Supplement to the Monthly Meeting Announcement
Many events in the area and elsewhere:
1) birth
2) our group’s table Sunday
3) Cuba/Ithaca dinner Friday
4) Books through Bars benefit Friday
5) Guantanamo film–Amnesty’s spreading the word
6) Ellis Island exhibition
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1. Newest member: Mirabelle Acharya, born to Govind and Charlotte Acharya June 16. Felicitations!
2. Come and bring friends to the Ithaca Farmers Market, Sunday, June 25, between 10 and 3. Our Amnesty group will have a table with information and petitions to sign. Focus: halting torture.
3. We’ve been asked to pass on:
The Cuba Friendship Group of Greater Ithaca invites all to our annual
Cuba/Ithaca Friendship Dinner and Celebration
Friday, June 23, Ithaca Unitarian Church Parlor, 306 North Aurora Street
to Support the
17th Pastors for Peace US-Cuba Friendshipment
Challenging the immoral U.S. blockade of Cuba.
* Dinner 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
* Speakers and Performances 7:30 – 8:30 p.m.
* Film Screening 8:30 – 9:30 p.m.
A donation of $10.00 for humanitarian aid to benefit the IFCO/Pastors for Peace Caravan will be collected at the door, but all are welcome to contribute as they are able. Some Cuban cuisine will be provided at the dinner, but participants are encouraged to bring a favorite dish-to-pass. Also featured: music by Karl North’s AfroCuban percussion ensemble.
Lisa Valanti, President of the U.S.-Cuba Sister Cities Association, is our featured speaker. Lisa has been an active participant on each of the IFCO/Pastors for Peace US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravans.
Mural painter Dan Burgevin will be traveling to Cuba for the first time with the Caravan.
Oggun: an Eternal Presence is a film directed by Afro-Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando  English subtitles; followed by a short discussion.
Sponsored by Cuba Friendship Group of Greater Ithaca; co-sponsored by the Social Justice Council of the Ithaca Unitarian Church and the Committee on US-Latin American Relations (CUSLAR); endorsed by CRESP. If at all possible we request that you RSVP with a reply to Kathy Russell (607) 273-4523; Email: gavagai05@yahoo.com or better, pick up a ticket for the event from the Living Wage Coalition/Immigrant Rights Center upstairs above Autumn Leaves Books.
4. Later Friday evening:
Books Thru Bars benefit show, the Haunt, June 23, 8:00 pm. With Thousands of One, Malang Diabate and Jali, E. Rich of Cypher:Dissident, The Settlers, Non-Existent, Johnny Dowd. Come support the donation of much-needed reading materials to incarcerated individuals. More info: http://www.btbithaca.org/
5.
Coming to Theaters Soon: “The Road to Guantanamo”
Amnesty International is proud to announce its support of “The Road to Guantanamo,†the new award- winning film by British director Michael Winterbottom. “The Road to Guantanamo†is the terrifying first-hand account of three British citizens who were held for more than two years without charges in the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Road to Guantanamo
Release Date: June 23, 2006
Run Time: 1 hr. 35 min.
Rating: R
Cast: Rizwan Ahmed, Farhad Harun, Waqar Siddiqui
Director: Michael Winterbottom,Mat Whitecross
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Synopsis: In September 2001 several British Muslim friends go to Pakistan to attend a wedding. They decide to visit Afghanistan, but they find Kandahar under attack and flee to Kabul. From there the friends try to return to Pakistan but mistakenly end up in a Taliban stronghold. Following their capture, they are sent to a U.S. military base in Cuba, where they endure torture. Based on a true story.
This movie opens on Friday, June 23 in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco… Not in Ithaca yet, but we’ll let you know!
See http://www.roadtoguantanamomovie.com/
http://denouncetorture.amnestyusa.org/site/c.huITL9MVJxE/b.1678543/k.BE00/Home.htm
6.
If you’re in New York before July 4, take the boat from Battery Park
(www.statueoflibertyferry.com ) and visit the special exhibit
“Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom.”
April 14 – July 4, 2006
“This exhibit from Russia’s Gulag Museum at Perm-36 traces the history of Soviet repression in the country’s forced labor camp system, and highlights the role of Perm-36, an especially harsh camp that operated until 1988 and now operates as one of Russia’s newest historic sites. The exhibit features oral interviews with former prisoners, archival footage, full-scale recreations of prison camp cells, maps, historic photographs, and artifacts depicting daily camp life.
