Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XVII Number 4, April 2009
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, April 23, 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.
Sunday, May 3, Monthly Movie Night.
Time and location TBD.
Tuesday May 12, 7:30 PM. Note change of
venue. Letter writing meeting at Zephyr coffee
house, 2419 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena. 626-
793-7330. This informal gathering is a great
way for newcomers to get acquainted with
Amnesty.
Sunday, May 17, 6:30 PM. Rights Readers
Human Rights Book Discussion Group. Vroman's
Book Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd.,
Pasadena. This month we read "Dreams and
Shadows - the Future of the Middle East" by
Robin Wright.
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
It's a beautiful day today and I sit here thinking
about torture! Actually, I'm counting my
blessings ...
Members of Group 22 and others recently visited
the offices of Representative Adam Schiff,
Senators Boxer and Feinstein to discuss AI's
concerns and recommendations regarding torture
and accountability for same. Read Larry's
summary of these visits in this newsletter.
Following the summary there is a sample letter to
send to your Congressperson demanding an
independent investigation into torture
practices/policies and criminal prosecution if
appropriate. The letter also asks the member of
Congress to sign a letter asking the Obama
Administration to release all documents related
to torture from the previous Bush
administration. You can also participate in this
action online at:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy
/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12
150&ICID=T0904A01&tr=y&auid=4756570
Group 22 had a very successful letter writing
meeting at a new location last week, the Zephyr
Cafe in East Pasadena. Quite a crowded place!
Be sure to check your email to see if the next
letter writing will be at this new location!
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~aigp22
Con carino,
Kathy
UPDATE FROM LARRY ROMANS
VISITS TO CONGRESSMEN/WOMEN
U.S. - Calling for accountability for detainee
abuse
Amnesty International has expressed great
concern about U.S. policies and actions related to
detentions, treatment (including torture) and
transfer of detainees after 9/11, with its research
and recommendations. Early this month, AIUSA
launched an initiative to organize local
delegations of members to visit their Senators
and Representatives. The focused aim was to
seek support for a non-partisan independent
commission of distinguished Americans to
examine and provide a comprehensive report on
these policies and actions, and to make further
recommendations for future policy in this area.
Local AI member Vincent de Stefano is leading
these efforts in the Los Angeles area, with several
members of the Pasadena group participating. A
delegation including Yuny Parada and Robert
Ward from our group (as well several others
including Vincent) visited Adam Schiff's office on
April 7. Yuny and Larry Romans and others
visited Senator Barbara Boxer's office also on
April 7, and Yuny and others visited Diane
Feinstein's office on April 8.
In each case, we had a meeting with a designated
staff member, with the opportunity to present
AI's concerns and suggestions. Vincent has been
very well prepared, and in his role did most of
the talking. We encountered various levels of
knowledge and preparation by the staff
members, but we invariably found a receptive ear
and a commitment to follow up with the member
of Congress. The Obama administration has
taken recent actions directly relating to these
issues, releasing the previous administration's
documents authorizing torture and starting to
formulate an approach of effective impunity for
intelligence personnel implementing the policies.
With the shifting political landscape, it is
especially important to maintain pressure on our
representatives to not lose sight of the need for
justice and accountability in these important
matters.
Please contact the group if you are interested in
participating in this on-going process. A visit is
planned with representative Xavier Bercerra's
office for the morning of Thursday, April 23 (the
day of our monthly meeting). Even if you aren't
in his congressional district, (most of us are
probably in Schiff's) it would still be appropriate
to attend. There are also other visits under
consideration, and follow-up work and possible
further visits to the members of Congress already
visited.
BACKGROUND INFO
The recent release of memos has made all the
more clear what we had previously heard about
the last administration's torture policies. Forced
nudity. Slamming detainees into walls. Forced
sleep deprivation for days of shackled prisoners,
standing in diapers in excruciating pain and filth.
Although Attorney General Holder, on April 16,
suggested that the Obama administration would
not prosecute intelligence agents who carried out
interrogations following legal advice, both those
who authored the policy and those who executed
it must be held accountable. Press your
representatives to help establish or support a
non-partisan independent commission and urge
them to help expose and prosecute those
responsible for abuses.
Prosecute Torturers
The United States government has authorized
and carried out policies since September 11, 2001
that have led to the systematic abuse of human
rights. Abuses include torture, arbitrary
detention, secret movement of prisoners,
widespread domestic surveillance and unlawful
attacks on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. In
defending those actions, government and military
officials have reinterpreted and ignored
applicable legal standards, and shielded
themselves from responsibility for their actions.
The U.S. government is required by international
law to respect and ensure human rights, to
thoroughly investigate every violation of those
rights, and to bring perpetrators to justice, no
matter their level of office or former level of
office. Victims of human rights violations have
the right under international law to access to
remedy and reparation. In addition, there is a
collective and individual right to the truth about
violations. To ensure that abuses cease, to restore
the rule of law and to rescue U.S. credibility as a
rights-respecting nation, the United States must
create a culture of accountability for the past. An
independent commission of inquiry, along with
prosecutions of crimes and remedy for victims, is
a crucial component of accountability.
SAMPLE LETTER:
Dear ________,
As your constituent, I would like you to help
establish or support a non-partisan, independent
commission of distinguished Americans to
examine, and provide a comprehensive report on,
policies and actions related to the detention,
treatment, and transfer of detainees after 9/11
and the consequences of those actions, and to
make recommendations for future policy in this
area.
As you know, the government has a legal
obligation to prosecute grave breaches of the
Geneva Conventions. I ask that you help
establish this commission of inquiry to live up to
obligations and to help hold perpetrators of
abuse accountable. Moreover, I ask that you ask
Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a criminal
investigation into abuses and hold those
responsible for violations accountable. Although
Attorney General Holder, on April 16, suggested
that the Obama administration would not
prosecute intelligence agents who carried out
interrogations following legal advice, both those
who authored the policy and those who executed
it must be held accountable.
Finally, I would like you to introduce or support
a Congressional sign-on letter calling on the
Administration to immediately produce and
publish remaining documents and other
materials that argued for, documented, and
established the basis for coercive interrogation,
detainee treatment and policy in the last
administration. It is important that we expose
the truth about the abuses that were committed
in our name and hold the guilty responsible so
that these abuses do not happen again. Please let
me know of your actions to hold abusers
accountable.
Sincerely,
Your name and address
ERITREA UPDATE
by Joyce Wolf
On April 16, Human Rights Watch published a
95-page report on human rights violations in
Eritrea. Group 22 has worked for several years on
the case of Eritrean prisoner of conscience
Estifanos Seyoum, so we might expect to be
somewhat familiar with the situation. The HRW
report reveals that conditions are even more dire
than we knew. Visit www.hrw.org for a
summary of the report and a link to the full
document.
"Eritrea's government is turning the country into
a giant prison," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa
director at Human Rights Watch. The report
states, "There is no freedom of speech, no
freedom of movement, no freedom of worship,
and much of the adult male and female
population is conscripted into indefinite national
service where they receive a token wage. Dissent
is not tolerated. Any criticism or questioning of
government policy is ruthlessly punished.
Detention, torture and forced labour await
anyone who disagrees with the government,
anyone who attempts to avoid military service or
flee the country without permission, and anyone
found practising or suspected of practising faiths
the government does not sanction."
Eritreans who have fled the country are still
subject to oppression because the government
will exact retribution on their family members
who remain. The report quotes an officer
formerly responsible for rounding up deserters
from the national service: "If one of the men
escapes, you have to go to his home and find
him. If you don't find him you have to capture
his family and take them to prison. ... If you
disappear inside Eritrea then the family is put in
prison for some time and often then the child will
return. If you cross the border, then [your family]
pays 50,000 Nakfa [US$3,300]."
Amnesty International's East Africa team says
that Eritrea President Isayas Afewerki is
notoriously stubborn and resistant to any form of
criticism and that letters from AI activists will
only provoke a hostile reaction and may even
lead to retaliation against the individuals we are
supposed to be helping. Therefore the AI strategy
will now be to focus on donor countries
providing assistance to Eritrea. There will also be
Urgent Actions to countries who intend to deport
Eritrean refugees back to Eritrea.
Our AIUSA Eritrea country specialist, Trish
Hepner, plans to have some new actions
available soon, possibly to US officials such as
Secretary of State Clinton. May 24 is Eritrea
Independence Day, and Group 22 hopes to
participate in a cooperative action with other AI
groups working on Eritrea as we did last year.
Samson Tu reports that he used the cases of
Eritrean POCs whose files are being closed to
gather support for the "New Forgotten
Prisoners" resolution, which was overwhelmingly
passed at the recent AIUSA AGM plenary
session. He says that AIUSA Board and staff all
support the request to review the POC cases
facing closure, although the IS and AIUSA seem
to have different philosophies toward work on
individuals. Group 22 certainly doesn't want to
forget Estifanos Seyoum!
