Posted on

Jack Reed supports selling cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

amos house reedCongress is coming under increasing pressure to stop supplying cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia, but Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed doesn’t seem to be feeling it. He said the weapons, which are made by Rhode Island-based Textron and banned by 119 nations but not the US and Saudi Arabia, “should still be provided under strict conditions,” he told RI Future.

An amendment to the House military spending bill narrowly failed last week that would have stopped the sale of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. It was supported by congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin, both of whom notably declined to comment on the vote. I asked Reed about the issue when I saw him on Friday.

“I think we should still be selling those weapon systems that comply with the law,” said Reed, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees.

Providence-based Textron is the last North American producer of cluster bombs, and the only source of cluster bombs for the US military. They’ve become a hot button issue as evidence mounts that Saudi Arabia has used cluster bombs it procured from the US in civilian-populated areas of Yemen.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have each independently found evidence that Textron’s cluster bombs have malfunctioned more than 1 percent of the time in Yemen and have been used in civilian-populated areas. Both allegations would be violations of US law concerning cluster bombs.

“That is something we have to look at very closely because the threshold is 1 percent or less,” Reed said. “That’s the way they are designed, that’s the way they’re tested and that’s the way they are maintained. We have strict protocols in design and the systems need to perform to very high standards and that as a result those and only those systems are sold.”

He added, “I think you do look at all the data that is being submitted. I think we are looking at it, and we are testing it.”

Reed said the US military still has cluster bombs in its arsenal, as well. “We have them in our own inventory so we’re very conscience of trying to make sure they are tested properly,” he said.

He seemed confident in their efficacy. “The systems we provide, technically, are designed so that if a cluster does not detonate it will be deactivated. They are the only ones authorized to be sold.”

Textron’s political action committee has been a long-time financial supporter of Reed, according to campaign finance reports. In 2015, Textron donated $1,000 to Reed’s campaign war chest, and in 2013 Textron made six donations for a total of $10,000 – of which $5,000 was given on June 30. In 2010, Reed got $1,000 from Textron  , as he did in 2006 as well. In 2007 Textron gave Reed $9,000.

Read RI Future’s full coverage of Textron’s cluster bombs here:

Posted on

Pia Ward’s personal connection to cluster bomb casualities


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

landminePia Ward has personal reasons for protesting Textron’s cluster bombs. She grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and as a young girl collected the military ordnance strewn across the countryside.

“My dad said ‘don’t pick up anything that’s live,'” she said, showing off what she described as an expired Israeli landmine found in Beirut during the 1980s.

“But you know you’re a child and you see something and you want this for your collection,” Ward said. “Many times I picked up something like this, not knowing if it was live, not knowing if it was exploded. I could have blown off my arms. This is what is happening to children.”

This is what happened to her childhood friend Kahlil, she said, who rode over a landmine on his bicycle – an accident that took both his legs.

This is why Ward, a member of the FANG Collective, organizes weekly actions in front of Textron’s world headquarters at 40 Westminster St. in downtown Providence.

Textron is the last North American manufacturer of cluster bombs, which are outlawed by 119 nations and the United Nations but not by the United States or Saudi Arabia. The US State Department buys cluster bombs from Textron and sells them to Saudi Arabia. Textron’s cluster bombs, by way of a Saudi-led military campaign, have been found in Yemen, where dozens of civilian deaths have been attributed to cluster bombs over the past year.

Global humanitarian groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have recently called on Textron to stop making cluster bombs. Both have presented evidence that Textron’s cluster bombs malfunction more often than allowed by US trade law.

Peace activists in Providence have promised weekly actions in front of Textron’s downtown headquarters until the Rhode Island-based global conglomerate stops making cluster bombs. About 10 people attended the second weekly action on Wednesday afternoon, scheduled to coincide with Textron and other employees leaving work. Four Providence police officers stood watch as activists held signs and conversed with people walking by.

Read RI Future’s full coverage of Textron’s cluster bombs here:

The real measure of cluster bomb @Textron protests is not how many people show up but how many ppl are reached. A photo posted by Bob Plain (@bobplainpics) on

#PVD lawyer John Barton stopped by the anti @textron protest. And so did my brother (in background)!!

A photo posted by Bob Plain (@bobplainpics) on

Sally Mendzela’s anti-Textron sign shows pictures of where cluster bomb profit comes from.

