Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XV Number 11, November/December 2008
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, December 4, 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 13, 8 AM to 2 PM. Letter
writing marathon at Cafe' Culture, 1359 N.
Altadena Dr., Pasadena, 91107, 626-398-8654.
Note: this meeting replaces our usual letter
writing meeting on Dec. 9th.
Sunday, December 21, 6:30 PM. Rights
Readers Human Rights Book Discussion Group.
Note: this month's meeting will be held at a
member's residence, 187 S. Catalina, Unit 2.
Call 626-795-1785 or email lwkamp@gmail.com
for directions. Bring your favorite holiday treat.
We are reading "The Successor: A Novel" by
Ismail Kadare.
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
Hi everyone,
Hope you all are having a restful holiday
weekend and didn't eat too much turkey and pie
yesterday!
The Amnesty International Western Regional
Conference was held at the Pasadena Hilton Nov
7-9. Group 22 members Joyce, Christina, Marie-
Helene, Lucas, Robert, Stevi, and Laura and her
husband attended. See Laura's report later in this
newsletter. It sounds like it was really great!
Unfortunately, yours truly was at home Friday
and Saturday (I did manage to rouse myself to
drop by briefly Sunday am) in bed with viral
gastroenteritis (the "stomach flu"). But I was
cheered to hear that several of our fund raising
items had sold, including one of the denim
grocery bags I had made as well as several of the
necklaces made by the group!
CSUN student Esha Momeni, an Iranian-
American, was imprisoned in Iran in October
2008 and has been recently released but is still in
Iran. Thanks to Azadeh for alerting us to this
situation. A rally was held on her behalf at CSUN,
and Amnesty and other human rights groups
wrote letters. There is an update in this newsletter
on the case. See for-esha.blogspot.com for latest
updates.
Please note time and date changes of our monthly
meetings. (See upcoming event section) due to
holiday schedules.
Hope to see you at one of our meetings soon!
Con carino,
Kathy
REPORT FROM WESTERN
REGIONAL CONFERENCE
"Torture, Terror, and the American Way":
Workshop at Amnesty International's 2008
Western Regional Conference, Nov. 8, 2008
By Laura G. Brown
It certainly was grand to hear President-elect
Obama say on 60 Minutes: "We don't torture,"
and to add that he wants to close Guantanamo.
"Yay!" I cheered, watching the Nov. 16 Steve
Kroft interview. "Alright!" added my husband
and daughter (she started an AI chapter at her
high school, with Group 22's help.)
Is a new era for human rights in the making?
These are two of Amnesty International's top
priorities for the new U.S. president, as
delineated in its "First 100 Days" petition - a
checklist of actions AI is asking Mr. Obama to
take during his first 100 days in office. If you
haven't signed it yet, download the postcard at:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/132/2008/en
Panelist Michael Heflin focused on the letter
during the "Torture, Terror, and the American
Way" workshop at the Pasadena Hilton this
month. Other presenters included Banafsheh
Akhlaghi, Western Regional Director, and Dalia
Hashad, Director, USA Domestic Human Rights
Program. Stevi, Marie-Helene, Joyce, Robert,
Christina, and Ted Brown were also at the conference
representing Group 22. (Coordinators Kathy and
Lucas were able to attend only the Sunday
morning session.)
Ms. Hashad opened the workshop passionately
and personally, relating how she represented
people from "suspect" groups during government
questioning after 9-11. She told about an 18-year-
old boy being questioned by the FBI, and being
asked: "Do you know Osama bin Laden?" She
described a cold afternoon in New York, standing
with the youth outside the FBI building after the
interrogation. The youth confided in her that,
since 9-11, he'd felt self-conscious on the subway
because of his foreign face and long beard. He
didn't want to make people frightened or
uncomfortable, "so I pretend to be asleep," he
told his counsel, Ms. Hashad. "Dalia, I'm so tired
of pretending to be asleep," he added.
Ms. Akhlaghi focused on the Patriot Act and
similar abuses of the Bill of Rights, and how they
are affecting people in the U.S. - particularly
Muslims.
Michael Heflin urged all attendees and interested
persons to sign the "First 100 Days" letter to the
Obama administration.
