Article,
Translating Terror. The (Mis)application of US Federal Prison Rules in the Yousry Case
The Translator, (2012)
Abstract
On 10 February 2005, a New York jury convicted Mohamed Yousry, an Arabic interpreter and translator, of two related offenses: (1) violating US federal prison rules, called Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), designed, inter alia, to prevent high-risk inmates from communicating with confederates on the outside; and (2) aiding and abetting an Egyptian terrorist organization (U.S. v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar, Lynne Stewart, and Mohamed Yousry, 2005). By tracing Yousry’s path from judiciary interpreter to prisoner, this article explores the legislative history of the SAMs, discusses their application/misapplication and sheds light on how this landmark case transformed the professional landscape for interpreters in the United States post-9/11. To highlight some of the implications for the profession and the discipline, it draws on current literature on translation and interpreting in situations of conflict. It also positions the verdict in the larger context of US national security and offers policy suggestions geared toward protecting this increasingly vulnerable profession.
