Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XV Number 11, November/December 2007
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, November 29, 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.
Saturday, December 15, 8 AM to 2 PM.
Letter writing marathon at Cafe Culture, 1359
N. Altadena Drive in Pasadena. 626-398-8654.
Drop by anytime!
Sunday, December 16, 6:30 PM. Rights
Readers Human Rights Book Discussion Group.
Note:
meeting is at Lucas Kamp's home, 187 S.
Catalina Ave. Unit 2 in Pasadena (626-795-
1785), not Vromans. Featured book is "From
Newbury with Love: Letters of Friendship
across the Iron Curtain", by Marina Aidova and
Anna Horsbrugh-Porter.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008, 7:30 PM. Letter
writing meeting at Caltech Athenaeum, corner of
Hill and California in Pasadena.
Sunday, January 20, 2008, 6:30 PM. Rights
Readers Human Rights Book Discussion Group
at Vromans bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd. in
Pasadena. 626-449-5320. We will discuss
"Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" by Lisa See.
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
Hi everyone,
A great party was held to say goodbye to Martha
in early October at Paula's beautiful home in east
Pasadena. Friends from All Saints Church and
Amnesty joined to toast Martha's achievements
and to wish her well in her new journey of life as
she returns to Wisconsin to assist her family. A
good time was had by all! Thanks to all who
assisted with the party.
It seems strange with Martha gone, but we will
carry on as best we can. Our muse will be in
touch with us via our blog
(http://www.rightsreaders.blogspot.com) and
email. She will help us select books for our
reading group from afar!
We each have
our area of interest in the group,
and different talents. Working together we can
make a beautiful whole. For example, Stevie is
very knowledgeable on the death penalty and
other criminal justice issues, Paula has been to
Africa many times for her public health work in
the field of HIV-AIDS, Christina is interested in
women's issues, and Joyce is our case-work
expert. She and Paula are helping us focus on our
POCs from Eritrea. Wen and Lucas have been
involved in Chinese human rights issues, including
the controversy over the Chinese float in the
upcoming Rose Parade. I hope I haven't left
anyone out!
From time to time, I hope to have the
different people in our group write pieces, submit
actions, etc. for this newsletter on their area of
interest/expertise.
What is your passion? Come join us at one of our
meetings!
Con carino,
Kathy
aigp22@caltech.edu
REPORT FROM WESTERN REGIONAL
CONFERENCE
Three members of Group 22 (Lucas, Christina and
Joyce) attended the AIUSA Western Regional
Conference in San Francisco November 9-11.
Hard-working volunteer Christina deserves
special thanks for staffing early-morning
registration and for serving as rapporteur for
Resolutions Working Party and also the Voting
Plenary.
The keynote speaker on Saturday was Naomi
Roht-Arriaza, professor of law and author of the
book "The Pinochet Effect". She spoke about the
efforts of Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu
to bring to justice the Guatemala ex-generals who
were responsible for up to 200,000 deaths during
the bitter civil conflict of 1979-1984. As he
introduced Naomi, MC Magdeleno Rose-Avila
recalled that he was in Guatemala City at the
time of the 1980 Spanish Embassy tragedy and
saw the burned bodies of the protesters,
motivating him to join AI and work for human
rights. Naomi showed a clip from the new AIUSA
film "Justice Without Borders", which covers
the
Guatemala case as well as the work of the ICC
and the recent extradition of ex-president
Fujimori to Peru. I have a copy of this 36-minute
DVD for Group 22 to show or loan.
Lucas pursued the China issues of concern to
Group 22, attending workshops on the Beijing
Olympics Campaign and the case of Shi Tao. He
also had a private meeting with members of the
AIUSA China Coordination Group to discuss
policy matters. Christina attended workshops on
providing quick answers about Amnesty to the
media and creating effective "sound bytes".
"What's a POC?" At the AIUSA Burning Issues
workshop that Christina and I attended, an
audience member commented that he was quite
upset by this question, which had come up in a
conversation at the conference. "What's a
POC?" immediately echoed several young people
at the workshop. For most of us, POC was
probably the first acronym we learned when we
went to a letter-writing or local group meeting.
Nowadays the term Prisoner of Conscience has
been replaced by the more inclusive but awfully
bland Individual at Risk. Board member Jeff
Bachman assured us that under whatever name
POCs would remain one of the National
Priorities. However, AI's operations could look
quite different in the future; for instance, student
Board member Aniket said that five years from
now he couldn't imagine himself driving 25
minutes to attend a local group meeting. O brave
new Facebook world!
