February/March 2020 Greetings at this time of physical distancing and global pandemic. During these uncertain days, our thoughts are particularly with all of the people who are more vulnerable, including those in care homes, jails and prisons, and those without a home. Friends, wherever you are, we hope you are staying well and able to […]
Monthly Archive for March, 2020
Photo by Choi Sung-hee, of Dr. Song Kang-ho and Ryu Bok-hee before court, holding signs which read “Demilitarized Peace Island Jeju” and “I want to see Gureombi” (which could also be translated as “I Miss Gureombi”)
On March 7, peace activists on Jeju Island cut the fence to enter the naval base that has been opposed by residents of neighboring Gangjeong Village since it was first proposed in 1993, and became the focus of daily protests since 2007, before construction began. Once inside, Dr. Song Kang-ho and Ryu Bok-hee walked to the area of the remaining part of Gureombi Rock to pray for peace.
Dr. Song had applied multiple times with the Navy for permission to enter the base that day to visit Gureombi. March 7 marked the 8th anniversary of the blasting of Gureombi Rock – freshwater rock wetlands that harbored rare sea life and provided drinking water for many island inhabitants, long regarded by locals as sacred – to prepare the site for the construction of the naval base.
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Dr. Rafil Dhafir has been in prison for more than 17 years, is 71 years old and has multiple serious health problems. Please ask the warden at Federal Correctional Institution Allenwood Low in Pennsylvania to FREE HIM NOW!
Dr. Rafil Dhafir is an Iraqi emigre and oncologist. As a respected physician and Islamic community leader in upstate New York, he was an outspoken opponent of the 1991-2003 U.S. sanctions against Iraq. He established a charity for beleaguered Iraqis and donated over $1 million of his own earnings to their needs.
On February 26, 2003, days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, government agents arrested Dr. Dhafir as he drove to work, raided his home and office, and charged him with violating the economic sanctions against Iraq and money laundering. He was repeatedly denied bail, slandered by public officials as a funder of terrorists, convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison. His case is emblematic of the malicious prosecution of Muslim philanthropists and charities in the post-9/11 era.
He has now served most of his sentence and is scheduled to be released on November 24, 2021.
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https://medium.com/…/the-covid-19-crisis-underscores-the-ne…
March 26, 2020
by Zeke Johnson, Senior Director of Programs, Amnesty International USA
Amnesty International, an independent human rights organization, has long called for clemency and release for Native American activist Leonard Peltier, due to fair trial concerns, the exhaustion of his appeals and his having served more than 40 years in prison, some of which was spent in solitary confinement, for a crime he has always claimed he did not commit. The threat of COVID-19 underscores the urgency of this call, as Peltier is 75 years old and has serious health concerns. He suffers from diabetes, among a myriad of other health issues, and in January 2016 was diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which can be fatal if it ruptures.
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By Andy Worthington (reprinted by permission of the author)
March 15, 2020
Good news from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, where, on Thursday (March 12), District Judge Anthony J. Trenga ordered the immediate release from jail of whistleblower Chelsea Manning (formerly Pfc. Bradley Manning), who has been imprisoned since last March for refusing to cooperate with a Grand Jury investigation into WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.
While serving as an Army intelligence analyst in 2009, Manning was responsible for the largest leak of military and diplomatic documents in US history, and received a 35-year sentence — described by Charlie Savage in the New York Times as “the longest sentence by far in an American leak case” — in August 2013.
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George Rodkey, Gary Cavalier, Sue Ablao, Julia Ochiogrosso
by Felice & Jack Cohen-Joppa, the Nuclear Resister
Thirteen nuclear abolitionists blocked traffic leading into Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Washington on March 2, as part of a public protest of the United States’ Trident nuclear-missile launching submarines based there.
The direct action came at the conclusion of the annual gathering of the Pacific Life Community, a network of spiritually motivated activists from the Pacific Coast and other western states committed to nonviolent action for a nuclear-free future.
Washington state police arrested nine people for obstructing traffic after they carried banners that stretched across the roadway just outside the base main gate. Their banners read “Trident Threatens All Life on Earth” and “Abolish Nuclear Weapons”. While they stood in the road, one of the blockaders read aloud from the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. (Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in July 2017, the Treaty will enter into force when ratified by 50 nations. Thirty-five nations have ratified to date.)
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