Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XIX Number 2, February 2011
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, February 24, 7:30 PM. Monthly
Meeting. Caltech Y is located off San Pasqual
between Hill and Holliston, south side. You will
see two curving walls forming a gate to a path--
our building is just beyond. Help us plan future
actions on Sudan, the 'War on Terror', death
penalty and more.
Tuesday March 8, 7:30 PM. Letter writing
meeting at Caltech Athenaeum, corner of Hill
and California in Pasadena. This informal
gathering is a great way for newcomers to get
acquainted with Amnesty!
Sunday, March 20, 6:30 PM. Rights Readers
Human Rights Book Discussion group. This
month we read "Stones into Schools" by Greg
Mortenson.
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
Hi everyone
Lucas Kamp and I attended the get-together of all
the AI groups in LA County, called OCLA or
"Organizing City Los Angeles" on January 29. We
saw some old members and met new ones from
college groups and YPAI (Young Professionals
Amnesty International), a new group that has
formed. It was fun and Kala, our organizer for
the Western region, kept everybody going the
whole day! Read Lucas' report in this newsletter.
There will be another meeting Saturday May 14.
Joyce Wolf, case manager for our Chinese POC,
Gao Zhisheng, has put a page for him on our
group's website where you can take action. See
her column in this newsletter for information on
how to access this!
This month for our book group we're reading Greg
Mortenson's "Stones into Schools"- the continuing
story of his quest to build schools for poor
children, especially girls, in remote regions of
Pakistan and Afghanistan. I'm proud to say that
Greg is an RN as well as a famous humanitarian
who has won many awards for his work building
schools and a mountain climber. I have included
an article on Greg from one of the "freebie"
nursing magazines I receive. I have explained the
medical terms in parentheses.
Con carino,
Kathy
RIGHTS READERS
Human Rights Book Discussion Group
Keep up with Rights Readers at
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com
Next Rights Readers meeting:
Sunday, March 20, 6:30 PM
Vroman's Bookstore
695 E. Colorado Boulevard
In Pasadena
About the Author
Greg Mortenson is the co-founder of nonprofit
Central Asia Institute www.ikat.org , founder of
Pennies For Peace www.penniesforpeace.org, co-
author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Three
Cups of Tea www.threecupsoftea.com, and author
of bestseller Stones into Schools
www.stonesintoschools.com.
In 2009, Mortenson received Pakistan's highest
civil award, Sitara-e-Pakistan ("Star of
Pakistan") for his dedicated and humanitarian
effort to promote education and literacy in rural
areas for fifteen years.
Several bi-partisan U.S. Congressional
representatives nominated Mortenson for the
Nobel Peace Prize this year. The award recipient
is chosen by a secret process and announced in
October.
Mortenson was born in Minnesota in 1957. He
grew up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro,
Tanzania (1958 to 1973). His father Dempsey,
co-founded Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center
(KCMC) www.kcmc.ac.tz a teaching hospital,
and his mother, Jerene, founded the International
School Moshi www.ismoshi.org.
He served in the U.S. Army in Germany (1977-
1979), where he received the Army
Commendation Medal, and graduated from the
University of South Dakota in 1983.
In July 1992, Mortenson's sister, Christa, died
from a massive seizure after a lifelong struggle
with epilepsy on the eve of a trip to visit
Dysersville, Iowa, where the baseball movie,
'Field of Dreams', was filmed in a cornfield.
To honor his sister's memory, in 1993, Mortenson
climbed Pakistan's K2, the world's second highest
mountain in the Karakoram Range.
While recovering from the climb in a village called
Korphe, Mortenson met a group of children sitting
in the dirt writing with sticks in the sand, and
made a promise to help them build a school.
From that rash promise, grew a remarkable
humanitarian campaign, in which Mortenson has
dedicated his life to promote education,
especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan
and Afghanistan.
