40 Years of Activism in Amherst

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  What a great thing to live and witness this 40 years of Activism!
  
  
• Our Amnesty Chapter observed these great years of activism at a special gathering last month at the Amherst Farmers Market.

• Many people stopped by to share their thoughts on this history of one of the oldest Amnesty Chapters of New England.

Bob Stern: Another Human Rights Defender passed away

RIP Bob Stern.... 

Earlier this month we lost one of the founders of Amnesty International Chapter in Amherst … Our former Financial Officer and one of the excellent fundraise organizers of the group who retired in 2009 to dedicate the rest of his life to music career.

A strong human rights defender and excellent music composer that called by the New Your Times:
"an American master" by critic Paul Griffiths of The New York Times, composer Robert Stern's output spans many decades and embraces a rich and varied collection of vocal and instrumental works."

RIP Bob, and the work you started shall continue...

Northeast Regional Conference

21 October 2017 – Albany, New York – Albany Law School, 1928 Building

The Opening Session of the Conference

A busy schedule for our annual Regional Conference started this morning with a strong Muslim youth female poets followed a by a panel of human rights defenders from Vermont, Caribbean, and Turkey (by Skype).

Board Discussion session was after lunch with two strong Resolutions to vote on later at end of the day... I still did not make up my mind as I see the pros and cons of each (more later)... 

Will continue later when I get back from the Lobbying Session.

mohamed elgadi

Reporting from Albany, NY

Human Rights October Activities this Fall...

A busy month as you may expect is October as we getting ready with final outlines of our feature event of the year: HUMAN RIGHTS DAY...
In addition to our weekly tabling at the Farmers Market, and monthly planning meeting; we are getting ready to participate at the Northeast Regional Conference at

21 OCTOBER 2017 – ALBANY, NEW YORK – ALBANY LAW SCHOOL, 1928 BUILDING

Below are few shots of activities over the past few weeks

Young Human Rights Heroes Awards offered by the Amherst Human Rights Commission recognized many young activists and their mentors, including Amnesty International Chapter.

A very productive meeting with Congressman Jim McGovern took place late this summer at his Northampton office to coordinate efforts with our Amnesty International chapter and the House's human rights commission that he co-chairs.

The meeting will bring many good things especially for the anti-torture advocates, and also bad news to President Trump's secret plans to bring torture and Black Sites back.

The Daily Hampshire Gazette published an editorial for our active member, Fanny Rothschild, TO MARK TORTURE AWARENESS MONTH and the work of our Amherst AI chapter. Fanny wrote:

"Not surprisingly, the current government is being secretive and contradictory about where it stands on torture. Still, this month we witnessed President Trump nominate Steven Bradbury — a George W. Bush official who had co-authored the infamous 2005 memo authorizing “enhanced interrogation techniques” including waterboarding — as general counsel of the U.S. Department of Transportation."

Our At-large Members, Abdelrahman Gasim, Attorney, in Uganda; and Yasmine Hasnaoui, Diplomat, in Morocco continue to be active and share many of their human rights work in Africa. 

 

Our At-large Members, Abdelrahman Gasim, Attorney, in Uganda; and Yasmine Hasnaoui, Diplomat, in Morocco continue to be active and share many of their human rights work in Africa. 

Human Rights at the Farmers Market

Our weekly information table at the Farmers Market last week was a special one... 








We had some special visitors from Saudi Arabia, Washington D. C, and West Springfield. They signed petitions, donated money in our Stamps Jar, and agreed to carry Amnesty posters to advocate for our coming annual Human Rights Day.

Thank you Sami Adam, Migdad, Hamrour, and Ismail

Trump Admin begins attacks on Human Rights!

source

Judge Blocks Trump Order on Refugees Amid Chaos and Outcry Worldwide

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Brooklyn came to the aid of scores of refugees and others who were trapped at airports across the United States on Saturday after an executive order signed by President Trump, which sought to keep many foreigners from entering the country, led to chaotic scenes across the globe.

The judge’s ruling blocked part of the president’s actions, preventing the government from deporting some arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the presidential order. But it stopped short of letting them into the country or issuing a broader ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s actions.

Read more...

Good News from Iran: Omid Kokabee is free

Source

We received good news today from Amnesty International on some Iranian POCs. Elise Auerbach wrote:

"Thanks to your untiring efforts, we have received a few pieces of good news on Iran the past couple of months. First of all Omid Kokabee, the talented young physicist pursuing doctoral research at the University of Texas, Austin who had been arrested in January 2011 and sentenced to ten years in prison on unsubstantiated national security charges, was granted a conditional release from prison; he had been out of prison on a medical furlough for several months to receive much needed medical care--including an operation to remove a kidney--and will not have to report back to prison. Amnesty International declared him to be a prisoner of conscience and Amnesty activists sent tens of thousands of letters and signatures on petitions to the Iranian authorities calling for Omid Kokabee's release. 

Amnesty's Rhythm and Rights program collected thousands more signatures on petitions collected at concerts they tabled. Amnesty worked closely with many organizations including the Committee of Concerned Scientists, the American Physical Society, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Scholars at Risk, as well as Omid's many friends and colleagues at the University of Texas, among others. 

We reached out to all the living Nobel Physics prize laureates and thirty-three of these eminent scientists sent letters to the Iranian government urging Omid Kokabee's release. 

