Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XV Number 5, May 2008
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, May 22, 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, June 10, 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, June 15, 6:30 PM. Rights Readers
Human Rights Book Discussion Group. Vroman's
Book Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd.,
Pasadena. This month we read "Lost City
Radio" by Daniel Alarcon.
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
Hi everyone,
It seems like the world is coming to an end, what
with the double catastrophes in Burma with the
cyclone and the earthquake in China. Human
suffering on a massive scale, almost impossible
to comprehend. At least China is trying to help
its people, whereas Myanmar (AKA Burma) has
refused outside aid. We sent a check to a relief
organization, but the supplies are sitting in
planes waiting for permission to enter. There is
an action regarding Myanmar in this newsletter.
The LA Times has recommendations regarding
which relief organizations are reputable. See
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-
give9-2008may09,0,6862832.story.
Group 22 members Stevi, Paula, Joyce, Robert
and Kathy staffed our table in April at the
Pasadena City Earth Day event. Thanks to
Veronica for supplying the great sea creature and
fish stamps, pens and markers that the kids used
to make stickers. Many people signed our
petition to Chevron regarding oil cleanup in
Ecuador and took our literature.
Representative Adam Schiff spoke before
Congress in recognition of World Press Freedom
Day May 8, 2008. He mostly spoke regarding
the situation in China but he did mention Eritrea
briefly. See the Eritrea section in this newsletter
for more information.
A few weeks ago Stevi wrote a letter regarding
the death penalty that was published in the
Pasadena Star News. You can read it yourself
at:
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/letters/ci_
9162929 (scroll down to the last of the letters). It
was also published in the San Gabriel Valley
Tribune and the Sacramento Bee, so Stevi should
be congratulated not just once but three times!
Con cari–o,
Kathy aigp22@caltech.edu
MYANMAR CYCLONE ACTION
Embassy of the Union of Myanmar,
Washington, D.C.
2300 S Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008
Dear Ambassador Linn Myaing,
I stand in solidarity with the victims and the
Union of Myanmar in the aftermath of Cyclone
Nargis. I am relieved to see that the international
community has effectively responded through
their willingness to assist the victims by
providing the most essential life-saving supplies.
However, I am growing concerned that not all of
this aid will be able to be delivered, due to
government-restricted access and aid being
distributed through discrimination, and not need.
The relief, aid, rehabilitation, and subsequent
development of the Union of Myanmar will
depend heavily on how it responds to the needs
of its citizens in all parts of the country.
Ensuring access to all impacted regions of the
country will help ensure that aid is adequately
delivered. I hope that you will ease visa
restrictions and customs procedures that have
already hampered access by international relief
workers over the course of the past few days,
and has slowed the delivery of desperately
needed aid, especially to the hardest hit areas,
and to the over one million people that have been
displaced.
I am also concerned that international relief
funds might be misused to forcibly relocate
populations. Any relocation of internally
displaced persons from camps or disaster areas
must be voluntary, unless the safety and health
of those affected requires evacuation. They
should not be coerced in any way, including
through the suspension of assistance to those
persons. The right of internally displaced persons
to return voluntarily to their former homes or
lands in safety and with dignity should be
respected and the authorities should assist them
in either returning or resettling in another part of
the country.
I ask that you fully cooperate with the
international relief and rehabilitation efforts
underway, and that there be transparent
mechanisms for the delivery of international aid.
Human rights violations in disaster settings
greatly impair the effectiveness of humanitarian
workers and add unnecessary complexity to the
reconstruction of the country. I hope that as a
sovereign power, you will exercise your most
fundamental duty Ð the responsibility to protect
your population. My thoughts will continue to be
with the victims during this difficult time.
Sincerely,
(Your name and address)
Tel. nos: (202) 332-9044, 332-9049, 332-9045
Facs’mile no. : (202) 332-9046
ERITREA POC
This month we have quite a bit to report
concerning our Eritrea casework. (Group 22
works on behalf of our adopted Prisoner of
Conscience, former Eritrea government official
Estifanos Seyoum, who has been held
incommunicado since he was arrested in 2001 for
peacefully expressing his political opinions.) Rep.
