Wake-up Human Rights Defenders... Spring is here!

 A great start for our official waking up of winter hibernation .... Our first 'tabling' activity at the Amherst Farmers Market was a lot of fun on Sat 4/19/14 ... Thanks to our creative leader, Martha, who decorated the table with flying balloons and bright posters of human rights success stories around the world... Thanks to those came and did the Human Rights Walk inside the Farmers Market, and those who could not come and were there in spirit..

Our logo in English & Arabic

The most 2 used languages in our Chapter

We have a good tentative agenda for our monthly meeting on 4/26....

1. Schedule for tabling on Amherst Common on Saturdays (pls send us the dates you can volunteer even if it was only 30min on a Sat... it's a good chance to shop at the Farmers Market)

2. Making our “talking points” about International Violence Against Women

    Act (IVAWA) for the meeting with Sen. Warren’s staff (on Mon, Aug 28,

    in Springfield) Here is the one-page brief summary of the Bill

3. Starting to brainstorm about the Human Rights Day (yes, we are starting now!)

4. The anti-drone Article to be introduced in Town Meeting this Spring (Drones just killed 3 innocent civilians in Yemen)

5. Financial Report (bring creative ideas to increase our budget for a full-of-events season ahead)

6. Other issues

file:///Users/mohamedibrahim/Desktop/IMG_2700.jpg

file:///Users/mohamedibrahim/Desktop/IMG_2707.jpg

BOROUJERDI is SERIOUSLY ILL and DENIED TREATMENT

News from Amnesty International was not good this week about our adopted Prisoner of Conscience (POC) prisoner, the Iranian human rights defender Boroujerdi who "had been preaching a traditional interpretation of Islam which separates religion from politics in a mosque in a poor neighbourhood in the south of Tehran for some years"
We encourage you to take action by clicking on this link 

"The health of jailed Iranian cleric Sayed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi, a prisoner of conscience held in Tehran’s Evin Prison, is worsening. He is in urgent need of medical treatment.

Sayed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi, serving an 11-year prison sentence, suffers from a number of illnesses, including diabetes, asthma, Parkinson’s disease, kidney and heart problems and severe pain in his legs and waist. 

He has also reportedly gone partly blind in one of his eyes. His health conditions have apparently worsened and he collapses frequently. He has not been provided with the medical treatment he requires, though prison doctors said in February 2014 that he needed to be hospitalized outside the prison. During the eight years he has spent in prison, he has been admitted to hospital three times.

He is now held in Evin Prison’s Ward for the Clergy: he was imprisoned for advocating the separation of religion and state. He has been under increased pressure to write and sign “confessions”. Prison officials have told him at least once, in October 2013, that if he does not write a letter recanting his beliefs, he will never be released." 

Read the full Urgent Action release here.