We delivered these letters together with many other letters and petitions to the Iran U.N. Mission in New York. Iranian-American actor and comedian Maz Jobrani also taped a statement calling for Omid Kokabee's release. 

Omid Kokabee had been the included in several of Amnesty International's Nowruz Actions and his family informed us how delighted Omid and his family were to receive so many cards from caring people in the US and other countries. 

We were alarmed when Omid Kokabee was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He was only granted medical furlough after his disease had become very critical. Because of your activism he was allowed to get proper medical care and ultimately granted his conditional release. He is now recovering with his family and picking up his Physics studies. "

Spring is here, officially..!

Welcome to spring in Amherst, and welcome back to our weekly Human Rights Table at the Farmers Market in downtown Amherst...



We resume our public activities after a long winter hibernation ... The weather was great (a little bit chilly and windy) and lot of activists stopped by our Information Table to get updates on human rights news and campaigns...






Well, some of the good news we shared was the release of Albert Woodfox after 43 years of solitary confinement

"On February 19, 2016, Louisiana prisoner Albert Woodfox walked free, 44 years after he was first put into solitary confinement.

He was the United States’ longest serving prisoner held in isolation. Nearly every day for more than half of his life, Albert Woodfox woke up in a cell the size of a parking space, surrounded by concrete and steel."

Read more on Amnesty USA Blog

We also had our monthly meeting today at the Jones Library to plan the coming events. One main Summer event we mark on our calendar id the UN Torture Survivors Day (June 26), which our Chapter observe. We plan to have this year number of activities to highlight this event including Media Interviews and editorials, lawn signs, and other possible activities with groups in the area.

Pls follow us as well on Facebook for quick updates...

Human Rights Day Event: Dec 5

Come Celebrate HUMAN RIGHTS DAY and the Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 

with Ellen and Robert Meeropol discussing 

“DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA: SECRET DETENTION AND INTERROGATION IN FICTION AND FACT”

~ And write letters to prisoners: “WRITE FOR RIGHTS” ~ the Signature Action of Amnesty International

~ And Music by John Paul Maynard on Electric Sitar ~

News and Fall Activities of Amherst Chapter

It's been almost 2 months since we updated this Blog however, our Facebook Page is always up-to-date... Thanks in part to our member-at large Abdelrahman Al-Gasim (pic, below), who kept the page always active with human rights news around the Globe...

"Abdelrahman Al-Gasim is a Sudanese human rights lawyer who has been living as a refugee in Uganda since 2012. In 2000, Abdelrahman helped to found the Darfur Bar Association (DBA)—an independent, non-profit association of Darfuri lawyers and jurists that provides pro bono legal services to those in need and advocates for cultural understanding, respect for human rights and peace. Even though it led to his exile, his commitment for human rights in Sudan remains unwavering."

This is part of story run by the American Bar Association on this decent human rights lawyer and activist whom coordinated work last year from Uganda and brought a fresh voice of the children refugees to our Human Rights art exhibit in Nov-Dec 2014.

The 'tabling' activities continued as well and always gathered lot of debate and discussion at the Amherst Farmers Market in downtown Amherst. As one visitor commented that it becomes part of the face of Amherst.
A very interesting comment was shared today at the table was the concern about advocating against the Death Penalty in the face of the cruel and heinous atrocities ISIS/Boko Haram/Shabab and other terrorist groups.





Today at our monthly meeting, we continued the planning for the Human Rights Day event (scheduled for Dec 5th) at the Jones Library as usual. We will have the Children Art Exhibit for 2 weeks (Nov 15-30). This year, Mt. Holyoke Chapter of Amnesty is planning to actively participate in the event. Their representative, Maya Delaney attended the meeting today (pic, left)

Hold China Accountable!

The theme of August here in our chapter is Human Rights in Tibet...!

Thanks to our active member Tsultrim Dolma for bringing more activists to our table at the Amherst Farmers Market...





We highlighted the brave work of the Tibetan monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche who died in prison, suffering in an unjust sentence by the Chinese government. 

We will do signing of Urgent Case letters at each monthly meeting as we planned before. In addition, we will continue to focus on human rights abuses in China and Tibet for the rest of August.

Channel 22 NBC covered the event

Protesters want to put an end to torture

Thousands of people have been tortured all around the world

Anthony HillPublished: June 26, 2015, 6:39 pm  Updated: June 26, 2015, 6:43 pm

AMHERST, Mass. (WWLP) – Amnesty International is holding rallies across the nation, including Amherst, to shed light on a senate report on C-I-A torture.

Thousands of people have been tortured all around the world. According to a senate report, the C-I-A is ALSO responsible for carrying out torture tactics.

Many people came together at the Amherst Common to speak out against that. They say the Department of Justice isn’t doing enough to end C-I-A torture tactics after the senate report was release. One Amherst resident, who was tortured himself in Sudan back in the 90s said, torturing is NEVER the way. “OK, two important things: torture is wrong, number one, ethically, religiously, politically, anything, it’s wrong. So, information, no, it’s wrong, completely wrong, does not give you any information,” said Mohamed Ibrahim.

Rallies, just like this one, were held in eight cities across the nation, including Boston, New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C.

Amnesty International was joined by several other anti-torture organizations to shed light on what many people are saying is an injustice and against international law.