Adam Schiff responded to a Group 22
suggestion and mentioned an imprisoned Eritrea
journalist in his House speech. At AIUSA's
Annual General Meeting, the status of the Eritrea
individual case files under the new AI strategic
plan was revealed amid great concern. Last but
not least, Group 22 plans to cooperate with other
AI local groups in a joint action connected with
Eritrea Independence Day on May 24. Read on!
Rep. Schiff's House floor speech.
On the evening of May 8, Rep. Adam Schiff
delivered a speech in the House of
Representatives in observance of World Press
Freedom Day. His main focus was China, but in
response to urging from Group 22, he mentioned
imprisoned Eritrea journalist Seyoum Tsehaye.
Just like our adopted POC, Seyoum was arrested
in the 2001 crackdown and was designated an AI
Prisoner of Conscience. Here is a quote from
Schiff's speech:
"É I would like to take a brief moment to
discuss one particular case in Eritrea that was
brought to my attention by a constituent of
mine who works with Amnesty International
Group 22 in Pasadena.
Eritrea is a country of only 4.6 million people;
yet it imprisons the third-most journalists of any
country: 14. What's worse, the Government of
Eritrea will not even confirm whether the
journalists in its custody are alive or dead, and
it also holds the most journalists in secret
locations.
One such journalist being held in a secret
location in Eritrea is Seyoum Tsehaye, a
freelance reporter. His arrest and jailing was
believed to be part of the government's
crackdown to eliminate political dissent ahead
of elections scheduled for December of 2001,
which were later cancelled. He was arrested on
the street in September of that year, the first
day of a major round-up and imprisonment of
reformers in Eritrea. There are concerns about
his health, but the government has refused to
provide details about his well-being. He has
never been allowed a family visit or a lawyer.
He has never been charged or appeared before
any court. Last year Reporters Without Borders
honored him as their 2007 Journalist of the
Year. And tonight we take a moment to think
about Seyoum Tsehaye, freelance reporter in
Eritrea, held in custody in a secret location since
September of 2001."
Rep. Schiff spoke for an hour, going into detail
about the cases of Chinese journalists Shi Tao
and Hu Jia, who have been the subjects of recent
AI Urgent Actions. We couldn't be more pleased!
The full text of his speech is now in the
Congressional Record, pages H3331-H3337
(www.gpoaccess.gov/crecord/retrieve.html),
and will probably soon appear on his website.
Many Group 22 members signed a thank-you
note to Schiff at our May letter-writing (thanks
for doing this, Paula!). Go to schiff.house.gov for
contact info if you want to express your own
appreciation to Rep. Schiff.
Eritrea individual case files.
Eritrea country specialist Trish Hepner reported
on the recent AIUSA Annual General Meeting in
Washington DC. She said that the AI
International Secretariat (IS) did indeed decide to
close nearly all the individual Eritrea action files.
This includes the G-15 cases and the journalists
arrested in 2001. Aster Fessehatzion was the only
Eritrea POC who was added to the new database
of Individuals at Risk. The decision to close the
files provoked strong disagreement and
passionate responses about the necessity of
keeping the files open. Trish and others are trying
to clarify whether it's possible to appeal the
decision and whether local groups could continue
to work on their cases even if the files are
officially closed.
Many Eritrea POC action file coordinators sent
responses declaring that their groups had no
intention of abandoning their prisoners and
would continue to work on their cases unless
expressly forbidden from doing so. One stated
that he understood the reasons for the decision
but that he certainly didn't like it, and that
Amnesty itself may be forgetting its long
dedication to the "forgotten prisoner". This is an
issue for Group 22 discussion Ð does that candle
still mean something?
Cooperative action by AI local groups.
Samson Tu of Group 19 proposed the following
cooperative action by AI local groups with
Eritrea POCs. Let's do it!
In Samson's excellent writing guide and sample
letter I've taken the liberty of substituting Group
22's POC for that of Group 19.