As of 2011, Mortenson has established or
significantly supports 171 schools in rural and
often volatile regions of Pakistan and
Afghanistan, which provide education to over
68,000 children, including 54,000 girls, where few
education opportunities existed before.
His work has not been without difficulty. In 1996,
he survived an eight day armed kidnapping by
the Taliban in Pakistan' Northwest Frontier
Province tribal areas, escaped a 2003 firefight
with feuding Afghan warlords by hiding for eight
hours under putrid animal hides in a truck going
to a leather-tanning factory. He has overcome
fatwehs from enraged Islamic mullahs, endured
CIA investigations, and also received threats from
fellow Americans after 9/11, for helping Muslim
children with education.
Mortenson is a living hero to rural communities of
Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has gained
the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders,
government officials and tribal chiefs from his
tireless effort to champion education, especially
for girls.
He is one of few foreigners who has worked
extensively for sixteen years (over 72 months in
the field) in rural villages where few foreigners go.
TV newscaster, Tom Brokaw, calls Mortenson,
"one ordinary person, with the right combination
of character and determination, who is really
changing the world".
Congresswoman Mary Bono (Rep - Cali.) says,
"I've learned more from Greg Mortenson about the
causes of terrorism than I did during all our
briefings on Capitol Hill. He is a true hero, whose
courage, and compassion exemplify the true
ideals of the American spirit."
Here's more on Greg Mortenson, from a
nursing perspective:
NURSE STUMBLES INTO LIFE'S WORK
BUILDING SCHOOLS
By Janet Boivin, RN
Monday November 23, 2009
Greg Mortenson, registered nurse and author of
the best selling book "Three Cups of Tea," says
that after building schools for girls in Pakistan
and Afghanistan for 16 years, he is now focusing
on the training of health workers as well.
"It [healthcare] kept tugging at my heart,"
Mortenson said in an interview with Nursing
Spectrum/NurseWeek magazines after addressing
nurses at Sigma Theta Tau's 40th Biennial
Convention in Indiana on Nov. 2. "One out of
three children are dying" from lack of adequate
health care.
Sigma Theta Tau awarded Mortenson with its
Archon Award for demonstrating exceptional
leadership in promoting health and welfare
throughout the world. Mortenson was also
nominated for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize,
which President Obama was recently awarded.
Mortenson began building schools after his sister
Christa died from epilepsy in 1992 and he
attempted to climb K2 in Pakistan, one of the
world's most treacherous mountains, in her
memory. Mortenson's attempt was unsuccessful.
He became lost while descending the mountain
and stumbled into the remote village of Korphe
where he was cared for and befriended by
villagers. When he left Korphe, he promised he
would return to build a school. He did return to
Korphe, built a school, and from there went on
to construct dozens of other schools in first
Pakistan and then Afghanistan.
Mortenson, who also cofounded the Central
Asia Institute to carry out his work, said when
he first started his humanitarian efforts in
Pakistan he considered building clinics instead
of schools. But he said he wanted to build
something that would directly empower the local
Pakistanis, projects more easily done with
schools than clinics.
Mortenson recently started a maternal health
training program teaching local women about the
basics of good maternal-child health care.
Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal and
infant mortality rates in the world.
"Many women die but not from difficult
problems," he said. Often mothers die from
common complications of pregnancy such as
cephalo-pelvic disproportion (when a baby's
head or body is too large to fit through the
mother's pelvis. Editor's note MKH), placenta
previa (when the placenta is attached to the
uterine wall close to or covering the cervix. It
is a leading cause of antepartum hemorrhage.
Editor's note MKH), abruptio placentae (when
the placenta has separated from the uterine
lining in late pregnancy. Editor's note MKH),
because there are no obstetricians to perform
cesarean sections.
One maternal health worker, Aziza, who works
in the Charpusan Valley in Pakistan on the
border of Afghanistan, was able to eliminate
maternal mortality after she was educated,
Mortenson said.