Not billed as a panelist, but nonetheless giving a
compelling speech, was a practicing psycho-
therapist who has made it his mission to expose
those who have perverted the profession to aid in
physical and psychological torture at
Guantanamo and elsewhere. He cited John Yu,
author of the memo that Bush officials used to
justify crimes against detainees, as working as a
professor at the University of California,
Berkeley. He suggested putting pressure on alumni
associations to protest the employment of Yu and
others who advocate and use torture. "Contact
them and say: 'I won't be contributing any money
while you employ John Yu,' "he said. An audience
member, who said he was a professor at
California State University, Los Angeles, added
that students could simply refuse to sign up for
Yu's classes, or the classes of other academics like
him.
With a new administration coming on board, one
which may be more inclined to respect basic
human rights, the conference seemed infused with
energy and hope. There was a preponderance of
young people, which indicates Amnesty is wisely
growing its base. If you missed this regional
conference, make it a point to go next year.
Exciting things are happening right in our own
backyard!
ERITREA UPDATE
By Joyce Wolf
One of the resolutions submitted to the recent AI
Western Regional Conference carried the title
"The New Forgotten Prisoners". The sponsor of
this resolution was Samson Tu from Group 19 in
Palo Alto. Group 19 works very actively for their
adopted Prisoner of Conscience, an Eritrea
journalist who was arrested in the same
September 2001 crackdown as Estifanos Seyoum,
our group's adopted POC. The title alludes to AI
founder Peter Benenson's 1961 newspaper article
"The Forgotten Prisoners".
Many AI groups with Eritrea POCs have been
deeply concerned and unhappy about AI's
decision to close nearly all the Eritrea individual
case files. This decision is not limited to Eritrea
cases, but reflects AI's current strategic priorities.
Samson's resolution instructs the AIUSA Board to
make various specific requests to the AI Executive
Committee regarding restoration of AI's historical
emphasis on individual POCs. With minor
changes to wording, the resolution passed both
the Working Party and the Voting Plenary Session
by near-unanimous votes. We'll see what happens
at the AIUSA annual meeting in March and then
at the International Council Meeting later in the
summer.
Group 22 continues to work for Estifanos and
other Eritrea POCs. (Background information
about Estifanos is available on the Group 22
website.) Patriarch Abune Antonios of Eritrea has
been selected as one of the AIUSA 2008 Write-a-
thon cases. Visit amnestyusa.org/writeathon and
click on Writeathon Cases Now Available, or join
Group 22 in our letter writing event on Dec. 13.
When you write to President Issayas about the
Patriarch, you can also mention Estifanos!
RIGHTS READERS
Human Rights Book Discussion Group
Keep up with Rights Readers at
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com
Next Rights Readers meeting:
Sunday, December 21, 6:30 PM
187 S. Catalina, Unit 2.
626-795-1785
"The Successor: A Novel"
By Ismail Kadare
Publisher Comments:
A powerful political novel based on the sudden,
mysterious death of the man who had been
handpicked to succeed the hated Albanian
dictator Enver Hoxha.
Did he commit suicide or was he murdered? That
is the burning question. The man who died by his
own hand, or another's, was Mehmet Shehu, the
presumed heir to the ailing dictator, Enver
Hoxha. So sure was the world that he was next in
line, he was known as The Successor. And then,
shortly before he was to assume power, he was
found dead.
The Successor is simultaneously a mystery novel,
a historical novel - based on actual events and
buttressed by the author's private conversations
with the son of the real-life Mehmet Shehu - and
a psychological novel (How do you live when
nothing is sure?). Vintage Kadare, The Successor
seamlessly blends dream and reality, legendary
past, and contemporary history.
Author Biography
Ismail Kadare 1936-, Albanian novelist and poet,
widely regarded as his country's most important
contemporary writer, b. Gjirokaster, studied Univ.
of Tirana, Gorky Institute of World Literature,
Moscow. He began as a journalist, and also wrote
poetry, which was first published in the 1950s.
During the following decade he increasingly
turned to prose and was celebrated in his
homeland after the publication of his first novel,
The General of the Dead Army (1963, tr. 1972),
about an Italian general who must retrieve his
soldiers' bodies from Albania after World War II.
Kadare at first supported Communist dictator
Enver Hoxha , but after the mid-1970s he became
increasingly critical of the regime and several of
his books were banned. After he sought political
asylum in France and moved (1990) to Paris, his
books became more widely known
internationally. Kadare's fiction concerns
Albanian history, culture, folklore, and politics
and often employs the storytelling techniques of
allegory and fable. His many novels include The
Castle (1970, tr. 1974), Chronicle in Stone (1971, tr.
1987), The Three-Arched Bridge (1978, tr. 1991),
The Palace of Dreams (1981, tr. 1993), The Concert
(1988, tr. 1994), The Pyramid (1991, tr. 1996),
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (2001, tr. 2002), and
The Successor (2003, tr. 2005). In 2005 Kadare was
awarded the first Man Booker International Prize.
ESHA MOMENI UPDATE
Esha had a flight back to Los Angeles scheduled
on November 21, 2008. Although the officials had
given her a glimpse of hope that she would be
able to use her ticket, she did not receive her
passport and therefore was not able to leave the
country. Friends were looking forward to
spending Thanksgiving with her. "We're all
spending time with friends and family this week
and we were hoping we'd be giving thanks for
having Esha back in L.A.," CSUN mass
communication graduate student Vanessa Mora
said in a statement sent to the press.
(From for-esha.blogspot.com)
Amnesty: Iran frees American-born grad
student, CSUN's Esha Momeni
(November 11, 2008)
CNN) - Iranian authorities have released an
American-born graduate student on bail after
holding her in prison for nearly a month, an
Amnesty International spokeswoman said
Tuesday.
Esha Momeni, 28, had been working on a project
on the women's movement in Iran when she was
arrested October 15 for an alleged traffic
violation, according to California State
University-Northridge and Change For Equality,
an Iranian women's movement. She had been
held in solitary confinement in Tehran's notorious
Evin Prison, Change For Equality said.
"We're really happy she's been released on bail,"
Elise Auerbach of Amnesty International said
Tuesday. She said she learned of Momeni's
release Monday through Amnesty's researchers in
London, England, and from Momeni's family and
friends.
Melissa Wall, a journalism professor at the
university and an academic adviser to Momeni,
confirmed the young woman's release in an e-
mail. Wall said they were waiting to see what will
"happen next in terms of charges or conditions or
sentencing." The university will hold a rally and
vigil Wednesday calling for Momeni's return to
California, she said. The event had been planned
before Momeni's release.
Auerbach, the Iran specialist for Amnesty
International USA, said she did not know the
exact bail amount, only that Momeni's parents
had handed over the deed to their home in Iran in
return for their daughter's release. "This is a real
problem for her family because the state of their
home is in doubt," Auerbach said, adding that if
the Iranian government determines Momeni has
violated the bail conditions, it can take her
family's home. Auerbach said Momeni has not
been charged, "but there is some indication that
they're planning on charging her."
Tehran's deputy general prosecutor, Hasan
Hadad, has "deliberately leaked" to the state-run
media his intentions to charge Momeni with
propaganda against the state, Auerbach said. The
Iranian judiciary has not commented on Momeni's
release.
A lot of people have faced that charge,"
Auerbach said. "It's kind of a vague, loosely
worded charge that's kind of convenient. They
can use it against whomever they want basically."
Auerbach said Momeni is not the only woman
involved with Change for Equality who has been
jailed recently; at least three women who worked
with the group are being detained, she said.
Ronak Safarzadeh was arrested in October 2007
and charged with enmity with God, a charge akin
to treason, and is being held in Sanandaj Prison;
Hana Abdi, 21, recently was sentenced to 18
months at Sanandaj for gathering and colluding to
commit a crime against national security; and
Zeynab Beyezidi, 26, was sentenced in August to
four years at Mahabad Central Prison for
belonging to an illegal group, the Human Rights
Organization of Kurdistan, Auerbach said.
As of Tuesday morning, the Iranian government
had not returned Momeni's passport and travel
papers, Auerbach said, adding that "there is a
pattern that after people are released from
detention they are still kept in Iran."