The Gulag Museum at Perm-36 provides an international model of the role that historic sites can play in the ongoing development of civic dialogue and democratic processes. In order to promote this more active educational role, the Gulag Museum and the Northeast Region of the National Park Service were founding members, along with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (NY) and others, of the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience in 1999.”
The New York Times quotes a telling passage from the introductory text:
“Brutal systems have played a prominent role in many countries, including
the United States. Although slavery ended after the American Civil War, its
consequences persist. The repercussions of the Holocaust in Europe and
apartheid in South Africa reverberate even today. Similarly, Russians face
the legacy of the gulag. How can citizens in these countries face up to the
horrors of the past?”
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Next Amnesty International Ithaca group meeting: Tuesday, July 18, 7:30 pm, 640 Stewart Ave. (Always the 3rd Tuesday.)
Monthly Newsletter
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL Group #73, ITHACA. June 2006 NEWSLETTER.
MEETING: Tuesday, June 20, 2006, 7:30 pm, Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave., Cornell West Campus. (Take driveway downhill to building with covered entranceway, in front door. Parking allowed evenings.) Info: 273-3009.
>>>> Can’t be at the whole meeting? Come early or late, sign even a single card!
AGENDA: Write letters on Urgent Action cases, cards, petitions: signatures are powerful!
• Summer Postcard Action – bring some greeting cards to send to prisoners (avoid religious symbols, champagne, swimwear, dogs…).
• Plans for tabling at the Farmers Market Sunday, June 25.
• Tentative plans for our group’s annual fundraiser: send out invitation letters in August, hold the party Sept. 16 or 17 at Wetherbees’.
• We have a new Action File (prisoner case in Eritrea); come hear the details.
• Reports and updates on campaigns.
NEXT MONTH’S MEETING: Tues. July 18, 2006, 7:30, same place. Always the 3rd Tuesday. (Bring an up-and-coming member!)
Amnesty bases its work on the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 30 articles listing rights all people should have everywhere. An article for June: Art. 29. (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
SAMPLE LETTER: Eritrea. Since gaining independence from neighboring Ethiopia in 1993, Eritrea has fallen more and more into one-party and one-man rule. Border wars have greatly impoverished the country. Since 2001 particularly, many peaceful critics and former government members were arrested and are being held in secret, a number of them journalists like Mr. Said Abdulkadir, whose newspapers were all shut down Sept. 18, 2001. Please send this letter or write your own to the President at the address given (84¢ airmail). Extra effect: send a copy to Ambassador Girma Asmerom, Embassy of Eritrea, 1708 New Hampshire Ave, Washington DC 20009 (regular 39¢ stamp). Source: Amnesty case sheet (details at upcoming meeting).
POSTAGE rates: cards 24¢, letters 39¢. Canada, Mexico cards 55¢, letters 63¢. Other countries: 75¢ – 84¢.
TV Show: Cable Channel 13. Weekly 30-minute program (premiere and 2 repeats). Tues. 9 PM, Wed. 11 PM, and Fri. 9 PM.
Info: http://www.pegasysaccess.org/; find “Amnesty International” on Channel 13 grid, or http://www.ithacaamnesty.org/. Some programs will have a one-hour slot.
*602 Use Your Voice for Human Rights         6/13,14,16
A video on how AI does its work, narrated by Patrick Stewart.
*603Â We Have the Same Blood – 1-hour program, 9PM, 10:30 PM, 9PMÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 6/20,21,23
Filmmaker Berit Madsen shows the daily life of Dalits (so-called “untouchable” castes) in Pachnali, a small mountain village in Doti district in West Nepal. The village is inhabited by several Dalit castes – the Kami (blacksmiths), Damai (tailors) and Bhul (leather workers) among others, as well as some Thakuri upper caste households.
*604 Soldier Child – 1-hour program, 9PM, 10:30 PM, 9PM   6/27,28,30
A film about GUSCO, which rehabilitates child soldiers in Uganda, narrated by Danny Glover and filmed by Neil Abramson.
Studio is closed the week of July 2, 2006.
*605 Against my will – 1-hour program, 9PM, 10:30 PM, 9PMÂ Â Â 7/11,12,14
A video about “honor killings” of women, produced by Rob Brouwer of AI-Netherlands.
*606 Fat, Famine & Froot Loops: what’s democracy got to do with it?   7/18,19,20
A presentation by Food Activist Anna Lappe, Small Planet Institute.