The remote region of central Asia has a high
infant mortality rate from outbreaks of diseases
such as diptheria, and from malnutrition. Babies
in that part of Central Asia begin life
nutritionally disadvantaged because women
believe that colostrum (Colostrum comes out
before the mother's milk from the breasts and
contains antibodies to protect the newborn
against disease, as well as being lower in fat
and higher in protein than ordinary milk.
Editor's note MKH) is poison and do not let
their infants nurse for the first three days after
birth, Mortenson said.
Some women in Afghanistan and Pakistan are
also malnourished because their husbands do
not give them enough protein to eat and save the
meat, poultry, and eggs for themselves.
Mortenson did a study of women in Korphe and
found the average hemoglobin level was 8 or
9 (Editor's note: normal hemoglobin levels for
adult women are from 12-16 mg/dl. Blood
transfusions are usually given when the
hemoglobin is below 10 mg/dl, depending on the
physician - MKH). The women have so little
body fat they stop menstruating and are
infertile, he said.
When one villager complained to Mortenson that
his wife was infertile, Mortenson told him he
needed to fatten her up by giving her some meat
and eggs. The man was a father the next time
Mortenson saw him. The villager, he said.
thanked God for his wife's improved fertility.
In his book "Three Cups of Tea," Mortenson
mentions he is a nurse but it is not a central
theme in his narrative. But nursing, he said, "has
had a profound impact on my journey."
Mortenson was a medic in the Army, an orderly,
and then an ED nurse, often working to earn
money to support his early humanitarian efforts
in Pakistan. Nursing taught him to listen to
people and to ask questions, he said.
In Pakistan and then Afghanistan Mortenson,
asked people: "I want to help you. What do you
want?" They answered, 'We want our babies to
stop dying and we want our children to go to
school."
Working the night shift gave Mortenson the
stamina he needed to go without sleep.
Consumed by the important work he is doing,
Mortenson usually sleeps only four or five hours
a day. He lives in Montana with his wife Tara
Bishop, a clinical psychologist, and two young
children but spends several months of the year
in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Although Mortenson is beginning healthcare
training programs, his school building efforts are
not diminishing. "Education for girls has to be
our top priority," he said. "Unless they are
empowered, nothing will change in the world."
Mortenson said he also plans to send health
workers to his schools to teach the teachers how
to do rudimentary health screenings for children.
The education of girls in developing countries,
such as Bangladesh, has proven to lower
maternal and infant mortality, reduce
population growth, and improve the basic
quality of health, Mortenson said.
Mortenson's book and his philosophy of
listening to, respecting, and empowering
indigenous populations, is also influencing
military and political thinking regarding the U.S.
role in Afghanistan. "Three Cups of Tea" is
mandatory reading at the Pentagon and for
commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq,
Mortenson said. Army generals have also visited
his schools.
Mortenson said that while Taliban militants are
blowing up hundreds of girls schools in Pakistan
and Afghanistan, his schools have never been
destroyed because they are run by the local
villagers and not by governments or outside
nongovernmental organizations.
Mortenson has gone into five new areas in
Afghanistan to build schools, including the home
of one the Taliban's top leader, Mullah
Muhammed Omar.
To learn more about Mortenson and his work in
Afghanistan and Pakistan go to his Web site:
www.gregmortenson.com
Janet Boivin, RN is a senior staff writer for Nursing
Spectrum and NurseWeek magazines.
PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE
GAO ZHISHENG
By Joyce Wolf
I've been reading A China More Just, the book by
missing human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, Group
22's adopted prisoner of conscience. Somehow he
managed to survive the extreme poverty, cold,
and hunger of his early life in an isolated
mountain village and find the inspiration to
educate himself in law. At the age of 31 he
passed his bar exam and embarked on a brilliant
career defending victims of human rights
violations.
Gao describes the harassment of himself and his
family by plain-clothes police that began in
October 2005. On one occasion when Gao turned
his video camera on the two dozen police
following him in a neighborhood market, they
attempted to hide their faces with women's
shawls, leaving only slits for their eyes to peer
out. The crowds of about 200 onlookers "were in
stitches, laughing, whistling, cheering and jeering.
This was the first time in nearly three months that
the plainclothes police had brought residents
something positive - laughter. "
Gao completed his book in early 2006 before his
ordeals of imprisonment and torture and enforced
disappearances. He was taken off to detention in
August 2006, and there was no humor to be
found in the invasion of privacy that his family
was forced to endure in the following months. His
wife, Geng He, describes the events of that time in
a BBC interview of January 28, 2011.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-
pacific-12308620) "Every single move that you
make will be watched," the police told her on the
day of Gao's arrest. Three shifts of police literally
lived in the family's home 24 hours a day, not
even permitting them to lock their bathroom door.
Geng He has been living in the U.S. since she and
the children fled China in 2009. She has been
doing everything she can to publicize her husband
Gao's torture and disappearance. Please help by
expressing your concern to the authorities in
China. You can find more information about Gao
Zhisheng and about writing to authorities in
China, including a sample letter, on Group 22's
new web page at
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~aigp22/GaoPOC/
GaoZhisheng.html.
REPORT ON THE ORGANIZING CITY: LOS
ANGELES (OCLA) MEETING ON 1/29.
By Lucas Kamp
Kathy Hansen-Adams and I went to this meeting,
which was from 10 am to 3 pm, organized by the
AI Western Regional Office, with a goal to get all
the AI groups in the LA area to meet each other.
There were about 25 people there, with a large
(about 7) contingent from UCLA and also a
group from YPAI: Young Professionals for AI -- a
group of recent college graduates who want to
continue being active in AI but didn't have any
Local Group to join, either because there's none
near them or such groups are all old fogeys
(something we've seen before:); otherwise the
usual groups: Burbank, South Bay, Irvine,
Redondo Beach -- the latter represented by Tony
Gabriele and Ann Lau, whom we included in our
group in the "LA Snapshot" section, because there
were only two of us from Group 22 and each
group was supposed to describe highlights of
what we'd done the past year. Kathy and I had
some problems coming up with major highlights,
but we ended up by cheating and talking about
the Doo Dah (even though we didn't do it last
year) and several China events with Ann Lau.
There was a lot of interest in the Doo Dah, it
looks like we will be doing that again this year.
Doo Dah is 30 April this year, still in East Pas, as
far as I know. We may not have to be the main
organizers, Ann Lau is interested in doing
something on China, which we might join.
Kathy and I also mentioned the book group in our
"year's highlights" report; we listed 3 books,
including "Don't Sleep There Are Snakes" and that
evoked some interest from a few people with
linguistic inclinations.
The meeting was well structured, with lots of
sessions where we broke up into smaller groups
which discussed a topic and then presented our
results to the whole group. The main theme was
plans for the coming 6 months, with a detailed
calendar of events, the first of which is the Death
Penalty Action Weeks: 21 Feb - 6 Mar. We'll be
talking more about these things at our upcoming
meetings.
There are pictures of this event on Facebook on
the Amnesty West page.
VIOLATIONS AGAINST WOMEN
By Cheri Dellelo
Bill Passed to Remove Planned Parenthood Funding
This week, Indiana Republican Mike Pence
presented to the House a proposal to ban all
federal funding for Planned Parenthood (federal
funding currently represents 1/3 PP's budget)
and to eliminate a program known as Title X,
which provides aid for family planning and
reproductive health. The House voted in favor of
the bill, so now the amendment will proceed to
the Senate for a vote.
This move is an attempt to prevent Planned
Parenthood from spending federal money on
abortion services. By law, Planned Parenthood
already cannot allocate any federal funding for
abortions. However, abortion opponents argue
that allocating money to Planned Parenthood for
the provision of other medical services "frees up"
funds for abortion. What it will really do is
significantly hamper Planned Parenthood ability
to provide a wide range of safe, reliable health
careŅand more than 90 percent is preventive,
primary care, which helps prevent unintended
pregnancies through contraception and education,
reduce the spread of sexually transmitted
diseases through testing and treatment, and
screen for cervical and other cancers.