May 24 is Eritrea's Independence Day. On this
occasion, let's send letters and faxes to
Ambassador Ghirmai Ghebremariam,
congratulating Eritrean people and asking the
Afewerki government to respect human rights
and release all political prisoners. To make our
point emphatically, please fax your letter on
Friday May 23. A number of AI groups working
on behalf of Eritrean POCs have agreed to make
this a day of joint actions.
In your letter, make some of the following points:
- Congratulate the people of Eritrea on the
achievement of independence in 1991 after 30
years of liberation struggle
- Recognize that Eritrea has experienced many
difficulties and hardships in the post-
independence years
- Remind Eritrean government of Eritrea's
accession to the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR) and other
international human rights treaties
- Remind Eritrean government that its
Constitution guarantees "no person shall be
deprived of liberty without due process of law"
(Article 15-2) and that "no person may be
arrested or detained save pursuant to due process
of law" (Article 17-1)
- Call for release men and women who are
prisoners of conscience detained without charge,
trial or any legal status, because of their political
opinions or religious beliefs, or because they or
their children have evaded military service
- Mention Estifanos Seyoum, a former brigadier
general and senior government official who has
been imprisoned without charge or trial at a
secret location since 2001. Ask that the
whereabouts of the prisoners be made known
immediately.
- Ask Eritrea's President Issayas Afewerki to
make the coming 18th year of Eritrea's formal
independence a year for the implementation of
the human rights improvements urgently
awaited by the international community, as well
as many Eritreans in the country and abroad
Sample letter:
Ambassador Ghirmai Ghebremariam
Embassy of the State of Eritrea
1708 New Hampshire Ave NW
Washington DC 20009
Fax: 1 202 319 1304
Dear Ambassador Ghebremariam,
On the occasion of Eritrea's Independence Day, I
wish to congratulate the Eritrean people on the
achievement of independence after 30 years of
liberation struggle. Over the years, the Eritrean
people has experienced and overcome many
hardships and difficulties. However, the dream of
freedom and justice for all has yet to be realized.
Eritrea is a party to international treaties and
covenants, such as the African Charter on Human
and Peoples' Rights (The African Charter) and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), that guarantee freedoms of speech,
political assembly, and fair and speedy trials.
Eritrea's own constitution guarantees "no person
shall be deprived of liberty without due process of
law" (Article 15-2) and that "no person may be
arrested or detained save pursuant to due process
of law" (Article 17-1). I respectfully call your
government to release men and women who are
prisoners of conscience detained without charge,
trial or any legal status, because of their political
opinions or religious beliefs, or because they or
their children have evaded military service.
As an example of a prisoner of conscience in
Eritrea, I would like to bring your attention to the
case of Estifanos Seyoum, who has been
imprisoned without charge or trial at a secret
location since 2001. His whereabouts should be
made public immediately.
President Issayas Afewerki should make the
coming 18th year of Eritrea's formal independence
a year for the implementation of the human rights
improvements urgently awaited by the
international community, as well as many
Eritreans in the country and abroad.
Yours sincerely,
(your name and address)
RIGHTS READERS
Human Rights Book Discussion Group
Keep up with Rights Readers at
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com
Next Rights Readers meeting:
Sunday, June 15, 6:30 PM
Vroman's Bookstore
695 E. Colorado Boulevard
in Pasadena
"Lost City Radio"
By Daniel Alarc—n
Publisher Comments:
A powerful and searing novel of three lives
fractured by a civil war.
For ten years, Norma has been the voice of
consolation for a people broken by violence. She
hosts Lost City Radio, the most popular
program in their nameless South American
country, gripped in the aftermath of war. Every
week, the Indians in the mountains and the poor
from the barrios listen as she reads the names of
those who have gone missing, those whom the
furiously expanding city has swallowed. Loved
ones are reunited and the lost are found. Each
week, she returns to the airwaves while hiding her
own personal loss: her husband disappeared at
the end of the war.