IN THE AREA: WE HAVE A TABLE with information and petitions at the Ithaca Farmers’ Market, Sunday, June 25. Can YOU help us table, any time between 10 to 3? Write Jackie at swiftlyme@yahoo.com or leave a message at 256-0050. And get your friends to come sign petitions!
Come to the Books Thru Bars garage sale Saturday, June 17, 8AM to 3PM. 1105 Highland Rd. (Cayuga Heights). Proceeds will support their work to mail books to people in U.S. prisons. Info? Donations? Call 257-3156 or write booksthrubarsithaca@yahoo.com .
Rochester July 26? The band OAR has a concert; the Save Darfur coalition will have a table, and invites volunteers to sit at it to raise awareness of Darfur and gather signatures. Interested? Write kyla@savedarfur.org.
Cornell AI back in Sept. Katie Bowers khb4@cornell.edu & Matt Krueger mek42@cornell.edu . Ithaca College AI group: contact Evan Engel, president, eengel1@ithaca.edu . Trumansburg High School Amnesty contact: Kara FrostClapp, 277-5557, KFrostClapp@tburg.k12.ny.us .
OUT IN THE WORLD: Amnesty International’s June 13 report “Partners in Crime” faults the U.S. authorities for their secret “rendition” of prisoners to various countries where they were tortured–and faults the European countries that enabled this illegal practice by handing prisoners over and allowing airplanes to come and go unacknowledged. See the BBC “Amnesty seeks rendition ‘honesty’” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5076456.stm – with a link to the whole report – as well as the June 7 BBC story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5054426.stm for a similar report from the Council of Europe.
More news from Amnesty: the governor of Virginia issued a 6-month stay of execution for schizophrenic Levar Walton–sentenced to death for 3 murders–so that Walton’s mental competency can be determined. It came just an hour before the scheduled execution. The governor stated: “The US Supreme Court has held that a person must have sufficient mental capacity to understand the punishment he is about to suffer, and why he is to suffer it.” (Source: June 9 update to Urgent Action 139/06). Amnesty opposes all executions–mental competency or not.
The New York State Senate passed 2 bills to bring the death penalty back–but an Assembly committee voted 13 to 5 against reviving it (a bigger margin than in 2005).
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture placed an ad signed by 27 religious leaders in the New York Times June 13 “calling for the elimination of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as part of U.S. policy” (see http://www.nrcat.org/). Amnesty is an adjunct member of NRCAT.
Coalition for the International Criminal Court: the Court is looking into crimes in Darfur. Its Prosecutor gave his third report on Darfur to the Security Council June 14. See http://www.iccnow.org/. Amnesty belongs to the Coalition, and campaigns for all countries to ratify the Rome Statute which established the Court.
Our group’s new updated Web site (kindness of Govind Acharya as well as Jesse Ernst): http://www.ithacaamnesty.org/. Keep the Newsletter coming: renew subscriptions! $5/year to “AI Group #73, Ithaca,” c/o W. Browne, 206 Eddy St., Ithaca NY 14850, 273-3009. Rather get it by e-mail? Ask ewb2@cornell.edu. Info: co-coordinators Charlotte Acharya 227-3471 cba9@cornell.edu; Jackie Swift, swiftlyme@yahoo.com, 256-0050.
Monthly Action Item – Eritrea
Amnesty International group 73
206 Eddy St.
Ithaca, NY 14850
Ithaca, New York
June 2006
His Excellency President Issayas Afewerki
Office of the President
PO Box 257
ASMARA
ERITREA
Your Excellency,
I am aware of the many pressing problems encountered by your Government in coping with opposition movements and the results of the war. Nevertheless recent measures have had the effect of repressing members of the civil population. I refer particularly to the arrest of an editor and journalist, Mr. Said Abdulkadir, who has been held arbitrarily since September 2001. I ask Your Excellency to intervene to free Mr. Abdulkadir, who is regarded as a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International. His location should be announced and he should be allowed access to legal counsel, doctors and members of his family. In addition, I appeal for other detained journalists and all persons not directly involved in criminal activity to be released from detention. I call upon Eritrea, as I call upon my own country, to detain persons only when there is legally well-founded evidence to charge them with crimes, and to bring such persons before a court immediately upon their arrest.
Thank you for your kind attention to my requests. I would be grateful for a statement about the cases of Mr. Abdulkadir and the others from Your Excellency’s Government, which I see as the most authoritative source of information about the development of events in your country.
Respectfully,