Here is AI's stance on reproductive rights:
"Human rights defenders working on sexual and
reproductive rights issues at the domestic level
have often faced fierce resistance, not only from
officialdom, but from powerful political or
religious institutions, the media or even from other
sectors of the human rights movement.
"As well as seeking to end police brutality,
gender-based violence and other abuses, sexual
and reproductive rights defenders are also
affirming an emancipatory vision of human rights,
one which sees bodily and sexual integrity as
integral to human flourishing, well-being and
dignity as freedom of conscience or belief. Indeed,
autonomy in one's intimate, affective and family
life is itself an issue of conscience.
"Amnesty International supports women in
claiming their rights."
If you are interested in taking action, you can
send a letter to your senator through Planned
Parenthood's website:
http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org.
CBS Reporter Raped in Egypt
On February 15, 2011, CBS News released a
statement revealing that four days earlier, U.S.
reporter Lara Logan had been beaten and
sexually assaulted while covering the celebrations
in Tahrir Square in Egypt following the resignation
of then President Hosni Mubarak. They indicated
that she was overwhelmed along with her camera
crew and security staff: "It was a mob of more
than 200 people whipped into frenzy. In the crush
of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She
was surrounded and suffered a brutal and
sustained sexual assault and beating before being
saved by a group of women and an estimated 20
Egyptian soldiers." Logan returned to her hotel
after the assault and was flown out of the
country within hours on a chartered network jet.
She is now recovering in the U.S. and is not yet
granting interviews.
In the aftermath of Logan's attack, some ignorant
commentators have engaged in the all-too-
common practice of 'blaming the victim,'
questioning Logan's decision to put herself in
harm's way and questioning CBS News' decision
to send 'such an attractive woman' to cover this
event. Author and journalist Nir Rosen posted
derogatory comments on Twitter about Logan's
attack: "Jesus Christ, at a moment when she is
going to become a martyr and glorified, we should
at least remember her role as a major war
monger," he tweeted. He later added: "Look, she
was probably groped like thousands of other
women." As a result, he was forced to resign from
his New York University fellowship at the
institution's Centre on Law and Security.
If anything, what this incident has done is shine a
spotlight on violence against women. In a swath
of the globe notorious for mistreating women,
Egypt is particularly infamous. According to a
survey conducted in 2008 by the Egyptian Center
for Women's Rights, 83 percent of native
Egyptian women and 98 percent of women
visiting from abroad have experienced some form
of public sexual harassment. More than half the
Egyptian women reported being molested every
day. And contrary to popular belief, most of the
victims were wearing modest Islamic dress. As
Egypt's citizens begin the process of considering
its liberation, they will do well to remember there
is no liberation if it does not include the liberation
of women.
An Interview with Madeleine Albright
In the following short video, former U.S. Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright talks bluntly about
politics and diplomacy, making the case that
women's issues deserve a place at the center of
foreign policy. Far from being a "soft" issue, she
says, women's issues are often the very hardest
ones, dealing directly with life and death. In the
interview, she talks about her role in getting rape
officially declared a weapon of war.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/madeleine
_albright_on_being_a_woman_and_a_diplomat.h
tml
DEATH PENALTY NEWS
By Stevi Carroll
Death Penalty Action Weeks
Well, first of all, February 21 to March 6, 2011, is
Amnesty's Death Penalty Action Weeks.
Currently, we have not decided what we will do
to bring attention to this issue. I do have four
petitions that I will bring both to our book group
on Sunday, February 20 and to our monthly
meeting on Thursday, February 24. I found the
cases of Scott Panetti, Texas, and Romell Broom,
Ohio, particularly riveting. Go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-
penalty/participate-in-death-penalty-action-
weeks/page.do?id=1641094 to see more
information online.
