to pray to him and ask him to forgive those who have hurt others as I believe that when you cause harm to another human being, you cause harm to God.
So, here we are, despite all these efforts by so many, these two elderly wonderful people who have never hurt anyone and who just wanted to live together in peace and faith, may still have the most tragic ending of all. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Onsy is returned to Egypt, he will likely never see the light of day again given his circumstances.
Everything that I have learned and all that I have been told about his fate makes me ill.
As time grows very near, a five year effort will be coming to an end for me, an end that I can not begin to live with.
The realty is that I still need help to change what is imminent: their deportation.
We need to be able to pay Onsy's legal council so that they would continue their representation of him. We need people to make a non-taxable donation on behalf of Onsy to the NCRJ. http://www.ncrj.org/ (please specify that it is for Onsy Zachary).
We need people in position of power and who can help to step up and help. We need people to write letters and fax them and email them and call: (please go HERE to see a contact list of officials you can write to and other ways to help).
When Onsy was first put into the prison system here 5 years ago, he was badly abused and beaten in the shower by other inmates because of the fact that he is Egyptian and because of the nature of his wrongful conviction. He was hospitalized in prison for weeks, after which he remained for months in solitary confinement where he would not be allowed to take a shower for up to two or more weeks at a time. It took everything we knew how to do to get him to a prison where he thankfully has been safe. Now he is facing being taken to another one of these prisons on September 16, 2007 when he is released from prison into the custody of ICE to await his deportation. Onsy may not even survive to be sent back to Egypt at witch time, he will not survive.
What I ask for, pray for, plead for, is that someone who is in a place to help me stop this and allow this man at least to go home to his loving caring wife to take care of him so they can be together and safe until this is sorted out to step forward and help us.
I am also asking anyone who can donate to the legal fund to do so; otherwise, his case will stop. Thank you all for reading this and for your prayers and support. God bless.
You can contact me at saveonsy@aol.com
