Human Rights

Philadelphia’s School Reform Debacle

October 9, 2014 Sarah Jaffe, www.salon.com Educate! Education, Human Rights, Philadelphia

The latest move by Corbett and the Philadelphia School Reform Commission (SRC), which replaced an elected school board after the 2001 takeover, is to unilaterally cancel the city’s contract with the 15,000 members of the Philadelphia Federation of teachers. Monday morning, the SRC held a surprise meeting—announced, not on their website as usual, but with an advertisement in the legal section of the newspaper over the weekend. Normally, said Kati Sipp of the Pennsylvania Working Families Party, the commission meets on Thursday evenings, at a time when parents and students can attend, rather than at a time when school is in session and many parents are at work. “It was clearly designed to not be a public event,” Sipp said.

We Need An Open Discussion Of The Internet’s Future

October 9, 2014 Todd Wolfson, www.philly.com Organize! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Human Rights, Internet, Media

LAST week, one of the most powerful figures in American communications policy, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, paid a visit to Philadelphia. He made this visit in what he called a "hinge" moment, at a time when many critical communication policy issues are being decided. We at Media Mobilizing Project - a community group focused on building a media and communications infrastructure for poor and working people across the region - hosted him. We were excited to do so, as the issues in front of Wheeler are legion - from the ability of municipalities to create publicly owned broadband infrastructure to the future of net neutrality and the continuing consolidation of our media system with the Comcast-Time Warner merger.

Why Did Germany End Tuition? Mass Student Protests

October 9, 2014 David Smith, www.economywatch.com Resist! Education, Germany, Human Rights, Protest, Student Activism

After experimenting with tuition fees, all the federal German states have been persuaded to reverse their decision. In the UK and US, there is no political will to change the policies which are blighting whole generations. The only way forward is to copy German protest movements. “What Germany has done is fabulous and it’s not surprising that people in the US don’t understand it. What I really liked was the reversal of their decision to impose them,” she said. “It’s a great shame that the UK has gone to a system like ours because it’s a disaster to be avoided at all costs. British students coming out with that much debt will be very unhappy in a generation or two, just as we are in the US. I’d love to see a 180 degree turnaround in the UK as well, but I can’t see it happening. The same neoliberal economic assumptions are driving policies in the UK as in the US, even though they are not justified by data.”

Cove Point Residents Speak Of Dangers From Proposed LNG Plant

October 9, 2014 John Zangas, www.dcmediagroup.us Resist! Cove Point, Energy, Environment, Human Rights

Advocates and residents of Cove Point denounced energy giant Dominion’s plans to build a liquid natural gas (LNG) plant near their homes during a press conference Friday. They spoke from the front lawn of Dominion Cove Point’s nearest neighbor, Rachel Heinhorst.IMG_0595-1.JPG “I am holding on to hope…there will be a realization of the careless decision to let this happen here so close to my family,” said Heinhorst, a mother of three who has lived near Cove Point for 8 years. Their denouncemets of Dominion’s plan were in clear view of its front gate as trucks pulled in and out of the busy facility while front gate security officers stood watch.

Our Water, Our Power In Detroit

October 8, 2014 Nene Igietseme, www.storybasedstrategy.org Organize! Detroit, Human Rights, Water

It’s fitting that poetry and music began and ended the Our Power Detroit gathering. Besides the legacy of Motown, it is often only in our creative expressions that we can truly begin to articulate our wildest dreams, hopes, and aspirations. Will’s piece (dedicated to Charity Mahouna Hicks) spoke of his desire to return to unity and to one-ness with each other, our ancestors and our futures. Articulating, sharing, and reiterating these visions is crucial, particularly in Detroit right now. With the city under emergency management, it is not uncommon to hear people speak about their conditions, which mirror the hostility that exists for all poor people, people of color, and communities in the face of global capital and profit-driven enterprise. This hostility is now ever-present and undeniable in Detroit with the city under emergency management.

Guantanamo’s Controversial Force-Feeding Policies On Trial

October 7, 2014 Jason Leopold, www.news.vice.com Educate! Human Rights, Mass Incarceration, Torture, Wars and Militarism

Two weeks ago, medical personnel at Guantanamo Bay told VICE News that hunger-striking detainees are fed no differently than American patients in US hospitals who require feeding tubes. But today, lawyers for Abu Wa'el Dhiab, a 43-year-old Syrian national who has been held captive at Guantanamo since 2002 — he has been cleared for transfer out of the detention facility since 2009 — are arguing in US District Court in Washington, DC that Guantanamo's new force-feeding protocols are particularly abusive, and specifically designed to deter detainees from participating in the hunger strikes. It's a historic case that could force military officials to radically change the way detainees who engage in the protests are treated by their captors.

UN Coming To Detroit To Investigate Human Rights Violations

October 7, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Organize! Detroit, Housing, Human Rights, United Nations, Water

United Nations human rights investigators are coming to Detroit on a fact-finding mission to learn more about the shutting off of water and other likely human rights violations. The Special Rapporteur on Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation; and the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing will listen to witnesses describing the situation in Detroit. International and locally known panelists will hear testimony at this town-hall from Michigan residents regarding water, sanitation, and housing issues offered by victims of this crisis.

School Board Defies Protest To Pass Curriculum Review

October 6, 2014 Nicky Woolf, www.linkis.com Resist! Education, History, Human Rights, Student Activism

They were there to protest against what they see as egregious overreach by the conservative majority on the Jefferson County school board. They chanted slogans and waved signs saying “Get Koch Industries Out Of Our Schools” and “We Have The Right To Know Our Past!” Several students, Wallen included, addressed the assembled crowd from the back of a pickup truck. “Just because we’re teenagers, doesn’t mean we’re apathetic about education!” said one. While the students addressed the crowd on the green, hundreds more were already queueing to get into the meeting-room itself. As the marchers set off along Golden’s main street waving their banners, others began to file in to the fifth floor meeting room, escorted to the lifts in small groups by security guards.

