Our Summer Activities

 At the Amherst Farmers Market... 

Martha Spiegelman, AI Group Coordinator, checking the new book of Prof Joe Wronka :Human Rights and Social Justice". He donated one copy to the Group

Prof Wronka is very active in advocating and teaching human rights in the area and was a keynote speaker at the Human Rights Day event few times.

UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, 26 June

 

"Torturers must never be allowed to get away with their crimes, and systems that enable torture should be dismantled or transformed."

UN Secretary-General António Guterres

 

Why do we mark 26 June?

The UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on 26 June marks the moment in 1987 when the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, one of the key instruments in fighting torture, came into effect. Today, there are 173 State parties to the Convention.

Read more ... 

 

 

Human Rights Day Program

 

For Immediate Release:

 RENOWNED POET AND ACTIVIST MAGDALENA GÓMEZ TO SPEAK IN AMHERST

ON RIGHTS OF THE CHILD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DAY, DECEMBER 10TH

 Contact: Martha Spiegelman, spiegelmanmartha@gmail.com

 

Human Rights Day Program, Saturday, December 10, 2022, 1 to 3:30 PM,

 

in the Woodbury Room, Jones Library, 43 Amity Street, Amherst MA,

 

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

 

The Amherst Chapter of Amnesty International, moved by Magdalena Gomez’s lifelong commitment to human rights and her connection with the rights of the child, has invited her, the recent poet laureate of

Springfield (2019-2022), to speak on Human Rights Day. Gomez’s talk: Rights of the Child/ Voice of the

Child: An Urgent Listening, draws from her childhood memoir, Mi’ja: A Memoir Noir (Heliotrope Books, NYC). Gomez will address how each of us can champion child rights, beginning with our own communities.

Gómez is the daughter of a Spanish Roma immigrant, and a Puerto Rican mother, and examines the societal roots of child violation. Gomez’s theatrical, poetic and provocative background promises a rousing presentation.

 During December, as well, the Student Human Rights Art Exhibit, now in its ninth year, created by Amherst Regional Middle School students, will be on display in the Jones Library. Students have created artworks inspired by the United Nation’s 30 articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They will make a short presentation in the program on December 10th.

 Human Rights Day, December 10th, commemorates the date, in 1948, that the United Nations approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was largely through the efforts of Eleanor Roosevelt, first U.S. delegate to the UN and chairperson of the committee, that we have this crucial founding document which was unanimously approved by UN members. On the heels of the atrocities of World War II, Eleanor Roosevelt was determined to meet the need for identifying basic human rights for all people. The UDHR is recognized today as having paved the way for the adoption of more than 70 human rights treaties at both regional and global levels.

 Moreover, the Human Rights Day observance in Amherst calls to attention another significant UN document, The Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN in 1989. The Convention has been ratified by every nation except the U.S.  At this forum, we will discuss the question and U.S resistance to ratifying this important document. 

__________________________________________________________________________________

      Magdalena Gómez is an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow (2021-2022) and the Springfield      Poet Laureate (2019-2022) Her poems have been set to music and performed Off-Broadway and across the U.S.; Montreal, and Paris. She toured the U.S.as a jazz poet with Chinese-American composer and baritone saxophonist, the late Fred Ho, for a decade. Venues for her poetry performances have included Lincoln Center, NYC; The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM); Union Theater, Wisconsin; The Los Angeles Theater Company; Gala Theater, in Washington D.C.; the San Francisco State Poetry Center, and the Montreal Jazz Festival. In 2018 she received a New England Public Media Arts and Humanities Award.

     Her recently published memoir noir, Mi’ja, Heliotrope Books, NYC, has been hailed by readers and scholars across the US and Europe:  “Gómez’s masterpiece heals as it startles, a chronology of nuestra America from the vantage point of the South Bronx in the last quarter of the 20th Century. ---Dr. Benjamin Barson, composer, musician and Fulbright-García Robles Scholar.

Our First Zoom Meeting !

 

 

Poet/Magdalena Gomez

Dear Amnesty group,

 Thank you for a good meeting today .. it was our first Zoom meeting since this Amnesty Chapter started in 1978 (yes, we are 44 years old) ...

