Human Rights

Letter To Loretto

May 6, 2015 John Kiriakou, www.fpif.org Educate! Human Rights, Media, Prison

First, I wasn’t allowed to drive, so I had to take public transportation. I had to leave my house in Arlington, walk to the nearest Metro station, take the train to Eastern Market on Capitol Hill, catch a bus for Washington’s Anacostia neighborhood, get off on Alabama Avenue, then walk the rest of the way to Hope Village. This takes at least two hours each way. I’d spend an hour or two at Hope Village, and then make the two-hour trip home. This was killing six hours every day in the middle of the workday. The problem here is that I was supposed to be finding a job and working every day. Remaining unemployed at a certain point would make me “violated.” Having broken the rules of my probation, I’d be heading back to Loretto and spending more time in prison. I saw these daily visits to the halfway house as an utter waste of time.

Baltimore: Arrestees Suffer Human Rights Abuses

May 1, 2015 Marci Tarrant Johnson, www.facebook.com/OccupySantaFe Educate! Baltimore, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Free Speech and Assembly, Human Rights, Police violence, Prison

More than 250 people have been arrested since Monday here in Baltimore. . . The small concrete booking cells were filled with hundreds of people, most with more than ten people per cell. Three of us were sent to the women's side where there were up to 15 women per holding cell. Most of them had been there since Monday afternoon/evening. With the exception of 3 or 4 women, the women who weren't there for Monday's round-ups were there for freaking curfew violations. Many had not seen a doctor or received required medication. Many had not been able to reach a family member by phone. But here is the WORST thing. Not only had these women been held for two days and two nights without any sort of formal booking, BUT ALMOST NONE OF THEM HAD ACTUALLY BEEN CHARGED WITH ANYTHING. They were brought to CBIF via police wagons (most without seat belts, btw--a real shocker after all that's happened), and taken to holding cells without ever being charged with an actual crime. No offense reports. No statements of probable cause. A few women had a vague idea what they might be charged with . . . .

Faith & Global Poverty Groups Criticize TPP On Fair Global Dvlpment

May 1, 2015 Oxfam, www.oxfamamerica.org Educate! Human Rights, Non-Profits, Poverty, Regulation, TPP

“Trade can indeed spur economic growth and poverty reduction, but only if the rules actually benefit those at the lower end of the development ladder,” said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. “Although it is being negotiated in secret, what we currently know about the TPP lines up the trade deal to do exactly the opposite.” In a letter to Congress, Oxfam joined a number of faith and development organizations, including ActionAid USA, Health Alliance International, American Jewish World Service, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), , and NETWORK – a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby to urge for a change in course away from the current design of TPP and the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill in order for US trade policy to truly serve development outcomes and reduce global poverty.

Baltimore Shuts Off Water To 1000s, Ignoring Corporate Debtors

April 30, 2015 MintPress News Desk, www.mintpressnews.com Resist! Affordability, Baltimore, Human Rights, Water

Detroit activists garnered international attention last year for the plight of their city’s most impoverished residents, who faced water shut-offs for unpaid bills despite the city’s high unemployment rate and collapsed economy. United Nations experts were among many who expressed concern that water shut-offs violate basic human rights. Following Detroit’s lead, Baltimore has started issuing shut-off notices to residential water customers with overdue bills. According to the Baltimore Sun, residents were notified of impending shut off if their accounts were more than six months overdue and they owed more than $250. The efforts have proven profitable: City officials report collecting $1 million from 1,500 overdue accounts. That total reflects only a small portion of the $40 million owed to the city, however. Commercial accounts owe roughly $15 million, and of that total, 40 businesses owe $9.5 million.

Baltimore And The Human Right To Resistance

April 29, 2015 Ajamu Baraka, www.ajamubaraka.com Educate! Baltimore, Human Rights, Resistance

Race and oppressive violence has always been at the center of the racist colonial project that is the U.S. It is only when the oppressed resist — when we decide, like Malcolm X said, that we must fight for our human rights — that we are counseled to be like Dr. King, including by war mongers like Barack Obama. However, resistance to oppression is a right that the oppressed claim for themselves. It does not matter if it is sanctioned by the oppressor state, because that state has no legitimacy. No rational person exalts violence and the loss of life. But violence is structured into the everyday institutional practices of all oppressive societies. It is the deliberate de-humanization of the person in order to turn them into a ‘thing’ — a process Dr. King called “thing-afication.” It is a necessary process for the oppressor in order to more effectively control and exploit.

