AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL Group #73, ITHACA. December 2007 NEWSLETTER. Greetings on holidays past and present!

MEETING Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007, 7:30 pm  at Cornell’s Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave. 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!

• Holiday Card Action: we’ll have some greeting cards to send to prisoners; bring others if you can, but not all prisoners should get “Merry Christmas” or Santa Claus or popping champagne corks for New Year’s.

• A visit from a sympathetic minister.

• Report on our brief tabling at Greenstar to celebrate Human Rights Day.

• For a church group: can we provide a speaker on torture concerns?

• Reports and updates on campaigns.

NEXT MONTH’S MEETING: Tues. Jan. 15, 2008! at the Kahin Center.

Amnesty bases its work on the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 30 articles with rights all should have everywhere. An article for December: “Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”  See all 30 on our website http://www.ithacaamnesty.org/ (thanks Govind!).

SAMPLE LETTER (repeated–still relevant): Sri Lanka. The head of Eastern University (in a Tamil area of the country) was kidnapped while in the capital, Colombo. Tamils are in danger from the military in government-controlled areas because they can be accused of being terrorists. Please send this letter or write your own to the Secretary of Defence at the address given (90c airmail). Extra effect: send a copy to Ambassador Bernard A.B. Goonetilleke, Embassy of Sri Lanka, 2148 Wyoming Ave. NW, Washington DC 20008 (regular 41c stamp or Fax 202 232 7181 or Email: slembassy@slembassyusa.org). Source: Write-a-thon action Dec. 2007.

POSTAGE rates: U.S., cards = 26c, letters 41c. Canada, Mexico cards & letters 69c. Elsewhere: 90c – 90c.

TV Show: Cable Channel 13. Cameraman Jurden Alexander and producer Wies van Leuken’s series “Over the Shoulder” has many items of Amnesty interest. Weekly 1-hour programs (1 premiere and 3 repeats) Tuesday 9PM; Wednesday 1:30 PM; Thursday 9AM; Saturday 11PM.

*49   Brown vs Board of Education        12/11,12,13,15

An historical overview by Professor of Africana Studies (CU) Robert Harris, Jr., followed by a reflection on the 35th Anniversary of CU’s Africana Studies and Research Center by James Turner, Professor of Africana Studies, CU. * Followed by AI-I #474   A Place We Called Our Own                

In 1998, the Southwest Arkansas Community Development Corporation produced a film that explains where and how African Americans were educated in Columbia County before desegregation.  Narrated by an alumna of Columbia School and a VISTA volunteer on staff with the CDC, the program visits several of the school sites and makes use of oral interviews with former students and personnel of the various schools.

*50   All deliberate speed – reflections on the first half-century of Brown vs Board of Education        12/18,19, 20, 22

Presentation by Charles Ogletree, the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, Harvard University, made at the Celebration of the 35th Anniversary of the Africana Studies and Research Center, CU; w/Postcards 3, 13.

*Amnesty favorites                     12/25,26,27,29

AI-I #623  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A reading of  all 30 Articles by the Ithaca Community in 1998.

AI-I #382 The Yellow Star, as told by David Craig.

AI-I #288 Les Tambourinaires de Burundi: Burundi was a kingdom for centuries before Germany colonized it in the late 1800’s. Drummers and dancers played an important role at court functions. The monarchy no longer exists but Burundians consider the tradition of the Tambourinaires part of their heritage regardless of their ethnic background.

*51   Africana studies meets the law – a genealogy of Critical Race Theory  1/1,2,3,5, 2008

Kimberle Crenshaw, Professor of Law, Columbia University, keynote address at the 35th Anniversary of CU’s Africana Studies .

EVENTS IN THE AREA: Ithaca College AI (info: hwittwe1@ithaca.edu or amnestyithaca@gmail.com) and Cornell AI (contact co-pres. Anna Ng, aln24@cornell.edu, (585) 703-4812, website http://rso.cornell.edu/amnesty) held a joint Human Rights Day celebration (bake sale, petitions, video showing) on Ithaca Commons Dec. 10. Both will resume meetings in January.

OUT IN THE WORLD: AI campaign “86 Days” (against US government’s use of torture, against holding people without charge or trial in Guantanamo) runs Oct. 17-Jan. 11. Many actions and events. See: http://www.amnestyusa.org/Torture/86_Days/page.do?id=1011410&n1=3&n2=38&n3=1447 .

Dec. 13: it even made the BBC news! “N Jersey to scrap death penalty.” The N.J. Senate and Assembly have passed a bill to eliminate executions in the state, and the Governor says he’ll sign it. Ending death penalties worldwide is a longtime goal of Amnesty. Major users include China, Iran, the U.S., Vietnam, Iraq.

What is it like to be a refugee? The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees would like to give you a taste. Try out the interactive game at: http://www.playagainstallodds.com/ .

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.

 

 

 

Ithaca, New York

  December 2007

 

 

Gotabaya Rajapaksa

Secretary, Ministry of Defence 

15/5 Baladaksha Mawatha

Colombo 3

SRI LANKA

 

Dear Secretary of Defense:

 

Permit me to address you in the matter of Professor Sivasubramaniam Raveendranath, the Vice-Chancellor of Eastern University in your country. He is an internationally known expert on the culture of rice and other crops, as well as the management of pests that prey on them, hence a person of great interest to us here in Ithaca, the seat of Cornell University and its Integrated Pest Management program. He was last seen in Colombo at a conference of the Sri Lankan Association for the Advancement of Science, from where he disappeared on December 15, 2006. Since on numerous occasions in the past the military and security forces have denied holding a person who is later found to have been in their control and subjected to ill-treatment, even in the capital itself, there is reason to fear that Professor Raveendranath has met a similar fate.

 

I urgently request that the Sri Lankan government and in particular its military authorities take effective measures to find Professor Raveendranath as soon as possible. Protect him from ill-treatment, break the secrecy surrounding his whereabouts, and release him unless there should be a well-founded legal accusation against him. Thank you for your kind consideration of my request.

 

Yours respectfully,

 

Greetings all, we will be having our regular meeting at the Kahin Center in Cornell’s west campus.