But the life she has become accustomed to is
forever changed when a young boy arrives from
the jungle and provides a clue to the fate of her
long-missing husband.
Stunning, timely, and absolutely mesmerizing,
Lost City Radio probes the deepest questions of
war and its meaning: from its devastating
impact on a society transformed by violence to
the emotional scarring each participant, observer,
and survivor carries for years after. This tender
debut marks Alarc—n's emergence as a major new
voice in American fiction.
About the Author:
Daniel Alarc—n was born in Peru, but raised in
Birmingham, Alabama
He is Associate Editor of Etiqueta Negra, an
award-winning monthly magazine based in his
native Lima, Peru.
His fiction and nonfiction have been published in
The New Yorker, Harper's, Virginia Quarterly
Review, Salon, Eyeshot and elsewhere, and
anthologized in Best American Non-Required
Reading 2004 and 2005.
His story collection, War by Candlelight, was a
finalist for the 2006 PEN/Hemingway
Foundation Award. He returned to Peru on a
Fulbright Scholar to Peru prior to publishing War
by Candlelight. He is also the recipient of a
Whiting Award for 2004.
He lives in Oakland, California, where he is the
Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College.
DEATH PENALTY ACTION
09 May 2008
UA 123 /08 - Death penalty / Legal concern
USA (Virginia)
Percy Levar Walton (m), black, aged 29
Levar Walton, who suffers from serious mental
illness, is scheduled to be executed in Virginia on
10 June. He was sentenced to death in 1997 for
the murders of an elderly white couple, Elizabeth
and Jesse Hendrick, aged 81 and 80, and a 33-
year-old black man, Archie Moore, in the town of
Danville in November 1996.
In 1999, three mental health experts concluded
that Levar Walton suffers from severe
schizophrenia and was probably suffering from
this mental illness at the time of the crime.
Walton, who was 18 years and one month old at
the time of the murders, had displayed signs of
emerging mental illness since the age of 16. He
manifested bizarre beliefs and inappropriate
behavior after his arrest, in pre-trial custody, and
during the trial. In telephone calls from the jail to
his family, he insisted that his mother was his
sister, and referred to his father as his brother, his
grandfather as his father and his grandmother as
his mother. He said that he had discovered that
he had two brothers, when he had none. He told
his mother that he was the Queen Bee, and his
grandmother that he was Superman. He told
relatives that he was Jesus Christ, and that he
was a millionaire. He insisted that he would
come back to life as soon as he was executed,
and that he would retrieve and bring back alive
his grandfather who had recently died. In a 1999
affidavit, his lawyer recalled how Levar Walton
"did not meaningfully assist us in preparing a
defenseÉ Often times it was extremely difficult
to communicate with Mr Walton, and there were
occasions where we could not tell whether he
understood what we were saying to him. Other
times it was clear from Mr Walton's questions
and responses to my questions that Mr Walton
understood little of what I was telling him". The
lawyer recalled that "we were unable to convince
Mr Walton that he would not come back to life"
if he was executed.
The defense asked for a mental health expert,
and the trial judge appointed a psychologist.
After a series of meetings with Levar Walton, the
psychologist developed serious doubts about his
competence to stand trial, finding that Walton's
articulation of his thoughts was
incomprehensible. He was particularly troubled
by Levar Walton's notion that execution did not
result in permanent death. The psychologist
recommended that Walton be placed in a secure
psychiatric hospital. This was rejected by the trial
judge.
At first Levar Walton said that he wanted to
plead guilty. Then in September 1997 he told his
lawyer that he wanted to plead not guilty and
have a jury trial because he was innocent. Days
later, he reverted to admitting guilt. At end of
that month, asked whether he would plead guilty
or not guilty, he refused to speak, but responded
by writing the word "chair" on a piece of paper.
He told his lawyer that he wanted to be executed
in order "to come back to life so he could be with
his honeys". In court in October 1997, he pleaded
guilty to the murders, the judge accepted the
plea and, after a sentencing phase at which no
mental health evidence was presented, sentenced
him to death. At the sentencing trial, Walton's
conduct was extremely prejudicial. He
repeatedly burst out laughing and smiled
inappropriately. The prosecutor argued that
Walton's outbursts indicated a "sadistic,
ruthless, cold-blooded murderer who has no
conscience, no remorse and no right to live in a
civilized society".