Women Human Rights Defenders: Protecting Each Other

April 26, 2015 Sarah Marland, www.opendemocracy.net Resist! Human Rights, Women's Rights

In 2012 the Women Human Rights International Coalition released a report on the growing threats faced by women around the world working to defend human rights. The rise of fundamentalisms, militarism and conflict, globalization and neoliberalism, crises of democracy and governance, patriarchy and heternormativity, are the key contexts that overlap and combine to put women human rights defenders at particular risk. In 2015, these risks have increased dramatically across the world, but systems to keep women human rights defenders safe are lagging far behind. At the 59th Session of the Commission of Status of Women (CSW) in New York last month, a persistent theme raised in panels was that in the absence of protection from the UN, regional bodies and national governments, it is the networks of women human rights defenders themselves that provide protection.

Tell Baltimore To Stop The Water Shut Offs!

April 25, 2015 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Petitions and Online Actions Commodification, Human Rights, Water

On April 1, Baltimore started turning off water to 150 households a day. The city plans to turn off 25,000 residences in total. There are commercial and public entities in Baltimore that owe $15 million, but they are not losing their access to water. Baltimore has a history of overcharging residents. This resulted in a $4.2 million refund to about 38,000 residents in 2012. Beginning in July 2013, Baltimore is raising water rates by 42% over a three year period. Advocates say that the city's programs to assist residents are burdensome and inadequate. There is a one time grant of about $160 available for those who qualify. Residents of Baltimore are concerned about the water shut offs for a number of reasons.

Newly Leaked TTIP Draft Reveals Far-Reaching Assault

April 21, 2015 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Educate! Democracy, Environment, Free Trade, Human Rights, TTIP

A freshly-leaked chapter from the highly secretive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement, currently under negotiation between the United States and European Union, reveals that the so-called "free trade" deal poses an even greater threat to environmental and human rights protections—and democracy itself—than previously known, civil society organizations warn. The revelation comes on the heels of global protests against the mammoth deal over the weekend and coincides with the reconvening of negotiations between the parties on Monday in New York. The European Commission's latest proposed chapter (pdf) on "regulatory cooperation" was first leaked to Friends of the Earth and dates to the month of March. It follows previous leaks of the chapter, and experts say the most recent iteration is even worse.

The Truth About The Detroit Water Shutoffs

April 20, 2015 Matthew Kovac, www.occupy.com Educate! Detroit, Human Rights, Law, Water

Ever since the City of Detroit started shutting off water to low-income residents last summer in what United Nations investigators denounced as a human rights violation, city officials have maintained that they are simply responding to Detroiters’ failure to pay their bills. Now it’s looking like that’s not the case. The independent investigative outlet Motor City Muckraker recently revealed that the city had shut off water to residents with up-to-date bills, including a Detroit Free Press editor. When called on it, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) told Muckraker that a clerical error resulted in 11 such shutoffs.

Holograms For Freedom Campaign Highlights Spanish Repression

April 19, 2015 Jesus, www.nosomosdelito.net Resist! Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Speech, Human Rights

With the holograms campaign for freedom we want to highlight the situation of repression of our rights as free people, as citizens living in a supposed democracy. The rules penalizing freedoms and human rights recently approved in the Congress of Deputies make us a ghostly, hologrammatic citizenship, which only counts in politics to abide by the wishes of those who have climbed up there, of which dictate above all laws, including the judiciary ... Laws that violate our human rights and prevent us from participating in public affairs. A series of totalitarian laws are being used to subject the will of the people, the people who, lest we forget, have delegated their power of representation in political leaders. #HologramasLibres (FreeHolograms) describe a surreal future in which we have to shed our flesh and become three-dimensional light forms (holograms) in order to protest. The aim of esta dystopia is to denounce the situation we are currently facing. The manifestation of holograms reveals that people cannot express in the street contrary to the political class messages, we can not think freely -for free thought depends on the possibility of meeting to speak freely, to express themselves in the streets, in the markets, in the streets.