RIGHTS READERS
Human Rights Book Discussion Group
Keep up with Rights Readers at
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com
Next Rights Readers meeting:
Sunday, May 17, 6:30 PM
Vroman's Bookstore
695 E. Colorado Boulevard
in Pasadena
"Dreams and Shadows - the Future
of the Middle East"
By Robin Wright
New York Times Book Review:
Undercurrents of Hope in a Region of
Turbulence
Published: February 28, 2008
Few American journalists are as familiar with the
Middle East as Robin Wright. Having first visited
Iran in 1973, lived in Beirut in the 1980s and
chronicled the region on repeated trips since then,
she has a deep mix of on-the-ground knowledge,
awareness of the historical background and step-
back policy perspective. She wrote one of the first
books on militant Islam ("Sacred Rage") and two
others on Iran.
An Excerpt From 'Dreams and Shadows'
(robinwright.net) Like many who follow the
Middle East closely, Ms. Wright, currently a
diplomatic correspondent for The Washington
Post, has known its violent turmoil and numbing
cruelty. She witnessed the 1979 Iranian
revolution consume itself with blood. (In four
months in 1981 more than 1,000 government
officials were killed.) In 1983 she watched
rescuers remove bodies from the American
Embassy in Beirut (some of the dead had been
her friends) and months later from the United
States Marines barracks there. She covered the
eight-year Iran-Iraq war, when hundreds of
thousands were killed. She was back in Iraq in
2003 after Saddam Hussein was toppled.
But also like many who care about the region, she
has been waiting impatiently for change. Having
interviewed and befriended some enormously
brave people there who have been pushing for
liberty and democracy, Ms. Wright decided a few
years ago that enough signs of progress were
emerging to merit a deeper look at the
phenomenon.
As she puts it early in "Dreams and Shadows":
"This is a book about disparate experiments with
empowerment in the world's most troubled
region. My goal was to probe deep inside
societies of the Middle East for the emerging
ideas and players that are changing the political
environment in ways that will unfold for decades
to come."
And so she has done. She went to the West Bank
for the 2006 Palestinian elections, spent time with
liberal opponents of the government in Egypt,
interviewed the key Lebanese who helped eject
Syrian troops and occupiers, and profiled
Moroccan feminists and democracy activists who
have helped bring about new laws.
Along for the ride, readers are treated to clear
and well-rendered accounts of Kefaya, the
fledgling Egyptian dissident movement; the
history of Iran's quest for nuclear power; the
beginnings of Hezbollah; and fascinating tidbits
like an early mention of the Kurds as a nation
and how the Katyusha rocket, got its name.
While this is an engaging tour of a complex area,
the problem is that the moment of promise that
set Ms. Wright off on her trip - the Cedar
Revolution in Lebanon combined with the Iraqi,
Palestinian and Egyptian elections all in quick
succession - has turned distinctly sour.
The spirit in the region that animated her quest
three years ago has been exposed as more
illusory than real. This leaves her book somewhat
off key. It was supposed to help understand the
future, but ends up being a series of visits with
some wonderful people who remain
marginalized and powerless. Instead of helping
readers to see how the Middle East is evolving,
Ms. Wright offers a set of portraits of failed
efforts.
That said, there is much to be gained from
joining her on her trip. In some ways the
subsequent failures of reform lend poignancy.
The section on Morocco is a good example.
Four years ago, under a new young king,
Mohammed VI, Morocco set up a so-called
Equity and Reconciliation Commission to expose
the horrors of abuse that existed under his
father's rule. Testimony was taken in public; new
laws protecting human rights and women were
enacted. We meet Driss Benzekri, who
languished in prison for 17 years for defying the
ruler at the time, King Hassan II. Later Mr.
Benzekri, who died last year, was made head of
a human rights group and adviser to King
Mohammed. And Morocco is a less oppressive
place today that it was, thanks to the new
monarch.
Yet King Mohammed "is head of state," Ms.
Wright writes. "He is commander in chief. He
appoints the prime minister and his cabinet. Both
foreign and domestic policy comes from the
palace. Judges are appointed on the
recommendation of the Supreme Council, which
is presided over by the king. The rubber-stamp
Parliament debates, but it has little power and
even less oversight of government performance.
The king can legislate new laws without
Parliament. And he can dismiss it at will. He still
has the powers of a despot."
In other words, there has been no real change in
the Moroccan power structure, only greater
tolerance from on high. And that could change on
a whim.
Ms. Wright's last chapter is about how the Iraq
war has set back reform across the region, the
opposite of its stated purpose. We re-encounter
Ghada Shahbender, an Egyptian from an earlier
chapter, who monitors presidential and
parliamentary elections. Showing a group of
students around the United States last year, Ms.