A photo posted by Bob Plain (@bobplainpics) on

This is a real Israeli anti-personnel mine from Beirut from the 1980s. Pia Ward brought it to @textron protest.

A photo posted by Bob Plain (@bobplainpics) on

Posted on

Amnesty International targets Textron, locals target Textron investors


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

2016-05-19 Textron 06Amnesty International is the latest humanitarian organization to call out Textron for providing cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. A new report from AI says cluster bomb evidence found in Yemen was “manufactured by Textron Defense Systems,” a Massachusetts subsidiary of the Rhode Island-based conglomerate.

“The presence of dud skeet submunitions in Yemen which have failed to deploy, detonate or self-destruct contradicts claims by the US Security Defense Cooperation Agency that these munitions do not result in more than 1% unexploded ordnance ‘across the range of intended operational environments.’ The US government prohibits the sale or transfer of cluster munitions with greater than a 1% fail rate. The US appears to be failing to meet even this standard,” says the report.

The global human rights group has authored previous reports on Saudi Arabia’s use of cluster bombs in Yemen, but this is the first one to specify Textron as the American manufacturer. The report says evidence of cluster bombs manufactured in Brazil and England were also found. A BBC report says the British cluster bombs were manufactured in the 1970s.

Only the United States is mentioned as recently supplying Saudi Arabia with cluster bombs. “A US Department of Defense contract worth $641 million for the manufacture of 1,300 CBU-105 sensor fused weapons for Saudi Arabia was agreed in August 2013,” it says.

The report documents “16 new civilian casualties, including nine children, documented in aftermath of Saudi Arabia-led coalition’s cluster bomb use.”

Amnesty International joins Human Rights Watch and the Cluster Munition Coalition in targeting Textron for supplying Saudi Arabia with cluster bombs that are being used in civilian-populated areas of Yemen. Headquartered in Providence, Textron employs about 300 people in Rhode Island and has more than 34,000 employees across the globe.

Meanwhile, Providence peace activists, led by the FANG Collective and the American Friends Service Committee, are holding their second weekly protest of Textron’s world headquarters at 40 Westminster St. in Providence Wednesday at 4pm.

According to a Facebook event:

This week, the FANG Collective will be targeting Textron investors who are just as guilty as Textron for maiming and killing civilians with cluster bombs. People who invest in Textron have “put their money where their mouth is” and are saying: It’s okay to sentence civilians to death or to injuries that will plague them for the rest of their lives, and to subject the parents, children, siblings, neighbors and friends of such victims to a lifetime of psychological suffering and misery.

If you are unable to physically attend this weeks demonstration, you can still participate. Print out one of signs provided targeting Textron’s top 5 institutional investors (T. Rowe Price, Vanguard, Invesco, State Street Corp, and FMR LLC) and take a photo of yourself holding the sign and post your photo to this event page. We will add your photos to the album of photos for this week’s demonstration at Textron World Headquarters and will use them to tweet one photo per day at Textron and Textron investors (for however many days as we receive photos; the more we receive the longer we can maintain this particular twitter mini-campaign.)

RI Future contributor Andrew Stewart wrote about a different kind of action against Vanguard last week.

Read RI Future’s full coverage of Textron’s cluster bombs here:

Posted on

CoyoteRI testifying to decriminalize prostitution in New Hampshire


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

coyoteAs the executive director of CoyoteRI (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), I will be testifying for the committee hearings on House Bill 1614, a bill that seeks to decriminalize prostitution, on Thursday in New Hampshire. The main reason I want to see prostitution decriminalized is because it is the only harm reduction model proven to reduce violence and exploitation in the sex industry.

In August 2015 Amnesty International voted to adopt a policy to protect the human rights of sex workers. The resolution recommends that Amnesty International develop a policy that supports the full decriminalization of all aspects of consensual sex work. The policy will also call on states to ensure that sex workers enjoy full and equal legal protection from exploitation, trafficking, and violence.

“We recognize that this critical human rights issue is hugely complex and that is why we have addressed this issue from the perspective of international human rights standards. We also consulted with our global movement to take on board different views from around the world,” said Amnesty’s Salil Shetty.

Amnesty’s research and consultation was carried out in the development of this policy in the past two years concluded that this was the best way to defend sex workers’ human rights and lessen the risk of abuse and violations they face.

The violations that sex workers can be exposed to include physical and sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, extortion and harassment, human trafficking, forced HIV testing and medical interventions. They can also be excluded from health care and housing services and other social and legal protection.

Amnesty’s policy has drawn from an extensive evidence base from sources including UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization, UNAIDS and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. We have also conducted research in four countries.

The consultation included sex worker groups, groups representing survivors of prostitution, abolitionist organizations, feminist and other women’s rights representatives, LGBTI activists, anti- trafficking agencies and HIV/AIDS organizations.

Amnesty International considers human trafficking abhorrent in all of its forms, including sexual exploitation, and should be criminalized as a matter of international law. This is explicit in this new policy and all of Amnesty International’s work.

In 2003 New Zealand passed the “Prostitution Reform Act,” which decriminalized all aspects of adult prostitution. Upon a 5 year review, New Zealand has just about rid the sex industry of exploitation. Sex Workers reported that they had better relationships with the police.

It is crucial that sex workers can work together and share work space to ensure their safety. Many sex workers, utilize 3rd party support staff to help keep them safe. Under current US laws 3rd party support staff are legally classified as traffickers. Sex Workers need “equal protection under the law”. Sex Workers need to be able to report violence and exploitation to the police, without fearing that they are in danger of being arrested and further persecution.

Criminalization of prostitution is a failed policy. It hasn’t stopped anyone from “buying or selling” sex, but it has caused a lot of collateral damage. From our failed “Safe Harbor Laws” to the insane Homeland Security training of hotel staff, who have been told to report people who have too many condoms. We need to ask, where are the big pimps and traffickers?

Could it be that the majority of US Sex Worker are under their own control? Even the minors interviewed in Surviving the streets of NY: Experiences of LGBTQ Youth, YMSM & YWSW Engaged in Survival Sex study by the Urban Institute, say that “they did not have pimps and they taught each other how to find clients, while avoiding police and social workers..

To add insult to injury, researchers have found that “the biggest threat to underaged Sex Workers is the police.” Jenny Heineman, a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas worked with the federally funded Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children program, in collaboration with research teams across the U.S. Says “More than half of the young people I interviewed stated that they regularly perform sex acts for police officers in exchange for their not being arrested”.

In the Special Report: Money and Lies in Anti-Human Trafficking NGOs we find that the US is funding US trafficking NGOs, over 600 million a year to “create awareness on human trafficking” yet these NGOs do not provide any direct services to trafficking victims or sex workers.

We can do better than this which is why I support New Hampshire’s House-Bill 1614.

Posted on

Disinvited from speaking at the UN, global women labor leaders hold forum during Pope’s address


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387
Eni Lestari
Eni Lestari

As Pope Francis spoke before the United Nations General Assembly on Friday morning in New York City, I attended a forum entitled “Women Leading the Global Labor Rights Movement” featuring two speakers who were actually dis-invited from speaking at the U.N.’s Post-2015 Development Summit.

Nazma Akter is one of Bangladesh’s most respected and influential labor leaders. She founded AWAJ (“voice” in Bengla) in 2003 to organize women garment workers, and represents 37,000 workers.

Eni Lestari is the chairperson of the International Migrants Alliance (IMA).

According to organizer Leanne Sajor, Lestari and Akter received “an incredible amount of votes from a U.N. convened selection committee comprised of civil society representatives from all over the world. Eni was supposed to be speaking as the openning speaker of the post 2015 summit and Nazma was also nominated for a panel on the economy and poverty. Both of them received the highest votes, Eni was actually ranked first. When their names were processed through the office of the president of the General Assembly, that democratic process was overruled, and instead it was given to Amnesty International, which placed tenth on the list.”

Nazma Akter
Nazma Akter

Organizers believe that the message the two women would have brought was considered too radical by the powers that be at the United Nations. “This silencing of both Eni and Nazma, who are both grassroots activists, is absolutely outrageous.”

The U.N. offered the two organizers the consolation prize of quietly observing the summit, but instead they decided to collaborate with Kate Lappin, regional coordinator for the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development and Chaumtoli Huq, attorney and editor of Law@theMargins. With 7000 reporters covering the Pope, I figured they could spare one to cover those not allowed to speak their mind at the United Nations.

“I’m a migrant, I’m a woman. I am not high profile, not the Pope,” said Eni Lestari. In her career as a migrant worker Lestari was sometimes not paid, was underpaid, or had an agency take high fees. Many like her have worked for companies with the promise of future payment, only to come to work one morning and find the company closed, their labor stolen. “We are the low ranking class, un-respected.”

Eventually Lestari got involved in organizing. “There is no way out of this problem except through empowerment,” she said, “You need to be brave enough to fight back.”

Kate Lappin
Kate Lappin

Fighting for women migrant worker’s rights is never easy. They are marginalized and infantilized. “Whenever you go to the embassy for help they ask you who your agency is and they call the agency.” Workers are euphemistically referred to as the “children” of the agency. Since the agency is often the problem nothing comes of complaining, and sometimes the situation can become worse.

Additionally, said Lestari, “workers have no time outside. [They are] emotionally and physically exhausted.”

It is difficult to organize the exhausted.

Nazma Akter started working in a Bangladeshi garment factory at the age of eleven, first as an assistant to her mother. “I worked hard, had no time to study.” Workers who attempted to organize for rights and pay were routinely beaten, fired, blacklisted or had false charges brought against them. The big media ignored their complaints. In Bangladesh, “If you want to be in a union you must get permission from government,” said Akter, “It’s not a worker friendly government.”

Chaumtoli Huq
Chaumtoli Huq

When Akter started organizing there were five unions. Today there are 31, and there are applications to the government for 100 more.

Akter’s main campaign these days is for a universal living wage. “A company like Walmart will not help us,” she noted without irony, “We need respect and dignity. Charity is not important.”

If women can be paid adequately, then their children will receive educations and health care. “The next generation of garment workers,” says Akter, “can become members of parliament.“

Kate Lappin says that the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development tries to bring voices like Akter and Lestari to the U.N. They “have a more radical perspective than NGOs.”

The “pivot to Asia,” championed by the Obama administration, is “driven by a desire for cheap, exploited labor” and amounts to “little more than a race to see who gets to exploit women workers,” says Lappin. “The value of moving to Asia is the value of cheap women’s labor.”

Lappin’s group champions a different kind of feminism, she says. She’s not interested making sure that half the 1% is made up of women, what she calls “Hilary Clinton feminism.” Instead, Lappin advocates system change. “Changing the relationship between capital and labor is the kind of feminism we espouse,” she says, which is why she campaigns for a living wage as a way to abolish poverty.

“A universal living wage prevents corporations from jumping to a different company,” says Lappin,”We need the garment industry to be decent work. We can’t target one country at a time.”

The challenges are vast. In some countries joining a labor union is outlawed. Migrant workers in other countries are required to leave the country every few years, keeping them mobile and unorganized. “The capacity to show solidarity has been made unlawful, says Lappin, Anti-unionism “is a tool of globalization.”

Women labor leaders need space to organize, governments need to enforce laws in favor of workers rights and pass laws that empower them. Women need decent wages, health care, safe working environments, access to education, and free time to live their lives.

They need to be treated like human beings and not grist for corporate mills that derive profits from their blood, their sweat and their lives.

But first, women have to be heard. Pope Francis surely raised some important moral concerns when he addressed the United Nations, but its hard to believe that his message was more important or or pertinent than those of Eni Lestari or Nazma Akter.

The video below is a trailer for a documentary being produced by Chaumtoli Huq, who organized and moderated this excellent forum.https://youtu.be/m1uzkEmWmlY

Patreon

Posted on

Ending life imprisonment without parole for juveniles


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387
Joee Lindbeck
Joee Lindbeck

Rep. Chris Blazejewski introduced House bill 5650, sparking a  debate in the Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee hearing as to whether or not juvenile defendants should be subject to mandatory life sentences without parole. The American Bar Association, Amnesty International and the ACLU are just three highly regarded civil and human rights groups who have called for an end to this practice.

Juan Méndez, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, said, in a recent report, “The vast majority of states have taken note of the international human rights requirements regarding life imprisonment of children without the possibility of release.” And, “life sentences or sentences of an extreme length have a disproportionate impact on children and cause physical and psychological harm that amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.”

According to Amnesty International, in written testimony submitted at the hearing, “The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child expressly prohibits life imprisonment without the possibility of release for crimes committed by people under 18 years of age. All countries except the USA and South Sudan have ratified the Convention. Somalia just recently ratified the treaty in January 2015 and South Sudan has already begun the process to become a signatory to the Convention.”

What a terrible place for the United States to find itself as an outlier.

The United States Supreme Court has been evolving on this issue for a decade. In 2012 the Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that “mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders,” yet stopped short of issuing a blanket ban. Judges are simply required to consider the defendant’s youth and the nature of the crime when determining a sentence.