‘March 2 Justice’ Crosses Into Jersey, Pennsylvania

April 18, 2015 NBC 10 Staff and NBC New York, www.nbcphiladelphia.com Organize! Human Rights, New York City (NYC), police brutality

A 250-mile march protesting police brutality crossed into Trenton as well as parts of Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Protesters with the "March 2 Justice" marched in Trenton and parts of Bucks County early Tuesday evening. The demonstration is taking protesters from New York City to Philadelphia to Capitol Hill. The March 2 Justice began Monday morning in Staten Island, the borough where Eric Garner died during a confrontation with NYPD officers last summer. Garner's death, along with others across the nation including that of Ferguson teen Michael Brown, set off protests that culminated with several nights of massive marches when a grand jury chose not to charge the officer seen putting Garner in a chokehold in a widely viewed amateur video with any crimes.

Fast Track Reveals Deep Corruption Of Government

April 18, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Sharmini Peries, www.therealnews.com Resist! Capitalism, Democracy, Free Trade, Human Rights, TPP

Because they have the experience of NAFTA and the WTO. What they've seen in the past, some of the promises in this fast-track are, they put 150 negotiating objectives. You know, protect the environment with enforceable rules, protect labor rights with enforceable rules. Those have been put into every fast-track agreement since the NAFTA and WTO and they've never accomplished anything. In fact there was a leak of the environmental chapter a year ago of the TPP, and it showed that the enforcement sections for the environment are weaker than they were under President Bush's trade agreements. And so there's less enforcement of the environment than there's ever been. And so you have this fast-track that says the objective is to protect the environment with enforceable protections, and the leak says there's no enforcement.

Protests Lead To President’s Support Of Prison Divestment

April 18, 2015 University Business Magazine, www.google.com Resist! Divestment, Human Rights, Mass Incarceration, Prison, Student Activism

37 Wesleyan students sat in on President Michael Roth’s office yesterday and today demanding divestment from fossil fuels, the Israeli occupation and the prison industrial complex. This morning, they left with Roth’s endorsement of prison divestment and commitment to further dialogue on divestment from fossil fuels and the Israeli occupation. President Roth agreed to investigate the current status of the university’s investments in private prisons, to publicly state his endorsement of prison divestment, and proceed to support divestment of any holdings Wesleyan may have. Students arrived in the president’s office at noon on Thursday, marking the anniversary of President Roth’s participation in a sit-in for divestment from South African Apartheid as a Wesleyan student in 1978.

Kathy Kelly: The Storm Is Over

April 17, 2015 Kathy Kelly, www.riseuptimes.org Educate! Human Rights, Mass Incarceration, Prison

Lightning flashed across Kentucky skies a few nights ago. “I love storms,” said my roommate, Gypsi, her eyes bright with excitement. Thunder boomed over the Kentucky hills and Atwood Hall, here in Lexington, KY’s federal prison. I fell asleep thinking of the gentle, haunting song our gospel choir sings: “It’s over now, It’s over now. I think that I can make it. The storm is over now.” I awoke the next morning feeling confused and bewildered. Why had the guards counted us so many times? “That was lightning,” Gypsi said, giggling. The guards shine flashlight in our rooms three times a night, to count us, and I generally wake up each time; that night the storm was also a culprit. As the day continued we saw large pools of water had collected at each entrance to Atwood Hall.

Tues April 14th, First Day Of Solidarity

April 13, 2015 Lucasville Amnesty, www.lucasvilleamnesty.org Resist! Human Rights, Hunger Strike, Mass Incarceration, Ohio

As the Ohio State Penitentiary hunger strike approaches 30 days, we will rally at the Ohio Dept of Rehabilitation and Correction in Columbus, and deliver a letter to top officials demanding justice. Over 50 prisoners have been illegally denied religious and recreation programming. We stand with them The rally coincides with the 22nd anniversary of the Lucasville Uprising, where inmates in Southern Ohio took over a prison in response to religious discrimination. f you can't make it to Columbus, please be creative and find a way to support the hunger strike on Tuesday. Organize a solidarity fast like students at the University of Toledo did on Friday, with an evening "break the fast" get together. Or a call-in lunch, gather with friends mid-day and call the prison, Central Office, and The CIIC (numbers and scripts below).

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources