National Campaign to close Guantanamo Detention Center

Close Guantanamo and End Indefinite Detention

I Support Closing Guantanamo

Tell President Obama and Congress that you support closing the Guantanamo detention facility. On April 30th, 2013, as over 100 detainees are on hunger strike, President Obama rightly reaffirmed his commitment to close Guantanamo. He must now take action to get the job done and Congress must support the effort.
Each detainee must either be charged and fairly tried in federal court, or be released to countries that will respect their human rights. Under current law, cleared detainees can be transferred out. There is no excuse for human rights violations to continue. Read More »

Our Chapter (Group-128) is planning many activities during Summer and Fall to highlight the crisis of human rights around the world including similar detention centers like Guantanamo (e.g. the Ghost Houses in Sudan and Eritrea).

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

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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.

Planning "2014 events" Meeting

A well prepared and facilitated meeting (thanks to our Coordinator, Martha) was held yesterday @ the Jones Library and put in action the outlines of a promising 2014 agenda.
Please see the empty spots (on left) for Tabling events and add your name

Jones Library

Financial Report; Legislative Bills and Lobbying; Collaboration with Amnesty Group 133; A proposed Drones Article for the Town Metting (Frank Gatti);  AGM in Chicago; and our website. These were the agenda discussed.

The AGM was discussed and concern over the high cost for participation was raised again and we elided to voice them in writing this time.
Thanks to Alexis, our young enthusistic member for representing the Group in Chicago ... The 3-Day Conference agenda is available here.

Abdelrahman Gasim

We encourage all members to post on our Facebook Page... Thanks to our member At Large, the prominent human rights advocate and member of Darfur Bar Association, Abdelrahman Gasim, for keeping the page very live and interactive (He lives in exile in Uganda after many arrests in Sudan including one when he was extradited from UAE to Sudan).

The meeting also noted with appreciation the Public Open Letter sent by mohamed elgadi, Amnesty member, to President Obama, which found a wide media coverage due to campaign organized by ACT for Sudan, and advocacy group in Boston.

Women's Human Rights: Iraq

In observing the United Nations International Women's day, March 8, we will focus in the few coming weeks on the status of women around the world, including the US.

Here is a disturbing news published this morning by Reuters News Agency:

""The abuses of women we documented are in many ways at the heart of the current crisis inIraq," said HRW's deputy Middle East and North Africa director Joe Stork in a statement accompanying the report, titled: "'No One Is Safe': Abuses of Women in Iraq's Criminal Justice System."

"These abuses have caused a deep-seated anger and lack of trust between Iraq's diverse communities and security forces, and all Iraqis are paying the price."

A spokesman for Iraq's Human Rights Ministry said the testimonies in the HRW report were "over-exaggerated", but acknowledged that "we have some limited illegal behaviours which were practised by security forces against women prisoners", which it said had been identified by the ministry's own teams."

Human Rights Day events

It was another successful Human Rights Day event...!

Thank you to the teamwork of dedicated members of Group-128 especially the core group that worked hard over the past few months in planning...

Our Coordinator Martha Spiegelman said:

"It was inspiring and productive. We had good participation for the writing to prisoners. The film, Dirty Wars, was moving as well as grim, and everyone agreed that we have to make increased efforts to stop the US military-CIA-JSOC-US Administration actions that are against the best interests of our country and the world.

The program was well-received by a good attendance. We found the film very illuminating, and something to inspire us all to continue to work for human rights and justice, and to oppose war and violence. We wrote a large number of letters to several prisoners of conscience, some in China, Iran, Guantanamo, and the U.S. 

The principals who spoke or performed at the December 7th Human Rights Day were Mohamed Elgadi, Nigel Coxe, Fanny Rothschild, Ben Grosscup, Martha Spiegelman. Representatives of several co-sponsoring groups presented their missions / actions.
"

In spite of the bad weather, the Main large events room of Jones Library was almost filled. Elnagger and Babiker families of Albany, NY (members at Large) could not make it because of the bad weather. 

The events of the Human Rights Day concluded today at the annual Candle vigil at the downtown Amherst where a dozen of activists joined the Amherst Human Rights Commission and Amnesty Chapter and read the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the temp was below freezing!).

Happy Human Rights Day...!