Rhode Island has a historical claim to judicial sentencing temperance, having eradicated the death penalty in 1852. Yet on the issue of life sentences for juvenile defendants, our state is lagging behind. Al Jazeera reports that, “Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have banned life sentences without parole for juveniles.”

Recognizing the potential for rehabilitation, especially of juvenile defendants, is one of the hallmarks of a civilized society. Attorneys general in other states are getting behind similar legislation, according to testimony from Steve Brown of the RI ACLU, yet Attorney General Peter Kilmartin opposes the bill currently under consideration.

Speaking against the bill, Joee Lindbeck, who heads the AG’s Legislation and Policy Unit, brought up the specter of Craig Price, who committed four murders in 1989 while under the age of 16. Reacting to Price’s crimes, the General Assembly “passed a law in 1990 to allow the state to prosecute as an adult any juvenile charged with a capital offense.” Lindbeck maintains that keeping this law on the books prepares us for “worst-case scenarios” like Price.

From a prosecutors point of view, having draconian sentences on the books is important because of the leverage they provide. A kid who committed a crime is much more willing forgo a trial and plead out to a 10 or 20 year sentence if the AG has the power to potentially ask for life without parole. This brings up a question: Should we be empowering the AG with tools to intimidate, or tools to render justice?

Threatening defendants with life destroying sentences seems to save money in the short term, but in long run we have learned that such “cheap justice” is neither.

Patreon

Posted on

Amnesty International talks Ferguson in Boston


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387
20141024_201809
Ferguson activist Larry Fellows III

Aquib Yacoob, a student at Colby College in Maine, said he couldn’t believe he was in the United States, when he arrived in Ferguson, Missouri as part of an Amnesty International observation team earlier this year.

“It could have been the streets of Palestine or South Africa during Apartheid,” he said while speaking Saturday at an AIUSA conference in Boston.

“I was terrified, but I met only peaceful protesters,” he said. “I was terrified of the militarized police presence.”

Wearing a gas mask, Yacoob picked up a discharged container of tear gas that had been launched at protesters by police. The gas was labeled, “Not to be used against civilian crowds” and “not to be used after the expiration date.” The police had violated the instructions on both labels.

Yacoob’s takeaway is that the police, despite their military power and weaponry, are afraid. They are afraid of black and brown people banding together and demanding civil rights.

“Human rights violations are happening in our country, in our backyard,” he said.

Yacoob was one of several speakers at the Northeast Regional Conference in Boston as Amnesty international USA (AIUSA) released their report on human rights abuses in the aftermath of the police shooting of Mike Brown, an unarmed African-American man in Ferguson. I was fortunate to be in Boston to take part in an enlightening and informative “Ferguson Community Discussion” ahead of the AIUSA Northeast Regional Conference.

The conversation began on the MIT campus where more than 50 people were given a small dose of “de-escalation training,” a way of engaging in non-violent direct action, by Kalaya’an Mendoza. Mendoza was part of the AIUSA team that went to Ferguson to observe the police reaction to the protests that erupted over the shooting. He’s an expert in non-violent resistance and also an activist field medic.

Mendoza maintained that non-violence, the way he teaches it, is not a life stance, but a tactic that allows people to “unmask the brutality of the oppressor.” He divided the class in two and we took turns playing the parts of oppressor and activist. I will admit that I’m never that comfortable with role playing, but I did the best I could.

Along with the instruction in non-violence, Mendoza and the AIUSA observation team in Ferguson acted as human rights observers, braving tear gas and ultrasonic weaponry, as well as police wearing combat gear and piloting vehicles meant for destroying enemies, not keeping the peace.

“I’ve seen this in Beijing,” said Mendoza, “I never thought I’d see it in the United States.”

“Ferguson,” he continued, “is symptomatic of St. Louis and St. Louis is symptomatic of what’s happening in the rest of the United States.”

Larry Fellows III introduced himself next. A resident of St. Louis, Fellows is a good looking 29-year-old African American man taking his first break after 70 straight days of street activism. He is one of the founding members of the Millennial Activists United, formed in the wake of the shooting in Ferguson. On hot days, cold days, in the rain, late at night or all day, Fellows has been on the ground in Ferguson, working with the media, coordinating volunteers, and assisting with vigils and protests.