California's new Death Chamber
Here in California, Judge Jeremy Fogel of the
Federal District Court in northern California
toured the new $900,000.00 death chamber at
San Quentin on February 8, 2011. He has not
made his decision whether California will
commence executions. Julie Smalls from KPCC
accompanied Judge Fogel. To hear her report, go
to
http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/02/08/feder
al-judge-who-halted-california-executions-tou/
Los Angeles County Coalition for Death
Penalty Alternatives
The Los Angeles County Coalition for Death
Penalty Alternatives, of which Group 22 is a
member, is hosting a free activist training at
Claremont McKenna College on Saturday,
February 26, 2011, from 10 AM to 3 PM. For
more information, see the flyer at
http://www.enddeathpenaltyla.org/activist%20
training%20flyer.pdf.
The Coalition has also divided into working
groups. The lobbying group had its first
conference call February 16. The lobbying
approach is to meet with county supervisors and
city council members to discuss, among other
items, how our money can be used better than on
the death penalty. On March 3 at 10 AM, a
group of us is meeting with Pasadena city
councilmember Chris Holden. I'll have more
information on the location as the date nears. Join
us if you can.
The LA Times recently had an editorial discussing
the shortage of one of the execution drugs. The
editorial begins, "In response to violations of
international human rights norms, Western
governments are slapping sanctions on a rogue
regime by halting exports of a deadly substance.
That's nothing new; what is new is that the rogue
nation is the United States." It goes on to talk
about the use of the drugs and the imperfection of
the death penalty as a solution to crime.
The editorial ends with a challenge: "Add to this
the expense of the never-ending appeals process
and the serious questions about execution
methodology raised by the sodium thiopental
fracas, and we have to ask: Is the visceral
satisfaction Americans derive from killing
convicted killers really worth its cost?" Just a
little something to think about.
The Case of Linda Carty
A couple of weeks ago, I was at All Saints Church
for an unrelated talk and I saw Gloria Goodwin-
Killian, a former death-row inmate and now anti-
death-penalty activist. She alerted me to the case
of Linda Carty, an inmate on Texas's death row.
After checking a Texas execution schedule, I saw
that Ms Carty's execution is not imminent. The
case is really interesting in that Ms Carty is a
British citizen and may be innocent. Check out
the story at
Death Row Briton Linda Carty talks about her
controversial conviction and how she is paying
for someone else's crime
By David Rose
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-
1263311/Death-Row-Briton-Linda-Carty-talks-
controversial-conviction-paying-elses-
crime.html#ixzz1EWl1554U
Jordan Brown, 13, on Trial for Murder in Adult
Court
The state of Pennsylvania wants to try an 13-
year-old boy, Jordan Brown, as an adult for the
murder of his father's fiancee and her eight-month
fetus. Jordan was nine when he committed this
crime. If he is convicted, he could be sentenced to
life without possibility of parole. The Amnesty
article about this case says, "The USA and
Somalia are the only countries in the world that
have not ratified the UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, which prohibits life
imprisonment without the possibility of release
for crimes committed before the age of 18." To
read more on this case, go to
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-
updates/13-year-old-us-boys-murder-trial-could-
violate-international-law-2011-01-24
Online action:
Stop resumption of executions in Trinidad and
Tobago
http://action.amnesty.org.uk/ea-
campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=1194
&ea.campaign.id=9544
Stays of Execution
February
9 Roy Blankenship Georgia
15 Edward Harbison Tennessee
Executions
January
25 Emmanuel Hammond
Georgia Lethal Injection
February
9 Martin Link
Missouri Lethal Injection
15 Michael Hall
Texas Lethal Injection
17 Frank Spisak
Ohio Lethal Injection
MONTHLY LETTER COUNT
DP 3
UA's 23
Wen's friends 6
POC 1
Total 33
To add your letters to the total contact
lwkamp@gmail.com.
Amnesty International Group 22
The Caltech Y
Mail Code 5-62
Pasadena, CA 91125
www.its.caltech.edu/~aigp22/
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com