Levar Walton's mental illness has worsened on
death row Ðprison records have described an
inmate who is "floridly psychotic". In a March
2006 ruling on his case, six judges on the US
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit noted the
"substantial evidence that Percy Levar Walton
does not understand that his execution will mean
his death, defined as the end of his physical life".
They further noted that "there is no dispute that
since his sentencing, Walton has fallen deeper
and deeper into mental illness". According to
Levar Walton's current lawyer, who has visited
him regularly, Walton is unable to care for
himself, such as in matters of basic personal
hygiene. She has no doubt that he is severely
mentally impaired.
There is evidence that in addition to his mental
illness, Levar Walton functions, at best, at
borderline mental retardation level and has the
mental age of a young child. If the crimes for
which he was sentenced to death had been
committed five weeks earlier, Levar Walton
would have been 17 years old and his execution
would be illegal under US and international law.
By all accounts, Levar Walton is less developed
intellectually than most 18-year-olds.
In 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court
prohibited the death penalty for people with
mental retardation, finding that "standards of
decency" had evolved in the USA to the extent
that such use of the death penalty now violated
the Constitution. The Court further reasoned that
the impairments of defendants with mental
retardation diminish their personal culpability
and their ability to understand consequences,
rendering the death penalty unjustifiable on
grounds of retribution or deterrence. Amnesty
International believes that there is a profound
inconsistency in exempting people with mental
retardation from the death penalty while those
with serious mental illness remain exposed to it.
The same rationale of diminished culpability,
greater vulnerability and limited capacity applies
to defendants afflicted with severe mental illness.
For further information, see USA: The execution
of mentally ill offenders, January 2006,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AM
R51/003/2006/en (including information on
Levar Walton's case).
Virginia accounts for 98 of the 1,100 executions
in the USA since judicial killing resumed in 1977.
In 1999, Virginia's then Governor, James Gilmore,
commuted the death sentence of Calvin Swann
on grounds of his schizophrenia from which he
had suffered since his late teens. Swann was tried
in front of the same judge, by the same
prosecutor, and with the same defense lawyer, as
Percy Levar Walton.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty
in all cases, unconditionally. There is no such
thing as a humane, fair, reliable or useful death
penalty system (see 'The pointless and needless
extinction of life': USA should now look beyond
lethal injection issue to wider death penalty
questions,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AM
R51/031/2008/en)
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send
appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:
- expressing sympathy for the relatives of
Elizabeth and Jesse Hendrick and of Archie
Moore, and explaining that you are not seeking to
minimize the suffering their deaths will have
caused;
- opposing the execution of Percy Levar Walton,
noting compelling evidence that he had begun
suffering from serious mental illness more than a
year before the crime, that his illness has
deepened on death row, and also that he
functions, at best, at the level of borderline
mental
retardation and has the mental age of a child;
- noting that six judges on the Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals said in 2006 that ''there is no
dispute that since his sentencing, Walton has
fallen deeper and deeper into mental illness'', and
that this deterioration has reportedly
continued;
- recalling Governor James Gilmore's 1999
decision to commute the death sentence of Calvin
Swann because of the prisoner's schizophrenia,
and calling for clemency for Percy Levar Walton.
APPEALS TO:
Governor Tim Kaine
Office of the Governor
Patrick Henry Building, 3rd Floor
1111 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23219
Fax: 1 804 371 6351
Email via website:
http://www.governor.virginia.gov/AboutTheGo
vernor/contactGovernor.cfm
Salutation: Dear Governor
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.
Check with the AIUSA Urgent Action office if
sending appeals after 10 June 2008.
MONTHLY LETTER COUNT
Death Penalty 10
Other UAs 15
Rep. Schiff 1
Shi Tao 18
Total: 44
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