The tension between tradition and innovation
that has marked AI in recent years was evident in
the Resolutions voting plenary on Sunday
morning. One resolution required that proposed
changes concerning nomination and resolution
processes be presented by the Board to the entire
membership via regional conference resolutions.
Yet the resolution process itself seemed in need of
change, as evidenced by the difficulty of getting a
voting quorum of 40 out of a total attendance of
nearly 500.
Board member Jeff was kept very
busy jumping up to answer questions about
current and proposed operation of the Board and
staff which are apparently in the throes of a
major reorganization. I felt that I should really
start paying much more attention to the Members
section on the AIUSA website in order to learn
what's going on.
The conference concluded with a speech by
Director Larry Cox. He said that Regional
Conferences held in California always seemed to
have the word "Revolution" in their titles, and
indeed many revolutionary AIUSA ideas had
originated in California.
-Joyce
RIGHTS READERS
Human Rights Book Discussion Group
Keep up with
Rights Readers at
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com
Next Rights Readers meeting:
Sunday, December 16, 6:30 PM
Lucas Kamp's home in Pasadena
(see Upcoming Events section)
"From Newbury with Love: Letters of Friendship
across the Iron Curtain"
by Marina Aidova and Anna Horsbrugh-Porter.
In 1971 a
retired English bookseller joined an
Amnesty International campaign to write letters
to children of political prisoners. He chose seven-
year-old Marina Aidova because her birthday
was one day before his, and he had always loved
Russia and its literature. His postcard was
signed, "With love from Newbury, Berks,
England." Marina, whose father was in one of the
harshest Soviet prison camps, wrote back: "I am a
first class schoolgirl. I learn ballet and study
English. And what are you?"
So began a correspondence that changed their
lives. For the next fifteen years they exchanged
letters, telegrams, magazines, and books . . . while
a profound affection grew. Marina and her
mother drew great strength from the exchange-it
was a lifeline to another, more hopeful world.
Through Harold's encouragement, Marina was
inspired to study English at university, and
eventually went on to work as an English
translator.
Published in association with Amnesty
International, the families' correspondence-along
with over thirty photos they exchanged-is
collected here, making for a moving look at the
powerful influence one family can have on
another in need, halfway around the world.
PAKISTAN URGENT ACTION
09 November 2007 UA 301/07
Fear of torture or ill treatment/illegal detention
PAKISTAN
Ayub Qureshi (m)]
Ghulum Farid Awan (m)] politicians
Hasil Bizenjo (m)]
Yusuf Mastikhan (m), trade union leader
Liaquat Ali Sahi (m)
Three politicians and a trade union leader are
among those arrested on charges of sedition and
rioting, after making speeches against the
imposition of emergency rule by General
Musharraf. The group has been remanded in
police custody in Karachi until 19 November, and
are at risk of torture or ill treatment. In the
context of the state of emergency, the charges
against the men appear to be politically
motivated in an effort to suppress their right to
freedom of expression, association and peaceful
assembly.
The detainees are Hasil Bizenjo, a Baluch
nationalist leader and former parliamentarian;
Ayub Qureshi, provincial chief of the Baluch
National Party; Yusuf Mastikhan, Vice President
of the National Workers Party and trade union
leader; and Liaquat Ali Sahi. The detainees have
been active in campaigns to assert the interests
and protect the rights of the people of
Baluchistan province. Another political activist,
Ghulum Farid Awan, is also feared to have been
arrested on charges of sedition.
The men were arrested on 6 November in Karachi,
after participating in a civil society meeting at the
Karachi Press club to protest against the
imposition of emergency rule. They were
presented before a magistrate court on 8
November and were remanded in judicial custody
until 19 November.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Acting in his capacity as army chief of staff, on 3
November General Musharraf suspended the bulk
of the Constitution, including the rights not to be
arbitrarily deprived of life and to be guaranteed a
fair trial. He assumed powers to amend the
Constitution without any parliamentary
procedure and proclaimed a Provisional
Constitutional Order (PCO). This order prohibits
any court issuing an order against the President,
Prime Minister or any person exercising powers
under their authority.
