P.O. Box 130901, Houston, TX 77219-0901
281-587-5386
http://www.amnestyhouston.org
mail@amnestyhouston.org

Monthly meeting first Wednesday of every month (except holidays).

NEWS AND NOTES

Monthly Meeting Agenda:

       Introductions
       Reports by Coordination Groups:
       Group case (Avdo Palic)
       Death Penalty
       Radio Committee
       Stop Violence Against Women Campaign
       Denounce Torture Campaign
       South Asian Regional Action Network (SARAN)
       Refugees
       Out Front Campaign
       Who Will Bring Letter Next Meeting
Old Business:
       World Refugee Day June 21
       Pride Festival June 28
       Cure Concert June 9
       Fall Art Show
       New POC Case
       Rolling Forum for Abolition of Death Penalty
       Film Screening
       Kroger Card
New Business:
       Concert Tabling
 

Local Group 23 News:

• Our group has a new case! Michael Skadden will be coordinator for Bárbara Italia Méndez who suffered arbitrary detention, torture and an unfair trial
  
  Bárbara Italia Méndez was detained on 4 May 2006 in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico State. Police officers beat her, threatened her and sexually assaulted her. Once in prison, an official with the State Public Prosecutor’s Office reportedly refused to register her complaint about the abuse she suffered and no proper medical examination was carried out. She was released on bail shortly afterwards, charged with attacks on public roads. Her prosecution continues.
  
  Note: Bárbara Italia Méndez isn't a POC - she's out of detention now and has been campaigning on behalf of all the women who suffered abuse at the hands of police officers. She was actually at our AGM, at the IAR pannel & I heard her speak. She's an incredibly poised and moving speaker - I hope someone from your group was at the AGM & got to hear her.
  The goals of her case are:
  - Effective and impartial investigation into the torture, including sexual assault, suffered by Bárbara Italia Mendez
  - The investigation of the irregularities in the arrest, detention and trial of Barbara Italia Mendez
  - Criminal prosecution of those responsible with the perpetrators brought to justice
  - Redress for Barbara Italia Mendez
  
  There are also a number of larger goals focused on issues of violence against women in Mexico.

• Michael Skadden wrote a legal concern letter to the Guatemalan consulate in Houston, leaving the door open to a visit, if necessary.
• Veronique Schlumberger got the group involved in a mass email to Congress about the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA.
• Bruce Felker represented us at the Darfur event at the Holocaust Museum.
• Veronique Schlumberger continues to work on finding a venue for the photo exhibit, "Intended Consequences", about the effects of rape during the Rwanda genocide.

• We have openings for Group Coordinator, Secretary and New Member coordinator.

AIUSA will be mobilizing nationally to end police brutality against the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered (LGBT) community during this summer's Pride season. The campaign, which will be echoed by 36 AI sections around the world, is designed to tap into local LGBT rights movements. In Stonewalled, the groundbreaking report it released in 2005, Amnesty International documented widespread police abuse of LGBT people sometimes amounting to torture. Despite this, AI found that police are seldom held accountable, even for the most egregious offenses. There will be a special focus on Chicago where some of the problems AI has identified have been documented but where AI believes there is a chance for progress. Chicago has a new police chief and oversight body and is also bidding to host the 2016 Olympics, so city officials may be particularly sensitive to Chicago's international image.

Three more Republican senators have agreed to co-sponsor the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA). The three, Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Senator Pete Domenici (N.M) came on board in April. Meanwhile, AIUSA activists in Republican districts are continuing to write urging their representatives to sign onto the House version of the I-VAWA Bill.

The Urgent Action Network is Amnesty International’s first line of defense when individuals face immediate danger of arrest, torture, or execution. In 2007, the Urgent Action Network acted on behalf of some 800 people across the globe. Nearly one quarter of them were released or experienced some improvement in their situation following AI's intervention. Because speed is of the essence, network members receive Urgent Action appeals by e-mail. Urgent Action Network members can choose to receive between one and eight appeal cases a month. You can be a part of this vital global network. Click here to join the Urgent Action Network or to learn more.

AIUSA Calls On Governments to Respond to Growing Frustration and Angry Demands for Justice, Freedom and Equality

(London) -- Marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Amnesty International said today in its 2008 annual report that the world faces continuing dangerous flashpoints over basic rights if governments fail to respond to growing angry demands for justice, freedom and equality -- like those in Myanmar, Pakistan and Iran.

Amnesty International said that despite adoption of the UDHR in 1948 by the United Nations, people are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries, face unfair trials in at least 54 countries and are not allowed to speak freely in at least 77 countries.

Citing some of the most striking images of the last year -- monks in Myanmar, lawyers in Pakistan, food rioters in Bangladesh, Egypt and Haiti and women activists in Iran -- the Amnesty International Report 2008: State of the World's Human Rights said the year was characterized by the impotence of Western governments and the ambivalence or reluctance of emerging powers to tackle some of the world’s worst human rights crises, ranging from entrenched conflicts to growing inequalities that are leaving millions of people behind.

"There is a growing grassroots demand from people for justice, equality and freedom," said Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International. "The human rights flashpoints in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Gaza, Iraq and Myanmar demand immediate action. Restless and angry, people will not be silenced and leaders ignore them at their peril."

"Much of the world today is defined by injustice, inequality and impunity," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "Governments have demonstrated little vision or leadership on human rights. As a result there is a yawning gap between the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the brutality that people around the world experience every day."