Here are the main points discussed and agreed upon:

• We are inviting all members to come out and participate in the the Information Table at the Farmers Market on  Sat September 3 (10:30-12). This is the time when we usually meet new students and recruit members.
  Action: Fanny, Alexis, Hamror, Martha, and Mohamed
  
• Fundraiser: Our bank balance is $277.23 and this is not enough to run our activities. Few members suggested different ideas to feed our bank account and Magda's suggestion was adopted that every member to donate $5-$20 or more.
  Action: people will bring donation to the Information Table on 9/3 @ 10:30-Noon or mail their checks to Martha or Mohamed (address below).
• Human Rights Day on Sat 12/10: diverse topics and speakers were discussed and a consensus agreement was on  play writer/poet/women rights activist Magdalena Gomez as the first choice.   Few other options were discussed including: Children and youth forum (Tamador); The Lost Boys/Girls (Alexis); Former Chair of Amherst Human Rights Commission Reynolds Winslow (Magda).   
  Action 1): Martha (and Fanny/Mohamed) to contact Magdalena and see her availability on 12/10
  Action 2): Martha to book the main Jones Library room for the event 
  
• The Group Facebook page needs more traffic and postings from the members: Mohamed to post this meeting on our FB page and other activities ... pls be active and share human rights topics on the page
  

Thank again for our members at large (Tamador and Ismail)  :)

Pls let me know if I missed any point

Highlights of the HRD event

 A great event  and good discussion of the four speakers at the event ...

 

 

    

   

 

Human Rights Day 2021

In preparation of the Human Rights Day event in less than 2 weeks (Sat Dec 11 @ 1pm ), we would like to share and reflect on some of the great accomplishments of our Amherst Chapter (more than 43 years of defending human rights around the world).

Come and celebrate with us ... we have a great program of diverse speakers and talents 

A HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED ECONOMY CAN BREAK CYCLES OF POVERTY

"Rampant poverty, pervasive inequalities and structural discrimination are human rights violations and among the greatest global challenges of our time. Addressing them effectively requires measures grounded in human rights, renewed political commitment and participation of all, especially those most affected. We need a new social contract which more fairly shares power, resources and opportunities and sets the foundations of a sustainable human rights-based economy."

 

 

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home -- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. [...] Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

  -Eleanor Roosevelt

 

This last summer and fall witnessed lot of events and activites of our Amnesty chapter compared to last year (COVID-19) ... The pictures here reflect some of the Farmers Market petition signing

We look forward to your participation  on Dec 11 @ the Jones Library 1:15-3:30pm

We are Back ....

 

We are back at the Amherst Farmers Market ... we had a good tabling activity today with 2 potential new members (young and enthusiastic) ... we discussed a tentative plan to recruit more members and spread the word of human rights wide ... we discussed sending a new representative to cover the Human Rights Commission of Amherst Town.. we discussed doing more presentations at the High and Middle schools to recruit young members ... We are optimist about the summer and fall activities ...
Come an join us ...

 

June 26 at the Farmers Market in Amherst .. we observed the UN International Day for Torture Survivors.. we got a visit from the human rights expert, Prof Suleiman Baldo, who served in many human rights orgs before: HRW, ICTJ, Enough Project , The Sentry and many other Think Tank Org around the world. 

Mohamed Elgadi, speaking at a Zoom Meeting

 Our Celebration of the Torture Survivors Day was also by participating in a Zoom meeting of human rights group in Australia in which our member Mohamed Elgadi gave a presentation for 35 min followed by Q&A session

 

Amherst Chapter & IRAN

Many of human rights or ordinary citizens who stop by our Information Table at the Farmers Market may have this question in their mind: why the Amherst Chapter of Amnesty highlight the human rights of Iran with more focus than other Chapters? 

Why our current and previous adopted Prisoner of Conscience (POC) is from Iran? The main annual activity of the group was dedicated to Iran and the keynote speaker was from Iran in 2012.

