Filed under: News about the Group
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL Group #73, ITHACA. May 2007 NEWSLETTER.
>>Going away for the summer? Or disappearing from view entirely? Let us know where to send the Newsletter!<<
MEETING: Tuesday, May 15, 2007, 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!
- Reports and updates on campaigns.
NEXT MONTH’S MEETING: Tues. June 19, 2007, 7:30, same place. Always the
3rd Tues.
Amnesty bases its work on the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 30 articles with rights everyone should have everywhere. An article for May: “Article 11. (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.” To see all the Articles, go to our
web site http://www.ithacaamnesty.org/ (thanks Govind!).
SAMPLE LETTER: BANGLADESH. Dr. Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir is an agricultural economist, a writer on poverty and development, and a former UN official. We defended him in 2002 when he was imprisoned on a series of charges by the Bangladesh government. A caretaker government is now doing it again: imprisoning him on one charge and then bringing another charge when the first runs out. Please send this letter or write your own to ask the Bangladesh authorities to treat him properly and allow him a fair trial
and a defense. Extra effect: send a copy to Lt. General Moeen U Ahmed, Chief of Army Staff, Bangladesh Army, Dhaka Cantonment, Dhaka, BANGLADESH (or Fax: +880 2 8754455) and to Ambassador Shamsher M. Chowdhury, Embassy of Bangladesh, 3510 International Drive NW, Washington, DC 20008. Sources: American Association for the Advancement of Science Human Rights Action
Network, http://listserv.aaas.org
a site set up by Dr. Alamgir’s family, http://www.mkalamgir.com/.
Alas the POSTAGE rates go up May 14: U.S., cards will be 26¢, letters 41¢. Canada, Mexico cards 69¢, letters 69¢. Elsewhere: 90¢ – 90¢.
TV Show: Cable Channel 13. The series of Amnesty programs has come to an end after 625 weekly shows; but producer Wies van Leuken’s new series “Over the Shoulder” has many items of Amnesty interest. Weekly 1-hour programs (1 premiere and 2 repeats) Tues. 9PM, Thur. 9AM, Sat. 11PM. 5/8,10,12 *Personal Accounts of the Holocaust *
Professor Leopold Gruenfeld gives a haunting account of his family’s
experiences during WWII.
Part 1: A father’s imprisonment; Part 2: Escape from Germany; the
Shanghai ghetto; Japanese occupation.
5/15, 17, 19 *Youth as Pawns of War – child soldiers in Central Africa *
Presentations by Sita Balthazar, AI USA International Justice consultant
and Charles Bongomin, former Child Soldier, from the 2007 Annual General
Meeting of Amnesty International USA.
Followed by: *PSA Childsoldier *
*Negotiating Identities – Voices of African Women in Alberta, Canada.
Presented by Denise Spitzer at the Institute for African Development’s
2006 Annual Symposium: Power, Gender & Social Change in Africa & the
Diaspora.
5/22,24,26 *Fred Ho presents *
Activist and composer Fred Ho talks about Black and Asian social movements
and plays his compositions on the baritone saxophone.
EVENTS IN THE AREA: Cornell AI, Trumansburg High School Amnesty
International, Ithaca College AI, other schools: back in the fall: watch
this space!
Ithaca College will have William Schulz, Amnesty USA executive director
1994-2006, as this year’s Commencement speaker May 20. Schulz will also
speak at the Unitarian Church, 208 E. Buffalo St., Ithaca, on Saturday,
May 19, at 4:00 pm. His topic is “Restoring America’s Good Name: Human
Rights and the Quest for Peace.” Donations will be accepted at the door. A
reception will follow. For information: 273-7521.
OUT IN THE WORLD: good news sometimes. Democratic Republic of Congo: After
more than five months in detention, prisoner of conscience Marie-Therese
Nlandu and her nine co-defendants were acquitted of all charges by a
Kinshasa military court on 30 April, and released. The family of
Marie-Therese Nlandu has written to thank Amnesty International members
for their support “during these darkest months”. Amnesty International
continues to campaign for an end to trial of civilians by military court
in the DRC and for investigation of allegations of torture or
ill-treatment of detainees, in this and other cases.
