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political prisoners

Political Prisoners Of Allied Struggles

There are over fifty political prisoners and prisoners of war held in the US, and many more politicized prisoners.  The following are some of those prisoners from struggles that are allied with the Earth First! movement.  See the recommended resources for more information and contacts for additional prisoners not listed on this site, and check out our suggestions for supporting prisoners.

Sotoudeh’s Case Is Iran’s Own Goal

Last week, the European Parliament joined the international outcry over the sentencing of Iranian human rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh to a long prison term by voting overwhelmingly for a resolution calling for her release. The European Parliament is particularly sensitive to the fate of Sotoudeh. It awarded her the Sakharov Prize in 2012, the EU’s highest human rights award, in recognition of her outstanding work in this area. It is only politically and morally consistent for the Parliament to express public dismay over her persecution.

Marty Gottesfeld: Another Whistleblower In Solitary Confinement

Last year I wrote about a whistleblower from New England who took direct action to save a child’s life and who paid for it with his freedom.  Marty Gottesfeld is now serving 10 years in prison for trying to save Justina Pelletier from abuse at the hands of her doctors at Children’s Hospital in Boston. At the age of 14, Justine developed searing stomach pain and inexplicable digestive problems. Her parents took her to a series of doctors until a metabolic geneticist at Tufts Medical Center diagnosed her with mitochondrial disease, a genetic malady that can lead to weakened muscles, neurological problems and dementia.

Keep The Pressure On DA Krasner To Free Mumia!

On Dec. 28, one day after the decision by Judge Leon Tucker opening the door to further appeals by Mumia Abu-Jamal, employees of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office “found” six boxes in a storage space, while allegedly looking for office furniture. Five of the six boxes are marked with the name McCann, the name of a former head of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office Homicide Unit. Five of the boxes were also marked with Mumia’s name. This discovery was revealed to the public more than a week later in press reports.

Julian Assange Examined By Doctors As MSM And Democrats Push Fake Meeting With Paul Manafort

The facts are contrary to what Moreno stated; the real truth is that Ecuador is trying to sell out Assange in a “deal” with the U.S. for loans, as WikiLeaks tweeted. Ecuador's immediately former president responds to New York Times report that his successor offered to sell WikiLeaks' publisher Julian Assange's to the U.S. government in exchange for debt relief. Subsequently Ecuador received $1.1 billion from US controlled banks.

Black Liberation Activist Freed After 40 Years In Prison

After 40 years in prison, Mike Africa Sr., of the Black liberation group, Move, has been released on parole. Africa is the second member of the group to be released. His wife, Debbie Sims Africa, was released on parole last year. “It’s kind of surreal that I’m sitting on the porch with my son and his family — my wife is here,” Mike Africa Sr. told teleSUR. “A couple of hours ago I was sitting in a jail cell. I’m just trying to take it all in and get my bearings.” Move, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., was founded in 1972 in resistance to police brutality and environmental destruction. Nine members were arrested in 1978 during a police raid, becoming known as the Move Nine.

NSCAG Debunks Amnesty Claims About Political Prisoners

In its latest attempt to demonise Nicaragua, Amnesty International once again nails its colours to the mast of the right wing opposition. Its latest ‘Urgent Action’ campaign - see link here - denouncing the ‘wave of detentions of students and activists in Nicaragua’ is yet more proof that Amnesty has given up all pretence to be an impartial source of information about human rights in Nicaragua. Its report completely ignores the fact that those detained are not victims but the perpetrators of violent crimes. In addition to kidnapping, torture and murder, those who have been arrested are accused of sexual assault, looting, theft and the burning and destruction of public and private buildings, including municipal offices, health centres, historical places, private homes, schools and even pre-schools, universities, police stations and public and private transport units.

Sign On: Urge President Obrador To Investigate Human Rights Abuses, Free Political Prisoners

President-Elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has shown interest in proposing an Amnesty Law with a final goal of national reconciliation and peace. In Mexico there exist political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, a result of repression by neoliberal governments to quieten political dissidence and the struggle for justice that has, to a greater or lesser extent, provided fertile ground for a greater democracy in Mexico. Currently, the fabrication of crimes and torture, arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial killings still prevail with total impunity. Persecution and forced displacement take place daily, deeds that wound the lives of hundreds of Mexican families and impede a transition to democracy even now.