We do not have any of our current members from Iran however, we have few active members who embrace Islam as religion/culture. These members in particular were/are concerned about the abuse of Islam in the hands of many dictators and Islamist military groups (Sunni or Shi'ite groups). 

 source

Iran Human Rights

Amnesty International has been documenting and campaigning around serious human rights violations in Iran including detention of human rights defenders and other prisoners of conscience, unfair trials, torture and mistreatment in detention, deaths in custody and the application of the death penalty. Iran executes more people than any country in the world, other than China. Ethnic, religious and linguistic minority communities face persistent persecution. The Iranian authorities also suppress freedom of expression of a range of civil society actors including attorneys, scientists, environmental activists, artists, women’s rights activists, trade unionists, journalists and bloggers and those expressing their opinions on social media. There has been a worrying trend of imposing extreme sentences against prisoners of conscience such as human rights attorneys Nasrin Sotoudeh who has been sentenced to a total of 38 years in prison plus 148 lashes and Amirsalar Davoudi, who has been sentenced to 30 years in prison and 111 lashes for his human rights work, including publicizing violations through a channel he set up on the Telegram mobile messaging app and giving media interviews.

Read more...

Human Rights Day: Climate Change

Human Rights Day

 

In a well-attended event, our community in Amherst celebrated the Human Rights Day that was organized by the local chapter of Amnesty International. We hosted a panel on Climate Change. The two distinguished 

speakers were Solomon Goldstein-Rose and Irene LaRoche.

Solomon shared the gloomy picture of climate injustice and what we can do locally and globally to fix it. Irene and her students from Amherst Middle school spoke about the action they are involved with to make this change happens.

The following statement was in the invitation brochure that was circulated in town: 
"Building on the momentum of AI’s participation this fall in the “People’s Summit on Climate, Rights, Human Survival,” we welcome climate expert Solomon Goldstein-Rose and Amherst Regional Middle School social studies teacher Irene LaRoche as panelists, and human rights advocate Mohamed Elgadi as moderator. 

Given that mobilization at the local level to make an impact globally is crucial, they will discuss strategies and actions to address climate injustice. Goldstein-Rose, having served as the youngest member of the Massachusetts legislature from 2017 to 2019, now focuses full-time on climate change. His research has evolved into a framework being published this March in book form as The 100% Solution: A Plan to Solve Climate Change. 

LaRoche is a social studies teacher at Amherst Regional Middle School with a current focus on the intersection of human rights and the climate crisis. For the past six years, she also has guided her students to create remarkable visual artwork inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each year their work is on exhibit throughout December at the Jones Library in Amherst. 

Elgadi, adjunct faculty at Springfield College, has conducted research and taught in the environmental sciences. He is a longtime activist in the cause of human rights.

Human Rights Day: Early Planning Meeting

We had a very busy information table at the Farmer Market today... many new students and their parents stopped by to know about our adopted cases of Prisoners of Conscience (POC), and signed petitions on their behalf. This was followed by a successful planning meeting of our annual featured Human Rights Day in December.

The Group decided to have more discussion before deciding on the final structure of the day however, a speaker, Art Exhibit, and Write for Rights are going to be part of the Day.

In addition, the group decided to adopt the case of the Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh as a new POC of the Group 128.

A great day at the Farmers Market !

I admit, I was not active very much in participating in our weekly Information table of human rights... This is mainly due to work most of the weekend (teaching summer courses)..

Today I got the chance to be back in my beloved town of Amherst and many great friends and human rights defenders, and political activists (yes for a Single Payer health Care Plan)



Of course the conversation at the table was mainly focused on our Prisoner of Conscience case that was adopted 10 years ago by our local Chapter: 
Ayatollah Sayed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi



In addition, we highlighted the urgent action on a new person at risk, a lawyer in Iran who was just practicing her own legal job within the draconian religious laws of Iran: 

NASRIN SOTOUDEH

"Iranian authorities sentenced her to an astonishing 38 years in prison plus 148 lashes solely for her peaceful advocacy and representation of her clients—one of the harshest sentences ever handed down to a prisoner of conscience in Iran."

Margaret Huang

Executive Director
Amnesty International USA

Coming out of Hibernation !

Today our Chapter had its first planning meeting after winter hibernation!

source

              Do not get us wrong, we still were very active over the past few months through our Facebook page and also in meeting with our Congressman Jim McGovern to follow up on our last summer meeting , and to advocate on behalf the peaceful revolution in Sudan that continued for more than 5 months  (more on this to come later).