A Great Human Rights Day forum

The Human Rights Day forum was a very successful event, with a packed room from diverse colors of human rights defenders from different ethnic and age categories.

The "Raging Grannies" performed a very powerful and colorful message of human rights with a focus on the US when they performed 5 songs to highlight human rights crises (immigrants, Guantanamo Bay, torture, etc). They gave a special flavor to this year's Forum.

The keynote speaker. Ms. Gissou Nia, an Iranian-American activist, captured the audience attention with her strong understanding of many different issues. Her passionate dedication to human rights in the Middle east and Iran in particular has engaged the audience in a scholarly discussion after her talk.

The Baha'i community of Amherst and Hadley showed good presence and participation in the Forum. Jacqueline Odess-Gillett, a spiritual Baha'i activist, inspired the audience with a beautiful and soothing peace song....

The Human Rights day activities continued the next day with the annual Candle Vigil in downtown Amherst organized and led by the town of Amherst Human Rights Commission. here in this picture, our dynamo Martha and Irwin Spiegelman (hats) read the Universal declaration of Human Rights.