Human Rights Day Event: Screening 'Dirty Wars' Documentary

Screening of film "Dirty Wars" In Woodbury Room, Jones Library to mark the 65th  Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Each year the Amnesty International Chapter in Amherst celebrates Human Rights Day, the day in 1948 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by sending a message of hope to human rights defenders.  This year, along with other local human rights and religious organizations, we are screening the award-winning film "Dirty Wars" that depicts a journalistic investigation of the enigmatic and potent Joint Special Operations Command. The documentary, directed by Richard Rowley, is based on the book by New York Times international bestselling author Jeremy Scahill. The film dramatically unfolds as “part political thriller and part detective story.” And along this journey, we learn shocking aspects of our country’s secret operations that transpire in the name of our War on Terrorism. The screening will be followed by a discussion as well as announcements from co-sponsoring organizations and light refreshments. The event is free and open to the public. We also will ask attendees to sign petitions and write personal letters of support and encouragement to several prisoners of conscience. This year, Amnesty International chapters from the entire Northeast region are focusing on the release of a Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen who has been imprisoned in China for almost six years “for subversion of state power.” He had produced a film about how his fellow Tibetans felt about the Olympics and human rights issues; he has endured a secret trial, torture and ill-treatment of a serious medical illness, Hepatitis B. We are also calling for his access to legal, medical, and familial assistance. _____________________________________________________________________________________ More about the film "Dirty Wars," quoted from the websitewww.dirtywars.org: “Part political thriller and part detective story, Dirty Wars is a gripping journey into one of the most important and underreported stories of our time. What begins as a report into a U.S. night raid gone terribly wrong in a remote corner of Afghanistan quickly turns into a global investigation of the secretive and powerful Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). [It is] a world of covert operations unknown to the public and carried out across the globe by men who do not exist on paper and will never appear before Congress. In military jargon, JSOC teams “find, fix, and finish” their targets, who are selected through a secret process. No target is off limits for the “kill list,” including U.S. citizens. We encounter two parallel casts of characters. The CIA agents, Special Forces operators, military generals, and U.S.-backed warlords who populate the dark side of American wars go on camera and on the record, some for the first time. We also see and hear directly from survivors of night raids and drone strikes, including the family of the first American citizen marked for death and being hunted by his own government.

40 Lashes for not covering your hair?

 Amnesty International-UK started an international campaign on behalf of this brave women's activist

Amira is a civil engineer and women’s rights activist. She has been charged with being in public with her head uncovered, and will soon go on trial in Sudan.

The Enough Project website wrote:

Following her hearing on November 4, 2013, Ms. Osman Hamed awaits the results of her prosecution. If found guilty, she could be sentenced with up to 40 lashes as punishment. Amira Osman Hamed recently said, “This case is not my own, it is a cause of all the Sudanese people who are being humiliated in their country, and their sisters, mothers, daughters, and colleagues are being flogged.” Flogging is a real threat in Sudan. A harrowing video from October shows a woman being lashed in the street by police for entering a car with a man who was not a family member.

A message from Ayatollah Boroujerdi (POC)

These excerpts from different messages translated by this Blogger dedicated to Ayatollah Boroujerdi (our adopted Prisoner of Conscious) on the occasion of his eight years in prison. 

"Greetings of the meek to the Almighty who at no time neglected to caress his creatures; the Almighty who neither commanded violence, nor ever sent forth a prophet to abuse believers, and whose commandments were not ordained for inhumanity..............."


"“Never will the articulate calendar of history forget my annihilation for having exposed the nature of political Islam and for standing up to the monarchic Mullahs..................”

"As I begin my eighth year as a prisoner of dictators, I would like to briefly look back at the theory behind these inexcusable and irrefutable crimes and I will search my mind for the account of all that has happened......................."

Mr. Kazemeini-Boroujerdi’s message on the occasion of the eighth year of the storming of his home and arrest of his supporters

Translated and edited by: Banafsheh zand 

Source:  BamAzadi

Western Mass Regional Meeting At Mt. HolyokeCollege

Reporting from inside the meeting....

Amnesty Western Mass Regional Meeting

At Mt. HolyokeCollege

No required registration fee,

but the organizing committee will appreciate

free-will donations, according to your ability to donate

 

Pre-meeting coffee and bagel, and lunch are included

Date and Time: Saturday, October 26, 10 AM to 2 PM. (Try to arrive before 10 AM to register.)

Location: Kendade Building, the Atrium, Room is Cleveland L1 / L2.

Preliminary Agenda: Amnesty Northeast Regional Coordinator, Cynthia Gabriel, will give summaries of the fall-winter Amnesty program in the northeast. There will be workshop sessions on networking, outreach, coordinating with other Amnesty groups and other human rights groups, and more. There will be announcements and discussions of programs and activities of various college and community chapters. Members of Amnesty-Amherst-Group 128 will attend.

***There is good free bus service between the campuses. But if anyone needs other transportation, please let us know, we'll try to help. (spiegelman22@netzero.net / mohamedelgadi@yahoo.com )

 

If taking a campus bus:  At town center Common, bus turns onto Church St. (Church St. starts at route 116 at town center Common, so only one direction it can go). Get off at the first stop, at Gateway Road. Walk a short way on Gateway Rd., Kendade is on your right, just after the Carr building.

If driving:  From whatever direction you are coming, when you get to town center Common, turn onto Church St. (it starts at town center Common, and a church is at the corner of the street), then turn right onto Gateway Rd. There is some parking on the left side of Gateway Rd., across from Carr, Kendade, and Clapp buildings. There is also some parking on Church St., just before Gateway Rd.

October events in Western Massachusetts

Amnesty International Chapters in Western Mass are getting very active this month. No wonder, since students are back to this Students Hub and many college chapters are waking up from Summer Hibernation!

Our Chapter is in the mid of this events. Our weekly tabling continues to be a success bringing many activists together to get updates from the active members of AI-128 who facilitate the table.
We are looking forward to the monthly meeting to finalize the Human Rights Day activities.