The PCO and the new oath of office for the
superior judiciary effectively rendered the
position of existing judges invalid. The majority
of the Supreme Court and Higher Court judges
declined to take the new oath, resulting in their
removal from service. Many of them are now
under house arrest. Since the imposition of
emergency, police and law enforcement agencies
have arrested thousands of lawyers, political
activists and human rights defenders. On
Monday 5 November, more than 300 lawyers
were arrested in Lahore and have been charged
under Pakistan's anti-terrorism laws. They have
since been detained in city jails across the
country. There have been mass arrests, into the
thousands, of political opponents across the
country. Independent TV and Radio news
channels have been prevented from broadcasting
within the country since Saturday. New laws
restricting freedom of print and electronic media
were issued, breach of which attracts three to four
years imprisonment and heavy fines. Two daily
newspapers have been issued with notices to
refrain from publishing materials which violate
the new press laws.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send
appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:
-- urging
the authorities to ensure that none of the
detainees are tortured or otherwise ill-treated;
-- urging
the authorities to ensure that the
detainees have access to lawyers of their own
choice;
--
expressing concern that the charges appear to
have been leveled for political reasons and aimed
to suppress their rights to freedom of expression,
association and peaceful assembly, and
accordingly, that they are prisoners of conscience
whom the authorities should release;
-- calling
on the authorities to protect and uphold
the constitutional human rights guarantees,
including safeguards on life and liberty.
APPEALS TO:
President Pervez Musharaff
Pakistan Secretariat, Islamabad, Pakistan
Fax: 011 92 51 9221422
E-mail: via website:
http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/WTPre
sidentMessage.aspx
Salutation: Dear President Musharaff
Mr. Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao
Minister for the Interior
Ministry for the Interior
Room 404, 4th Floor, Block R, Federal Secretariat
Islamabad, Pakistan
Fax: 011 92 51 9202624
E-mail: minister@interior.gov.pk
secretary@interior.gov
Salutation: Dear Minister
Mr. Zahid Hamid
Minister of Law, Justice and Human Rights
Room 305, S-Block, Pakistan Secretariat
Islamabad, Pakistan
Fax: 011 92 51 9202628
011 92 51 9201631
E-Mail: minister@molaw.gov.pk
Salutation: Dear Minister
Dr. Ishrat Ul Ebad Khan
Governor Sindh
Governor House
Karachi, Pakistan
Fax: 011 92 21 920 1218 / 1226
E-mail: governor@governorsindh.gov.pk
Salutation: Dear Governor
COPIES TO:
Ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani
Embassy of Pakistan
3517 International Ct., NW
Washington DC 20008
Fax: 1 202 686 1544
Email: info@pakistan-embassy.org
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.
Check with the AIUSA Urgent Action office if
sending appeals after 19 December 2007.
LETTER COUNT
Urgent Actions 19
Total: 19
To add your letters to the total contact
lwkamp@gmail.com
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL'S
GLOBAL WRITE-A-THON
"December 10th is International Human Rights Day.
To mark this day, join thousands of people across the
United States and all around the world as they
participate in Amnesty International's Global Write-
A-Thon - Amnesty's largest and most renowned letter
writing event."
If you won't be able to attend Group 22's letter-
writing marathon on Dec 15, you might visit
AIUSA's link to the Global Write-a-thon at
http://www.amnestyusa.org/page.do?id=1108452
and participate as an individual. You can join the
list of those who have pledged to write letters and
help AIUSA attain its goal of 70,000 letters.
Two of the 15 actions listed on the above page are
cases that Group 22 has worked on: Falun Gong
practitioner Bu Dongwei and Internet journalist
Shi Tao.
Even if you do plan to come to the Group 22
event, you might want to visit the above page in
order to check out the three inspiring video clips.
"How To Get Involved:
Everyone can participate. It's easy! Follow the 5 simple
steps below:
1.
Register for the write-a-thon as an individual or as
a group. Watch as your pledges help light up the
Amnesty candle.
2.
Spread the word! Encourage your friends and
family to get involved.
3.
Check out the write-a-thon resources online:
You'll find everything you need to participate on this
site including case sheets, sample letters, a checklist
for
how to plan an event, and promotional materials. Just
go to our Actions and Resources pages to find all you
need. For hard copies, please email us at
writeathon@aiusa.org
4.
Write and mail lots of letters on Dec. 7-10.
5.
Report back: Let us know how many letters were
sent."
Save the Date. Save A Life.
Directions to Caltech:
From the 210 exit on Lake Avenue, head south, turn left
on Del Mar
From the 110 continue on Arroyo Parkway north, turn right
on California
Street parking is generally available.
Amnesty International Group 22
The Caltech Y
Mail Code 5-62
Pasadena, CA 91125
www.its.caltech.edu/~aigp22/
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com