The night of the shooting, says Fellows, “you could kind of feel like, this weird air. No one knew what we were doing then…”

From the beginning the police seemed more interested in quashing unrest than in finding justice or preserving the peace. The police routinely threatened anyone who didn’t comply with their orders, even the press. It didn’t seem to matter that people were committing no crimes, but simply protesting peacefully. The police mandated that protesters continuously walk rather than stand in one place (something the courts found unconstitutional)  and attempted to limit protesters to APPROVED ASSEMBLY AREAs.


Fellows, who worked as a loan officer in a bank eventually left his job to be a full time activist. “It got to the point that my rights became more important to me than my job,” says Fellows. Still, Fellows has to eat, so anyone with some extra money in their PayPal account can send him a few dollars at LFellowsiii@gmail.com.

The last speaker of the evening was Rachel O’Leary, who headed up the AIUSA observation team. She had nightmares for weeks after leaving Ferguson. In her nightmares, O’Leary is separated from her team and watches helplessly as the police prepare to fire on her friends and coworkers. The dream is based on actual events, though the worst never happened in reality.

The report her team compiled and made available through AIUSA calls for an investigation into the human rights violations observed in Ferguson during the protests. “The reason Ferguson resonates is because it’s happening all across the country,” says O’Leary.

Winning a human rights victory against racial profiling, police brutality and militarized policing weapons and tactics all not be quick and easy. “This work will progress in slow, incremental and unglamorous ways,” says O’Leary.

But it will progress, as long as we learn and apply the lessons of Ferguson, and hold our police officers and government officials to high, human rights standards.

Posted on

Amnesty International USA Group 49 RI: Iran, please unconditionally release Arzhang Davoodi


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387
Arzhang Davoodi
Arzhang Davoodi

Amnesty International USA Group 49 in Rhode Island is the oldest AI group in the state. Each year they hold a massive write-a-thon at the First Unitarian Church in Providence, and the rest of the year the group works on prisoner-of-conscience cases on behalf of those imprisoned for non-violent political crimes around the world. This group in many ways represents all of Rhode Island to the outside world. It is very likely that the leaders of Belarus of Iran have never heard of our little state, until a letter arrives requesting the release of a prisoner.

Group 49 is Rhode Island’s ambassador to the world, and deserves our support. Now there is a small way in which you can help us with our important work.

Fully aware of the limitations of online petitions, but desperate to increase the visibilty of this forgotten case of human rights abuse, Group 49 has posted a petition on Change.org that we are asking all Rhode Islanders of good conscience to sign.

From the petition:

“Arzhang Davoodi is an author, poet, and Director of the Parto-e-Hekmat Cultural -Educational Centre in Tehran.  He was arrested in October, 2003, after he assisted in the making of a TV documentary called “Forbidden Iran,” in which he spoke about the plight of political prisoners at the time.   Arzhang Davoodi, a man whose principle is non-violence, has been severely punished for his exercise of his right to free, peaceful expression.  Amnesty International has named him a prisoner of conscience. After his arrest, he was sentenced to  15 years and 70 lashes in prison.  In 2011, an additional 14 months was added to his sentence, and new charges were brought against him. Now, his sentence has been lengthened yet again, this time to 20 years and eight months.  Yet during all this time, he has been in prison, often in solitary confinement, incapable of any act of violence, without even the means of conveying his peaceful nonviolent thought to the public outside prison.

“The government of Iran is surely responsible for those whom it holds in custody. We ask you to bring to the attention of the prison authorities in the several prisons where has been held (Evin, Reja ‘I Shahr, and now Bandar Abbas) that this elderly man has been severely wounded while in their custody.  While in detention, his shoulder and his jaw have been broken, several of his teeth have been broken, and he has been harshly and repeatedly beaten on the eyes and ears, as a result of which his hearing and his sight are impaired.  He is in urgent need of medical attention.

“A new charge has been brought against him, despite the fact that having been in prison for all these years, he has been unable to commit any act of any kind.  Not only has he never been allowed to see his original conviction order, or the official verdict, but now we understand that these new charges have been brought against him without having been specified.

“Amnesty International USA Group 49 in Providence has been working on Arzhang’s case for many years, sending letters and asking Iranian officials to release Arzhang Davoodi. This petition is an attempt to raise the profile of this sometimes forgotten and overlooked case, and hopefully get some action on this miscarriage of justice.”

Thank you for your help with this important work.