Among the examples, Auerbach said, are Haleh
Esfandiari, an Iranian-American scholar with the
Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, and
Mehrnoushe Solouki, a French-Iranian journalism
student at the University of Quebec. Esfandiari,
67, was arrested in 2007 while visiting her ailing
mother in Iran. She was charged with harming
national security and held for 105 days in Evin
Prison. She was released August 21, 2007, after
her mother posted $330,000 bail, but did not
leave Iran until September 2, 2007. Solouki was
arrested in February 2007 and accused of "trying
to make a propaganda film," according to
Reporters Without Borders. She was released
from Evin Prison the following month after her
parents' house was offered as bail, but Solouki
was not allowed to leave Iran until January, the
group reported.
Momeni's father, Gholamreza Momeni, initially
condemned his daughter's arrest, saying that even
if she confessed to a crime, "anything my
daughter may say in solitary confinement is
worthless," according to roozonline.com, a news
Web site run by exiled Iranian journalists.
The father gave a different account to the state-
run Islamic Republic News Agency last week,
however, and said he was angry that his daughter
had engaged in "illegal activities." "I got so angry
that I and her mother decided not visit her," he
told IRNA on Friday. "I deny all that has been
attributed to me by Web sites and believe them to
be the personal interpretations of the reporters."
He added, "As an Iranian, I love my country and
do not wish any harm to the Islamic republic."
Hadi Ghaemi, coordinator for the International
Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, said it was
not clear under what circumstances Momeni's
father talked to IRNA, but the remarks seem
"very suspect." "It really doesn't make any sense
for him to make a verdict on his daughter's guilt,"
Ghaemi said Saturday, the day after the IRNA
report was published. CNN could not reach
Gholamreza Momeni for comment Tuesday.
Since Momeni's arrest became public, Amnesty
International, other human rights organizations
and her university have called for her immediate
release.
"We have concern for this young person because,
like many young people, she is a dreamer, she's a
thinker, she's a researcher," university Provost
Harry Hellenbrand said last month. Momeni "has
the best interests of young people and women in
her mind," he said.
The Los Angeles-born graduate student had been
filming footage for a project on the women's rights
movement, and interviewing volunteers for the
One Million Signature campaign, launched in 2006
by Change for Equality. The campaign seeks to
collect signatures on a petition demanding that
Iran rewrite its constitution to recognize men and
women as equal.
According to the CSU-Northridge newspaper, the
Daily Sundial, fellow graduate student Peyman
Malaz said Momeni was "determined to better
the lives of Iranian citizens."
Nayereh Tohidi, chairwoman of the school's
gender and women's studies department, told the
paper she, too, was involved in the campaign and
had advised Momeni on her work. "She has not
been a part of any political parties, any
clandestine movements," Tohidi said. "She has
done nothing wrong."
Ghaemi said he believes Tehran wants to stifle the
women's rights movement, and Momeni's arrest
was meant to intimidate like-minded scholars or
activists. "We see here detention as a method of
pressuring that movement on a broader scale," he
said. "The government would very much like to
quiet these women."
CNN's Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this
report. All AboutIran - Amnesty International
USA - Publication: CNN International
DEATH PENALTY UPDATES
UN reinforces call to end executions
20 November 2008
A record number of countries have given their
support to the campaign to end capital
punishment.
On Thursday, a large majority of states from all
regions adopted a second United Nations
resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of
the death penalty.
Amnesty International has welcomed the
breakthrough for the resolution, which was
adopted in the UN General Assembly (Third
Committee). The number of co-sponsors has risen
to 89, two more than last year.
The increased support for this resolution is yet
further evidence of the worldwide trend towards
the abolition of the death penalty.
105 countries voted in favour of the draft
resolution, 48 voted against and 31 abstained. A
range of amendments proposed by a small
minority of pro-death penalty countries were
overwhelmingly defeated.
"We urge all states that still carry out executions
to take immediate steps to implement the
resolution and establish a moratorium on
executions," says Amnesty International's Yvonne
Terlingen,
137 countries have abolished the death penalty in
law or practice, as of November 2008. During
2007, at least 1,252 people were executed in 24
countries. At least 3,347 people were sentenced to
death in 51 countries.
The decrease in countries carrying out executions
is dramatic. In 1989, executions were carried out
in 100 states. In 2007, Amnesty International
recorded executions in 24 countries.
The draft resolution adopted on Thursday by the
Third Committee of the General Assembly has
still to be adopted by the General Assembly
sitting in plenary in December.
INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT, 1 EASTON
STREET, LONDON WC1X 0DW, UNITED
KINGDOM
Source:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-
updates/good-news/un-reinforces-call-end-
executions-20081120
Document - USA: Maryland Commission on
Capital Punishment votes for abolition
13 November 2008
AI Index: AMR 51/139/2008
On 12 November 2008, by a vote of 13 to 7, the
Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment
voted to recommend abolition of the state's death
penalty. The Commission's final report on its
findings and recommendations is due to go to the
Maryland legislature on or before 15 December
2008.
The Commission was established under an Act
signed into law by Governor Martin O'Malley on
13 May 2008. Its mandate was to study the
following areas in relation to the capital justice
system in Maryland:
- Racial disparities;
- Jurisdictional disparities;
- Socio-economic disparities;
- A comparison of the costs associated with
death sentences and the costs associated with
sentences of life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole;
- A comparison of the effects of prolonged
court cases involving capital punishment and
those involving life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole;
- The risk of innocent people being
executed;
- The impact of DNA evidence in assuring
the fairness and accuracy of capital cases.
The commission is chaired by former US Attorney
General Benjamin Civiletti, and includes two
members of the Maryland Senate and two of the
lower House of Delegates, as well as a former
judge, members of the police and prison
authorities, a state prosecutor and a public
defender, relatives of murder victims, religious
leaders, a former Maryland death row prisoner
who was later exonerated, and individuals
representing the general public.
The commission held a series of public hearings
in July, August and September 2008 at which it
heard testimony from an array of expert and
other witnesses.
In response to the Commission's vote in favour of
abolition, Chairperson Civilietti is quoted in the
Maryland press as saying that "I would hope the
recommendation of the commission ... would have
some persuasive merit before the legislature." The
vote, he said, reflected the majority's view that
"the capital punishment system as it is
administered and exists in Maryland doesn't
really work", and is "arbitrary and capricious."
Amnesty International welcomes the
Commission's vote in favour of abolition and
looks forward to this recommendation becoming
a reality in Maryland. The organization opposes
the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally. To
end the death penalty is to abandon a destructive,
diversionary and divisive public policy that is not
consistent with widely held values. It not only
runs the risk of irrevocable error, it is also costly,
to the public purse as well as in social and
psychological terms. It has not been proved to
have a special deterrent effect. It tends to be
applied in a discriminatory way, on grounds of
race and class. It denies the possibility of
reconciliation and rehabilitation. It promotes
simplistic responses to complex human problems,
rather than pursuing explanations that could
inform positive strategies. It diverts resources that
could be better used to work against violent crime
and assist those affected by it. It is an affront to
human dignity.
Today, some 137 countries are abolitionist in law
or practice. In 2007, the United Nations General
Assembly called for a worldwide moratorium on
executions and for retentionist countries to work
towards abolition. The Maryland Commission's
recommendation follows the recommendation for
abolition made by a special commission in New
Jersey in 2007. Among other things, the New
Jersey commission concluded that there was no
compelling evidence that the state death penalty
rationally served a legitimate purpose; that there
was increasing evidence that the death penalty is
inconsistent with evolving standards of decency;
that abolition would eliminate the risk of
disproportionality in capital sentencing; and that
the state's interest in executing a small number of
people guilty of murder did not justify the risk of
making an irreversible mistake. The state
legislature responded by passing an abolitionist
bill, which was signed into law by the New Jersey
governor in December 2007.
Today, 14 states in the USA plus the District of
Columbia are abolitionist. Thirty eight
jurisdictions - 36 states, the federal government
and the US military - retain the death penalty.
Since the USA resumed executions in 1977 after
nearly a decade without them, there have been
1,131 executions nationwide. A few states account
for the majority of executions. Texas alone has put
421 prisoners to death. So far this year there have
been 32 executions in the USA, half of them in
Texas.
Maryland has carried out five executions since
1977. The last execution in Maryland was in
December 2005.
INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT, 1 EASTON
STREET, LONDON WC1X 0DW, UNITED
KINGDOM
Source:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AM
R51/139/2008/en/1eb584ef-b1a7-11dd-86b0-
2b2f60629879/amr511392008en.html
GROUP 22 MONTHLY LETTER COUNT
DP 2
UAs 12
Total: 14
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
Amnesty International's mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and
ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and
expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all
human rights.