Aboriginal Protests Block Two Ontario Highways

October 6, 2014 Canadian Press, www.insidebelleville.com Resist! Canada, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Women

CALEDONIA, Ont. - Protesters calling for action on missing and murdered aboriginal women have closed stretches of two highways in Ontario. Provincial police say demonstrators have blocked part of Highway 6 between Caledonia and Hagersville and at the Skyway Bridge on Highway 49 connecting Tyendinaga Territory and Prince Edward County. The protests come on what's billed as a national day of vigil for missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls. Six Nations Men's Fire, which is organizing the planned two-day Highway 6 closure, is calling on the federal government to hold an inquest into the matter.

Stop Treating DC As A Colony; Take Action For DC Statehood

October 6, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Organize! DC Statehood, Democracy, Human Rights

Monday is a day of action for DC statehood. It is time to stop treating Washington, DC as a colony. D.C. Statehood Greens and friends are invited to attend a press conference at Lafayette Park on Pennsylvania Avenue NW near the White House on Monday, Oct. 6 at 1:00 p.m. Candidates Eugene Puryear and David Schwartzman will speak and Eugene will deliver a letter to President Obama urging him to support and promote legislation that would grant statehood to the District of Columbia. Bring banners and flags, wear D.C. statehood tee shirts and buttons to show your support! speak out publicly in support of D.C. statehood, in whatever way they can, on Oct. 6. (For Talking Points, read this press release: http://tinyurl.com/lb3ogsj). If you publish a statement, please send it to us! How to call Congress and the White House: • U.S. Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121 • White House: 202-456-1111

Irish Protest Charges For Water

October 4, 2014 Michelle Hennessy, www.thejournal.ie Resist! Human Rights, Ireland, Water

WATER CHARGE PROTESTS continued today with Anti Austerity Alliance representatives staging a demonstration outside Irish Water headquarters earlier today, urging people to send their registration pack back incomplete. Speaking at the protest today, activist Paul Murphy said there is a “revolt” taking place against what he said were “completely bogus” charges. "The vast majority of people have so far not returned the application packs from Irish Water properly filled out. We returned today to Irish Water a wheelie bin of packs which people have given to us in protest against water charges."

We Need To Win The Tar Sands Battle

October 4, 2014 Brad Hornick, www.rabble.ca Educate! Canada, Energy, Environment, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Tar Sands

The tar sands agenda, argues Martin Lukacs, empowers the political machinations of the reactionary Right in Canada. It reinforces a corporate constitutionalism that locks-in trade and investment through bilateral and multilateral agreements that secure investment "certainty" through the engineered collapse of environmental regulatory frameworks. "In other words," says Lukacs, "these are not pipelines to build a nation. They are a scheme by which to swindle it." The climate justice movement will continue to radicalize and abruptly challenge the priorities of capital. It will confront the traditional environmental movement as well as Left politics as it forges a new constellation of political forces concerned with Indigenous rights and title, migrant rights, labour rights and the rights of nature.

Police Departments Retaliate Against ‘Cop Watch’ Groups

October 3, 2014 Candice Bernd, www.truth-out.org Educate! Human Rights, Law, Media, police brutality, Police the Police

Across the nation, local police departments are responding to organized cop watching patrols by targeting perceived leaders, making arrests, threatening arrests, yanking cameras out of hands and even labeling particular groups "domestic extremist" organizations and part of the sovereign citizens movement - the activities of which the FBI classifies as domestic terrorism. Sources who have participated in various organized cop watching groups in cities such as New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Oakland, Arlington, Texas, Austin and lastly Ferguson, Missouri, told Truthout they have experienced a range of police intimidation tactics, some of which have been caught on film. Cop watchers told Truthout they have been arrested in several states, including Texas, New York, Ohio and California in retaliation for their filming activity.

Activists Demand WGBH Dump David Koch

October 3, 2014 Chris Cassidy and Robert Greim , www.bostonherald.com Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Human Rights, Koch, Media, PBS

Nearly 100 environmental activists protested outside WGBH’s Brighton studios yesterday calling for conservative billionaire David Koch’s ouster from the public broadcaster’s board of trustees. “I am here today because David Koch is a climate denier and ’GBH has scientific programs and he should have absolutely no influence on PBS and public broadcasting,” said Nate Goldshlag of Arlington. Some protesters dressed as Sesame Street characters Elmo, Big Bird and the Count joined the crowd. Dozens then packed the board of trustees meeting. A Herald videographer was not allowed to record the meeting, but Emily Southard of Forecast the Facts said that though they weren’t allowed to address the board, some protesters interrupted the meeting to complain about Koch’s involvement.

Exposed: Tax Evictions Could Displace 20,000

October 1, 2014 Michele Obelholtzer, www.occupy.com Educate! Detroit, Foreclosure, Housing, Human Rights, Law, Water

On Monday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes made a landmark decision to authorize continued water shutoffs for unpaid water bills, leaving thousands of Detroiters without access to water. At the same time, and less reported on, some 20,000 Detroit residents stand to lose another basic human right — their housing — as the Wayne County Treasurer prepares to carry out mass tax foreclosures across the city. If Detroiters facing foreclosure knew they could buy their home for as little as $500, they’d jump at the chance. But local government does the bare minimum to inform those people who could benefit most. Foreclosure notices don’t even mention the auction, let alone the auction website.

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