Posted on

Fighting for international human rights in Rhode Island


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Free Pussy Riot PosterIn an obvious and naked bid to burnish his public image in regards to human rights in Russia, President Putin is freeing prisoners of conscience ahead of the Sochi Winter Olympics. Despite the obviousness of Putin’s political motives, the release of Pussy Riot band members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is especially welcome. The two women were sentenced, along with Yekaterina Samutsevich (released earlier) to two years in a Siberian penal colony for the charge of “hooliganism.”

Their crime as explained on Wikipedia:

On February 21, 2012, as part of a protest movement against the re-election of Vladimir Putin, five women from the group entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. There was no church service in session at the time, and only a few people were in the cathedral. Removing their winter clothes, they put on colorful balaclavas, walked up the steps leading to the altar, and began to jump around, punching the air. After less than a minute, they were escorted outside the building by guards. Film of the performance was later combined with footage shot at a different church, identified by Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin as the Epiphany Cathedral in Yelokhovo, to create a video clip for the song, which they entitled “Punk Prayer: Mother of God Drive Putin Away”.

Pussy Riot’s action was clearly an act of political protest. The church was not vandalized or in any way defiled, but the women were charged with “premeditated hooliganism performed by an organized group of people motivated by religious hatred or hostility.” Of course, what the group was protesting was not religion per se, but the growing and unhealthy relationship between Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I and President Vladimir Putin, or as we may say here in the United States, between church and state.

Though these events happened half a world away, and RI Future is a blog dedicated to events and issues of concern to Rhode Island progressives, there is a connection:

Amnesty International Rhode Island is holding its annual write-a-thon on Sunday, December 29th at the First Unitarian Church on Benefit St in Providence, and all are invited to come by, grab a snack, and write some letters on behalf of  prisoners of conscience from all over the world. Write a letter, save a life.

It is only by calling attention to human rights violations around the world that we can shame intolerant governments into doing the right thing and release prisoners of conscience and those held illegally by governments who are over reaching their authority. Putin reacted to this kind of international pressure when he realized that Russia’s high profile hosting of the Winter Olympics was being tarnished by his country’s recent actions regarding human rights.

Of course, little has actually changed in Russia. Though prisoners continue to be released, Russia still has atrocious laws on the books regarding free speech, free assembly and an especially pernicious law against LGBTQ persons publicly expressing themselves. This new intolerance, which seems a reinvention of the Soviet-era police state, is being contested by brave activists like the women of Pussy Riot, and they deserve our support.

I hope to see you all at the Write-a-thon.

Posted on

RI Amnesty International meets with Senator Jack Reed


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Informal PortraitsOn Friday, November 1, three members of Group 49, Marcia Lieberman, Steven Kuada, Esq. and I, met met with Senator Jack Reed to discuss the long overdue closing of Guantanamo Bay and the passage of I-VAWA, the International Violence Against Women Act.

Senator Reed, while not committing to specific legislation, assured us that he would look into and seriously consider both issues. He was extremely knowledgeable about the issues and the work Amnesty International does, as one would expect of a Senator on the Armed Services Committee. He understands that the lives of American soldiers are at greater risk when the United states is not seen as a leader in human rights.

For nearly 40 years Amnesty International Group 49 has been meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, writing letters, holding vigils and working passionately for the release of prisoners of conscience held in terrible conditions around the world. Amnesty International defines a prisoner of conscience as “people who have been jailed because of their political, religious or other conscientiously-held beliefs, ethnic origin, sex, color, language, national or social origin, economic status, birth, sexual orientation or other status, provided that they have neither used nor advocated violence.”

Group 49 is made up entirely of unpaid volunteers. Marcia Lieberman, who leads the group, has been volunteering for 37 years, and due in part to the group’s efforts, many who faced certain death in dank, oppressive prisons have found freedom and been reunited with their families.

To my mind, Amnesty International Group 49 is following in the truest tradition of Rhode Island’s founder, Roger Williams. Williams helped to establish, here in Rhode Island, the first government, anywhere in the world, that recognized the essential human right of freedom of conscience and all that follows from this understanding, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly. The best and truest expression of this can be found in working to extend these rights and protections throughout the world.

Zmitser DashkevichRecently Group 49 celebrated the release of Zmitser Dashkevich, a thirty two year old Belarusian politician convicted of “illegal political activity” (he was marching in a pro-democracy parade, maybe) and trumped up assault charges. In prison Dashkevich “was being subjected to routine prison abuse, including verbal abuse, arbitrary punishments, and threats of torture, rape, and murder,” according to Human Rights Watch. Dashkevich’s release came as a surprise, because the last time he was due to be released his sentence was arbitrarily extended, and there were fears this would happen again.

