Human Rights

Seventy-one-year-old S. Brian Willson, a Viet Nam veteran member of Veterans For Peace, Portland Chapter 72, beginning Sunday, May 12 reduced his food intake by more than 85 percent, fasting on 300 calories a day in solidarity with the 130 uncharged Guantanamo prisoner hunger strikers now in deteriorating health, many of whom are being force-fed. Willson, a trained lawyer and criminologist, anti-war activist and author, lives by the mantra: “We are not worth more; They are not worth less.” He joins 65-year-old grandmother Diane Wilson, a fifth-generation Texas shrimper, anti-war activist and author, who began an open-ended, water-only fast on May 1 outside the White House, and intends to fast until the prisoners are freed.

One arrested protester, Leslie Boyd, drove to Raleigh from Asheville with a photo of her deceased son, Mike Danford. She spoke out against the GOP leadership’s refusal to accept a Medicaid expansion under the federal health care reform, saying their refusal would limit health care access for nearly half a million people. Her son hadn’t been able to afford health insurance because he had a birth defect that was considered a pre-existing condition.

If North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory (R) is concerned about his place in history, it looks like he's got something to worry about. Several of the world's top historians, three of whom appear in the video below, have been arrested in recent days protesting what Rev. Dr. William Barber II called an "avalanche of extremist policies that threaten health care, education, voting rights." McCrory has said he will sign bills that threaten the poor, the elderly, and minorities while giving tax cuts to the 23 wealthiest families in the state. The civil disobedience campaign is being led by Barber, head of the North Carolina NAACP. Each Friday for the past three weeks, they have announced their intentions for the following Monday. So far, over 50 people have been arrested.

A group of seven undocumented immigrants from Illinois sat down blocking the doors to the Broadview Detention Facility, linking arms together using pipes, chains, and locks. They were protesting the record-high deportations under President Obama, and the lack of leadership from Illinois representatives to call for a suspension of these deportations. “I am tired of living in fear of having my family separated at any moment. Why are we losing 1,100 people every day while legislators talk about immigration reform, when the President has the power to suspend deportations of our parents now, just as he did with students” said Xanat Sobrevilla, an undocumented immigrant taking part in today’s blockade who received her deferred action last winter.

“I am disgusted with President Obama for keeping the prisoners in Guantanamo in indefinite detention, refusing to release those who have been cleared, and brutally force-feeding them,” Wilson said in a statement ahead of the protest. “We Americans have to do more to force the president to take action.” Other protesters wore Guantanamo-style orange jumpsuits while an “armed US soldier” reenacted "the degrading and inhumane treatment of the prisoners by US military guards."

A group of about 40 pro-immigration activists led a protest Thursday outside the office of Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., one of a group of eight senators working to draft overhaul legislation. The group is upset about delays in finishing the bill. “The so-called gang of eight, including Sen. Schumer, had said we will have this finished by the end of March,” said Elizabeth Alex, director of central Maryland voter engagement for Casa in Action. “We know they are about to leave on vacation. ... There is still no bill. “We don’t want this to get pushed to the back burner. Every day that they wait more and more immigrant families are being separated,” Alex continued. “So we just came today to remind them that the time is now. They need to do what they promised to do.” Five members of the group were arrested, Alex said.

A group pushing immigration reform said two dozen of its members briefly took over the office Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday to protest what they say is the slow pace of efforts to get an immigration bill in Congress. Several were arrested outside the office. CASA in Action said its members hung a banner in the Hart Senate Office building, targeting Schumer’s office as the lead Democrat on the Senate’s bipartisan group working on introducing legislation. The action took place a day after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) publicly complained that the so-called Gang of Eight is taking too long to agree on legislation and their delay means his committee will not be able to approve legislation in April, as he hoped.