The jailed Florida professor Sami Al-Arian has begun a new hunger strike to protest what he calls continued government harassment. On Monday, the Justice Department called for him to testify before a third grand jury, only weeks before his scheduled release date. Al-Arian has been imprisoned for five years on charges that he was a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Two years ago, a Florida jury failed to return a single guilty verdict on any of the seventeen charges brought against him. Despite the jury’s findings, Al-Arian remained in jail. Last year, Al-Arian was sentenced to an additional eighteen months in jail for refusing to testify before a Virginia grand jury. Al-Arian could now potentially be sentenced to even more time in prison if he refuses to testify before the new grand jury. Attorney Jonathan Turley said, “The mistreatment of Dr. Al-Arian remains an international symbol of how the Bush administration has discarded fundamental principles of fairness in a blind pursuit of retribution against this political activist.”