Arzhang DavoodiGroup 49’s other prisoner of conscience, Arzhang Davoodi, who needs urgent medical care as he sits in an Iranian prison,  has been less fortunate. Davoodi was arrested for criticizing Iran’s human rights record in the documentary Forbidden Iran. Group 49 has been working for the release of Davoodi for over seven years, but there seems little that can be said in a letter that can move the heart of Iranian authorities. Even as Dashkevich was being released from his cell Davoodi was was facing a new charge of “enmity against God” which put him at risk of the death penalty. His original sentence of fifteen years was for “spreading propaganda against the system” and “establishing and directing an organization opposed to the government.” He was also sentenced to seventy-five lashes, a form of cruel punishment that would certainly break the 65 year old’s precarious health.

The work of Group 49 never ends. As soon as the group learned of the release of Zmitser Dashkevich they voted unanimously to work on the behalf of Ales Bialiatski, another prisoner of conscience in Belarus jailed on trumped up tax evasion charges.

On December 15th Group 49 will hold their annual write-a-thon at First Unitarian Church on Benefit St in Providence. The public is invited to participate. Come in, write a letter (or ten) urging the release of prisoners of conscience, enjoy free snacks and maybe even win a prize.

Amnesty International Group 49 is Rhode Island’s ambassador to the world at large as regards human rights and freedoms. Every small victory Group 49 earns and every letter and postcard mailed is a credit to our great state. To hundreds of prisoners throughout the world who have sat in cells inside countries where human rights are little more than petty distractions to totalitarian ideologies, letters from Rhode Island, through Group 49, are tiny lights of hope from distant stars where freedom and dignity are the norm, not the exception.

Group 49 meets at the First Unitarian Church on Benefit St on the first Tuesday of each month, and can be contacted at amnesty49@googlegroups.com.

Posted on

Amnesty International USA has a new exec director


Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387
Steve Hawkins-jpeg
AIUSA Executive Director Steve Hawkins

Last Wednesday I was in Boston to meet the new executive director of Amnesty International USA, Steven Hawkins. Hawkins is a lawyer with a lifetime worth of experience working for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund where he “represented African-American men facing the death penalty throughout the deep south.” From the NAACP he worked as the executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty before landing at AIUSA. When I met the man, he had been on the job for about six days, having already met people throughout the Amnesty International USA network in something like eight cities. He really hit the ground running.

The death penalty is not something we give much thought to here in Rhode Island, given our state’s proud history of having abolished the practice in 1852. Though our state had a death penalty statute “on the books” from 1872-1984, we haven’t executed anyone since 1845. Recently Governor Chafee took a stand against a federal death penalty case being brought against the murderer Jason Pleau, for which he faced some hard criticism. Occasionally some member of the General Assembly introduces a bill to bring the death penalty back, but the reality is that the death penalty is gone from Rhode Island, and in this way, as in others throughout our history, our state is a national leader.

Executive Director Hawkins was very direct about the challenges facing Amnesty International USA. The organization has gone through some hard times in recent years but it is hoped that new leadership can instill renewed vigor. Hawkins believes in AIUSA’s ability to fight for Human Rights both here in the United States and internationally, writing,

Amnesty International USA is uniquely positioned to connect discrimination against the LGBT community here in the United States to the discrimination and the LGBT community in Russia, Uganda, and Honduras experiences. We can connect police torture and illegal surveillance that occurs in the United States to similar abuses occurring in China, Egypt and elsewhere. We can connect a young woman in the U.S. fighting for reproductive freedom to women in El Salvador, Ireland and other countries who are fighting for the same rights.

I have been a proud supporter of Amnesty International for many years, and have participated in the annual Global Write-a-Thons, which take place in December, sponsored by the local Amnesty International Group 49 out of Providence, which was founded in 1976! This group has work tirelessly for the release and fair treatment of prisoners on conscience for over thirty-five years, with active members who have been there from the beginning.

In the meantime, consider spending $30 to participate in AIUSA’s Northeast Regional Conference, to be held at Boston University on November 9th.

Throughout the day you will learn about human rights violations taking place throughout the world and what we can do to stop these violations. Participants will learn new organizing skills, how to take actions and will ultimately be inspired by many of our featured speakers and workshops.

Some of this year’s focus will be on human tracking, human rights in Russia and what we can do in the lead up to the 2014 Olympics, and US Security Issues.