Amnesty International, in its report covering 150 countries, challenged governments to set a new paradigm for collective leadership based on the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"2008 presents an unprecedented opportunity for new leaders coming to power and countries emerging on the world stage to set a new direction and reject the myopic policies and practices in recent years that have made the world a more dangerous and divided place," said Ms. Khan. "The most powerful must lead by example."

The organization urged the following:

• China must live up to the human rights promises it made around the Olympic Games and allow free speech and freedom of the press and end "re-education through labor."

• The United States must close the Guantánamo detention camp and secret detention centers, prosecute the detainees under fair trial standards or release them, and unequivocally reject the use of torture and ill-treatment.

• Russia must show greater tolerance for political dissent, and no tolerance for impunity on human rights abuses in Chechnya.
  The EU must investigate the complicity of its member states in "renditions" of terrorist suspects and set the same bar on human rights for its own members as it does for other countries.

• Ms. Khan warned: "World leaders are in a state of denial but their failure to act has a high cost. Governments today must show the same degree of vision, courage and commitment that led the United Nations to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sixty years ago."

(New York) -- Amnesty International today warned that the violence in Zimbabwe is reaching crisis levels, and revealed that "war veterans" are forcibly recruiting local youths to attack perceived supporters of the opposition MDC (Movement for Democratic Change).

"Those who refuse to commit violence are assaulted and accused of being MDC supporters by the 'war veterans,'" said Simeon Mawanza, Amnesty International’s Zimbabwe researcher. At least 22 people have been killed and more than 900 have been treated for injuries sustained from the violence since the March 29 elections. Several hundred have been hospitalized and hundreds of families have been forced to flee their homes after they have been burned by gangs of "war veterans" and ZANU-PF youths.

Eyewitnesses told Amnesty International that large numbers of ZANU-PF supporters and "war veterans" are assaulting perceived MDC supporters in Mberengwa district in the Midlands province and Mazowe district in Mashonaland Central.

In Mberengwa, a large gang of ZANU-PF supporters -- most of them youths forcibly recruited by "war veterans" -- are attacking homes of people suspected of voting for the MDC in the March 29 elections. A similar gang was reported by an eyewitness in the Chiweshe area in Mazowe district.

Police appear to be unwilling to stop the violence, only acting to arrest MDC supporters suspected of carrying out attacks on perceived ZANU-PF supporters.

"We are particularly worried about people living in more remote rural areas, where violence is taking place away from the spotlight," said Mawanza. "The situation for these victims of violence is dire. Humanitarian and local non-governmental organizations are being targeted for helping victims, who are being blocked from receiving medical assistance."

Some schools in rural areas have been forced to close as teachers perceived to be supporters of the MDC flee from the state-sponsored violence.

Amnesty International fears for the safety of Tonderai Ndira, a supporter of the MDC who was reportedly abducted from his home in Mabvuku, a suburb of Harare on May 14. Reports indicate that nine armed men in plain clothes assaulted him. He has not been seen since.

Tonderai Ndira is one of the 32 MDC members who were tortured by state agents while in detention in 2007. He was detained for more than two months in prison before charges against him were dropped.

Amnesty International has also received a report of the alleged abduction of Sinoia Pfebve, 79, and his wife Serena Pfebve, 76, on May 13, by people believed to be "war veterans" in the Mukumbura area in Mt. Darwin district, Mashonaland Central province. The couple is believed to have been taken to Nyakatondo Primary School where the abductors are camped. The Pfebve family have political connections to the MDC: the couple’s son was an MDC candidate in the parliamentary election in 2000 and a by election in 2001.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) reports that its observers have been attacked in Mt. Darwin in Mashonaland Central province. Their homes were vandalized and their property looted. Six were hospitalized after sustaining serious injuries. Several families were forced to take shelter in surrounding hills and bushes.

Amnesty International is concerned over the apparently arbitrary arrest of T. G. Ajay, a film-maker and human rights defender who has been documenting problems faced by adivasi (indigenous) communities in protecting their rights, in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

Ajay is the second human rights defender to be arrested under the Chhattisgarh State Public Security Act, 2005 (CSPSA), in the state. He is a member of the state executive committee of the People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL).

Ajay is being held in Raipur jail, where Dr. Binayak Sen, general secretary of the state PUCL and a physician working on access to health for adivasis, today completed one year of imprisonment. Dr. Sen now faces a trial on charges of aiding a banned Maoist organisation, the Communist Party of India (Maoist). ¹

On 5 May, Ajay was arrested at his residence at Superla in Bhilai and charged at the Bilaspur High Court under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (sedition) and Sections 3, 4 and 8 of the CSPSA.

Amnesty International has reason to believe that the charges against Ajay are politically motivated. Ajay has been actively engaged, since 2004, in documentation of human rights violations as part of the PUCL's ongoing efforts to protect the rights of adivasi communitiesin the face of escalating violence in the Bastar-Dantewada area of Chattisgarh between banned Maoists and Salwa Judum, an armed anti-Maoist militia campaign widely regarded as supported by the state government. The PUCL has been instrumental in bringing to light unlawful killings of adivasis, sexual assault of adivasi women, abductions and forced displacement.

On 22 January 2008, following the arrest of a woman Maoist in Bastar-Dantewada, the Chhattisgarh police searched Ajay's residence and seized his computer hard disk. On 26 March, Ajay filed a petition in the High Court seeking its return.

Amnesty International calls on the Union and Chattisgarh governments

• to ensure Ajay's prompt and fair trial in accordance with international standards of fairness.
• to take concrete measures to ensure that human rights defenders in Chhattisgarh are not subject to harassment or intimidation and enjoy all the rights enshrined in international law.

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