Shahbender is angry but philosophical, a stand
apparently shared by Ms. Wright.
"In Iraq, Bush set back democracy and freedom
in the region more than any other American
president," Ms. Shahbender tells her. So now that
things are going nowhere, what will she do next?
"Keep trying," was the reply.
About the Author
Robin Wright has reported from more than a 140
countries on six continents for The Washington
Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Sunday Times
of London, CBS News and The Christian Science
Monitor. She has also written for The New
Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs,
Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The
International Herald Tribune and others.
Her foreign tours include the Middle East,
Europe, Africa, and several years as a roving
foreign correspondent. She has covered a dozen
wars and several revolutions. She most recently
covered U.S. foreign policy for The Washington
Post.
Among several awards, Wright received the U.N.
Correspondents Gold Medal, the National
Magazine Award for reportage from Iran in The
New Yorker, and the Overseas Press Club Award
for "best reporting in any medium requiring
exceptional courage and initia_tive" for coverage
of African wars. She was named journalist of the
year by the American Academy of Diplomacy,
and won the National Press Club Award and the
Weintal Prize for diplomatic reporting. Wright
has also been the recipient of a John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant.
As an author, Ms. Wright has been a fellow at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the
Brookings Institution, Yale University, Duke
University, Stanford University, and the
University of California at Santa Barbara. She
lectures extensively around the United States and
has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and PBS
programs, including "Meet the Press," "Face the
Nation," "This Week," "Nightline," the
"Newshour," "Frontline," and "Larry King Live.'
Among her books, The Last Great Revolution:
Turmoil and Transformation in Iran was selected
as one of the 25 most memorable books of the
year 2000. She is also the author of Sacred Rage:
The Wrath of Militant Islam, Flashpoints:
Promise and Peril in a New World, and In the
Name of God: The Khomeini Decade.
DEATH PENALTY
In 2008 the world moved even closer towards
abolition of the death penalty.
In December, the United Nations General
Assembly (UN GA) adopted by a large majority
a second resolution calling for a moratorium with
a view to abolish the death penalty. This
resolution consolidates three decades of steady
progress towards complete abolition of the death
penalty.
Developments at the UN provided a welcome
boost to campaigners working across the globe to
prohibit the death penalty. It also prompted
some small but significant steps at the regional
level. Notably, the African Commission on
Human and Peoples' Rights again called on
African states that still retain the death penalty
to observe a moratorium on executions in the
region with a view to abolish the death penalty.
Europe and Central Asia is now virtually a death
penalty free zone following the abolition of the
death penalty in Uzbekistan for all crimes. There
is just one country left - Belarus - that still
carries out executions.
In the Americas, only one state - the United
States - consistently executes. However, even
the USA moved away from the death penalty in
2008. This year, the smallest number of
executions since 1995 was reported in the USA.
The majority of countries now refrain from using
the death penalty. Furthermore, in 2008 Amnesty
International recorded only 25 out of 59 countries
that retain the death penalty actually carried out
executions. The practice of states indicates that
there is increasing consolidation of majority
international consensus that the death penalty
cannot be reconciled with respect for human
rights.
Despite positive developments a number of
tough challenges remain. Countries in Asia
carried out more executions in 2008 than the rest
of the world put together. The region with the
second highest number of reported executions
was the Middle East.
In 2008, at least 2,390 people were known to
have been executed in 25 countries and at least
8864 people were sentenced to death in 52
countries around the world.
Some of the methods used to execute people in
2008 included beheading, electrocution, hanging,
lethal injection, shooting and stoning.
Countries with the highest number of executions
in 2008:
Continuing the trend from previous years, in
2008 China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the
United States of America were the five states
with the highest rate of executions. Together they
carried out (93%) of all executions worldwide.
In some states the use of the death penalty
remained shrouded in secrecy. In China, Belarus,
Mongolia and North Korea executions were
carried out in a secretive manner or without
transparency.
As in previous years a large number of death
sentences were handed down in trials that failed
to meet internationally recognised standards of
fairness. A concerning number of executions were
carried out after proceedings that relied upon
confessions solicited through torture in violation
of international law. The authorities of Iran
continued to execute prisoners who were under
18 at the time of the alleged offence in flagrant
violation of international law.
Source: http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-
penalty/international-death-penalty/death-
penalty-statistics/page.do?id=1011348
MONTHLY LETTER COUNT
POC 1
UAs 37
Total: 38
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