We also are part of the Student and Local Chapters training event scheduled for 10/26 (next Sat) at Mount Holyoke College.






Our active member (at Large), Attorney Abdelrahman Gasim is a major contributor to our Chapter Facebook page. He almost daily updates the page with human rights news from Kampala, Uganda where he' stationed. Thankd Mr. Gasim!
He posts in Arabic:

Abdelrahman Gasim

هيئة محامي دارفور
اعتقل الأمن و المخابرات السوداني بمدينة نيالا الاستاذ ادم محمد شريف المحامي امس ٢٦ سبتمبر ٢٠١٣ ، الاستاذ ادم شريف من المحامين النشطاء في مدينة نيالا و هو منسق هيئة محامي دارفور بولاية جنوب دارفور 

and also in English:

Abdelrahman Gasim

Lawyers for Lawyers letter to the President Omar al Bashir
Netherlands
Sudan Lawyer detained without charge
11 Oct 13
On 26 September 2013 the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) arrested Adam Sharief, a lawyer and the coordinator of the Darfur Bar Association in South Darfur. Sharief was arrested without "

charge and has not been granted access to a lawyer....

Thank you ustaz/Abdelrahman and keep the good work!

Northeast Leadership Retreat

Amnesty International Northeast Leadership Retreat August 10-11, 2013

Essex, Massachusetts

Early Risers Stretch & Swim in the Ocean 7:00am (optional of course!)

Saturday
Welcome Session 9:00am-9:30am
Learning Objectives:
I. Review weekend agenda & logistics II. Initiate relationship building
Public Narrative: Story of I [The Role of Personal Stories in Organizing]: 9:30am-10:30am
Learning Objectives:


I. To understand the importance of public narrative
II. Develop understanding how public narrative works: values, emotion, and story structure III. To develop an effective story of self
Public Narrative: Story of Us
10:30am-11:30am
Learning Objectives:
I. To provide participants with clarity on how AI evolved from its origins of a "one year writing campaign on behalf of the 'forgotten prisoner'" to where we are today working on multiple human rights issues

II. Educate participants on important policy decisions that guide our work
III. Educate participants on AI's process of research & documentation to advocacy
IV. Understand AI Mission, History, Evolution of, Policy, Governance
V. Overview of AIUSA’s Structural Web (where do I fit into the picture and who is who)

Meet-ups by Roles
11:30am -12:30pm
Learning Objectives:
I.To engage local group activists in conversation to share their experiences II. To share success stories and work through obstacles
III. To share resources & ideas
Lunch 12:30PM-1:30PM
Public Narrative: Story of Now
Learning Objectives:
I.Provide participants with overview of AI’s Global Strategy
II.Provide participants with overview of AIUSA’s priority campaigns [targets, timelines, resources] III.Inform and engage participants on campaign
IV. Develop activist calendar
V. Build skills for creative campaigning and designing actions [adapting strategy to fit our group/community]
VI. Provide in-depth information on AI’s Individual and Communities at Risk program
VII. Introduce participants to Northeast Region’s Special Focus Case
VIII. To develop organizing skills for effective advocacy on IC@R work
Part II: Advocacy Overview & Campaign Engagement
Part III: Legislative Tactics
Part IV: Creative Campaigning & Designing Actions [adapting strategy to fit your group/community]
Break 3:15pm-3:30pm
Part V: In-depth Discussion on AI’s Individuals & Communities at Risk Program with Samir
Casework Session I: Facilitated by Todd
I.To educate participants on how to work on long term IC@R case
II. To develop a strategic and coordinated plan for specific IC@R casework
Casework Session II: Facilitated by Rick & Kelly
I.To educate participants on how to develop creative strategy for ongoing casework
II. Demonstrate how to forage for resources and materials
III. Build relationships and coalitions with allies to gain broader support for IC@R cases
Dinner 5:45pm-7:00pm
Action Calendar & Engagement Opportunities
Learning Objectives:
I.To plan and coordinate an activists’ calendar that reflects national, regional, and local activities

II. To educate participants on the ladder of leadership within AI and opportunities for personal/professional growth
Saturday Night: Campfire & S’mores
Sunday
Early Risers: Stretch & Swim 6:30am (optional of course!)
Local & Student Group Organizing
8:00am-10:30am
Learning Objectives:
I. Understanding of how student and local groups can work together II. Gain knowledge of resources available
III. Learn to navigate member center IV. Build relationships within states
Skill Based Session Objectives:
I. Formulate ideas for dynamic events
II. Discuss and share fundraising techniques for local/student groups III. Generate outreach & growth plan for groups
Break: 10:30am-10:45am
Activism 2.0 Training : Turning Information into Action Online and IRL
(In Real Life)
10:45am- 12:15pm
Learning Objectives:
I. Explore different types of web tools that can be used by activists II. Learn how to practically organize and mobilize using web tools III. Develop a project plan for taking action on and offline
Lunch 12:15pm-1:00pm
Wrap up/Evaluations: 1:00-1:30pm