Ahed Tamimi And Her Mother Are Freed From Jail

When they left prison on Sunday Ahed Tamimi and her mother Nariman received a hard-earned heros’ welcome from Palestinians and others opposed to Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands seized in 1948 and enlarged by the Israeli army in 1967. Ahed was 16 years old last December when an Israeli soldier shot her cousin in the face. The next day Israeli soldiers menacingly showed up at her house in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. What would you do? Ahed slapped one of the armed-to-the-teeth soldiers. While some Israeli politicians said she should be put away for life and others demanded a sentence of at least ten years, the Israeli occupiers sentenced her to eight months for the slap seen around the world. She spent her 17th birthday in prison.

Warm Welcome Greets Ahed And Nariman Tamimi Upon Their Release From Israeli Prison

Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi, 17, and her mother, Nariman Tamimi, were released from Israeli occupation prisons in the morning of Sunday, 29 July 2018 after serving eight-month prison sentences. Ahed and her mother were arrested on 19 December 2017 after a video of Ahed confronting occupation soldiers on the family’s land in the village of Nabi Saleh, including slapping one soldier, went viral on social media. Ahed and her family are leaders in the anti-colonial indigenous land defense movement in Nabi Saleh, where the village’s land and even springs are targeted for confiscation and theft by the neighboring illegal, Jewish-only settlement of Halamish.

More Than 100,000 Call For Freedom Of Political Prisoners In Catalonia

Between 110,000 and 200,000 people attended a march held in Barcelona on Saturday to demand freedom for the nine pro-independence leaders jailed. The Catalan capital's local police estimated that 110,000 attended the protest, while organizers raised this figure to 200,000. The people who took the streets of Barcelona included the country's two top authorities, president Quim Torra and parliament speaker Roger Torrent. The host organizations were major pro-independence entities ANC and Òmnium, alongside with another one gathering the relatives of the jailed and exiled leaders. 'Neither prison nor exile, we want you home' The march started in Barcelona's city center at 7pm with a clear motto: 'Neither prison nor exile, we want you home."

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Ruling Supports Assange Freedom

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that it is the duty of nations to allow for the passage of successful asylum seekers from embassies to the mainland territory of the state that has granted an individual asylum. For Julian Assange, this would mean Britain has a legal obligation to allow Julian Assange to exit the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in peace. If the UK continues to ignore the court’s decision by insisting that local police will arrest Assange for a breach of bail conditions if he leaves the embassy, this means that the British government will have wantonly failed to uphold Assange’s rights as a legitimate receiver of asylum by Ecuador.

They Went To Jail For Justice

The book is a bit of a time capsule, somewhat along the lines of Daniel Ellsberg’s recent book revealing the substance of the other half of the Pentagon Papers decades later. In fact, Hinke actually found this manuscript, which he had begun in 1966 and lost a couple of years later in the process of moving to Canada. So it’s a shame that the book proceeds chronologically through the 20th century and then breaks off, more or less, in the 1970s. But what has come since may be more familiar, and what is found here is of tremendous value. Part of what the book illuminates is the role Canada has played for many decades as a haven for those fleeing all kinds of injustice, including military conscription, in the United States, but also in other countries, such as Russia.

Ecuador: Rafael Correa Supporters March To Protest Detention

Thousands of people marched through Quito on Thursday in support of former President Rafael Correa, who has been accused of involvement in a failed kidnapping. Thousands of Rafael Correa supporters marched through one of Quito's main arteries on Thursday in defense of Ecuador's former president, accused of orchestrating a failed kidnapping attempt in 2012 – a charge he vehemently denies. Carrying giant 'No, Neoliberalism' signs and shouting "A united community will never be beaten," demonstrators marched along Quito's 10 de Agosto Avenue towards the Plaza Grande, outside President Lenin Moreno's executive offices, but were blocked by police and military forces.

‘They Want Me Dead’: Rafael Correa Defies Arrest Order & Talks ‘Lawfare’ In Emotional RT Interview

Former President of Ecuador Rafael Correa has defied an arrest order, claiming the new government is waging “lawfare” to deprive him of a political future – and even life, in an exclusive RT interview. Judge Daniella Camacho ordered the arrest of three-term President Rafael Correa on Tuesday over his alleged involvement in the 2012 abduction of a political opponent and requested that Interpol apprehend him for extradition. Correa, who now lives in Belgium, called the allegations “tremendously ridiculous” and dismissed Ecuador’s pressure on him in an interview with RT.

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