Further good news from DRC; the NGO Solidarite’ des Femmes Activistes pour
la defense des droits Humains (Solidarity Movement of Women Human Rights
Activists–SOFAD) has received an international award for its work. SOFAD,
based in Uvira in eastern DRC, works through a grassroots network of 625
women to research and campaign against sexual violence. It also educates
local communities on women and children’s rights and lobbies the
government to deliver justice and reform discriminatory laws. On May 1,
2007, Gege Katana, president of SOFAD, received the Front Line Human
Rights Defenders Prize at a ceremony in Dublin. View musician Bono’s poem
for Gege: http://www.frontlinedefenders
website at http://www.u2.com/news/index
music CD of human rights songs performed by the SOFAD All Stars (a group
associated with the NGO) and produced by AI Netherlands is available from
the AIUSA Casework Office: write kroehling@aiusa.org.
2 May 2007 Sudan: War crimes suspects must be brought before International
Criminal Court. “Amnesty International welcomed today’s decision by the
International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for two suspected
Sudanese war criminals, and urged the Sudanese government to immediately
arrest the two men and hand them over to the Court in The Hague. Current
State Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Ahmad Harun, and renowned Janjawid
leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abdelrahman (also known as Ali Kushayb), face 51
counts of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including
murder, persecution, the destruction of property, pillaging, rape,
torture, outrages upon personal dignity and other inhumane acts.” (from an
AI press release.)
In New York State: The very regrettable death of a state trooper in a
confrontation with a suspect led some legislators to call for a special
law providing the death penalty for killing police officers. But then it
came out that the trooper was the victim of a shot from another
policeman–a so-called friendly fire incident. Amnesty opposes the death
penalty in all cases. Think of the risk of error: since 1973 when the
death penalty was brought back in by a U.S. Supreme Court decision, about
1100 people have been executed, meanwhile about 125 people have been
sentenced to death and then proved innocent and freed.
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: coordinator Charlotte
Acharya 227-3471 cba9@cornell.edu.
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Ithaca, New York
May 2007
Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, Chief Adviser
Government of Bangladesh
Tejgaon, Dhaka
BANGLADESH
Fax: +880 2 8113244 or +880 2 8113243 or +880 2 8111015 or +880 2 8111490
Dear Dr. Ahmed,
I am writing on behalf of Dr. Muhiuddin Alamgir, an agricultural economist
and former United Nations official. As I understand it, based on reports
from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Alamgir
was arrested in February and has been held for several months on a series
of charges by the police and army. It is alleged that he is guilty of
corruption, but he is kept away from his financial records which he could
use in defending himself. The case has aroused special interest here in
this community because of the importance of the field of agricultural
economics at Cornell University.
Many of us had occasion to write to your Government in 2002 in connection
with a similar series of charges that were brought successively against
Dr. Alamgir.
Amnesty International does not agitate for one side or another of
political disputes, but is very concerned with instances, in whatever
country they may be, of arbitrary action on the part of security forces
and police authorities against citizens. I believe that it is permissible
to address you in this case because I work for the protection of the
rights of citizens in my own country as well.
Your country, like my own, is a member of the United Nations. It has been
one since 1974, i.e. for almost all of its existence. The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly in 1948,
provides: “Article 11 (1). Everyone charged with a penal offence has the
right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a
public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his
defence.” Legal experts regard this Declaration as one of the bases of
international law, which has come to bind U.N. members and other
countries.
I wish to ask your government to take an interest in the protection of Dr.
Alamgir, and in rectifying arbitrary actions against him. Neither
arbitrary treatment nor unfounded arrests should be permitted. When people
are arrested, they should not be isolated from lawyers and family members.
All suspicions of ill-treatment by their jailers should be investigated.
I look forward to your reply. Thank you for your kind attention to my
request.
Respectfully,