Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XXI Number 8, August 2013
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, August 22, 7:30 PM. Monthly
Meeting. We meet at the Caltech Y, Tyson
House, 505 S. Wilson Ave., Pasadena. (This is
just south of the corner with San Pasqual.
Signs will be posted.) We will be planning our
activities for the coming months. Please join
us! Refreshments provided.
Tuesday, September 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, September 15, 6:30 PM. Rights
Readers Human Rights Book Discussion
group. This month we read "Behind the
Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo.
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
Hi All
Well we are in the throes of summer. School
started last week with a bang as those of us in
the nursing office were dispatched to middle
schools to follow up on students coming to
school without the required Tdap vaccine for 7th
grade entry.
Rob and I got to spend a week in Seattle with
the cousins on my dad's side celebrating 3
birthdays (including my own!) the last week of
July. I had never been there before. The weather
was great - no rain - and there is so much to see
and do.
I'm looking forward to reading September's book
selection. It has gotten great reviews.
The violence in Egypt has escalated, with recent
clashes between Morsi supporters and the
security forces resulting in over 600 dead and
hundreds wounded. Find the latest info and
actions at the AIUSA website:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news
Laura Brown has had a letter about Edward
Snowden published in the LA Times: here's the
link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letter
s/la-le-0804-sunday-snowden-asylum-
20130804,0,6899599.story
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, September 15, 6:30 pm
"Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo
Vroman's Bookstore
695 E. Colorado, Pasadena
Author Bio
Katherine Boo is a staff writer at The New
Yorker and a former reporter and editor for The
Washington Post. She learned to report at the
alternative weekly, Washington City Paper, after
which she worked as a writer and co-editor of
The Washington Monthly magazine. Over the
years, her reporting from disadvantaged
communities has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize,
a MacArthur "Genius" grant, and a National
Magazine Award for Feature Writing. For the
last decade, she has divided her time between
the United States and India, the birthplace of
her husband, Sunil Khilnani. This is her first
book.
TRANSLATORS
Unnati Tripathi started working for Katherine
as a translator and researcher in April 2008.
Three and a half years later, Unnati had become
Katherine's trusted co-investigator and critical
interlocutor, helping to bring the stories of
Annawadi residents to the page. Over those years,
she also took many photographs of a changing slum.
Some of the more recent photos are on this website.
Unnati has an M.A. in sociology from the
University of Mumbai and is currently helping
the Indian Association for Women's Studies
establish a digital archive. Previously, she
provided research and editing assistance on a
short documentary film, 'Do Rafeeq Ek Chai,'
directed by Rafeeq Ellias, and wrote a report on
madrasas in Mumbai for the Maharashtra State
Minorities Commission under the supervision of
Dr. Ranu Jain. An essay of her own, 'The
Precinct as Workspace: Snippets from
Conversations,' was published in Zero Point
Bombay: In and Around Horniman Circle, a
2008 anthology edited by Kamala Ganesh, Usha
Thakkar and Gita Chadha. Since 2009, she's
also been filming the annual Mahim fair in
Mumbai. Her current intent is to make a short
documentary on the religious significance and
raucous beauty of the fair, and how it subtly
illuminates the tensions and possibilities of the
city.
Mrinmayee Ranade was the first translator to
work regularly on this project. In the first half of
2008, she joined Katherine in Annawadi and
several other slums, helping to draw out
individuals' stories with sensitivity and
precision and remaining unflappable even in
mob scenes. Her deepest sensitivity was to the
domestic lives and choices of women,
particularly those who were balancing work and
family responsibilities, as Mrin herself does.
Fittingly, she is now the editor of Madhurima, a
weekly women's supplement for the Bhaskar
Group's Divya Marathi newspaper.
Mrin earned her B.A. degree from the University
of Mumbai and previously worked as a reporter
and editor for many English- and Marathi-
language publications, among them the Indian
Express, Navashakti, Maharashtra Times, and
Times of India. As a researcher and translator,
she's assisted journalists from the BBC, The
National Geographic, The Guardian and
elsewhere. She's also taught reporting and
editing at Wilson College, V.G. Kelkar College,
and Rai University.
Three other women also helped Katherine with
translation in the first half of 2008. Kavita
Mishra, an undergraduate at the University of
Mumbai, helped interview residents of several
slums in between the obligations of her
coursework. Vijaya Chauhan, a veteran
educationist, spent a single day at Annawadi
and a second day watching Annawadi
videotapes, and in that brief time taught
Katherine boatloads. Shobha Murthy was an
equally generous teacher when she took time
from her real work, running educational
programs for low-income Navi Mumbai children,
to help Katherine interview parents and
children.
KIRKUS REVIEW
In her debut, Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker
staff writer Boo creates an intimate,
unforgettable portrait of India's urban poor.
Mumbai's sparkling new airport and
surrounding luxury hotels welcome visitors to
the globalized, privatized, competitive India.
Across the highway, on top of tons of garbage
and next to a vast pool of sewage, lies the slum
of Annawadi, one of many such places that
house the millions of poor of Mumbai. For more
than three years, Boo lived among and learned
from the residents, observing their struggles and
quarrels, listening to their dreams and despair,
recording it all. She came away with a detailed
portrait of individuals daring to aspire but too
often denied a chance - their lives viewed as an
embarrassment to the modernized wealthy. The
author poignantly details these many lives:
Abdul, a quiet buyer of recyclable trash who
wished for nothing more than what he had;
Zehrunisa, Abdul's mother, a Muslim matriarch
among hostile Hindu neighbors; Asha, the
ambitious slum leader who used her connections
and body in a vain attempt to escape from
Annawadi; Manju, her beautiful, intelligent
daughter whose hopes lay in the new India of
opportunity; Sunil, the master scavenger, a little
boy who would not grow; Meena, who drank rat
poison rather than become a teenage bride in a
remote village; Kalu, the charming garbage thief
who was murdered and left by the side of the
road. Boo brilliantly brings to life the residents
of Annawadi, allowing the reader to know them
and admire the fierce intelligence that allows
them to survive in a world not made for them.
The best book yet written on India in the throes
of a brutal transition.
PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE
Gao Zhisheng
by Joyce Wolf
Group 22's August action for imprisoned human
rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, our adopted
prisoner of conscience, was a bit unusual and
quite enjoyable. We joined Amnesty groups
around the world to support and encourage his
family by sending birthday greetings to his son
Gao Tianyu, who will be ten years old on
August 27.
The action was initiated by Amnesty's Hong
Kong office and brought to our attention by
AIUSA's China country specialist. It was
suggested that Gao Tianyu would especially like
to receive cards from children. Huge thank-you's
to Group 22's kid contingent (and their parents)!
Noor, James and Lucas Romans worked at home
and created their own colorful card with
messages and a photo of themselves. Sylvia and
Amber and their mom Wen made cards and
origami and wrote greetings to Tianyu in
Chinese.
It's not too late to participate in this action!
Visit
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~aigp22/GaoPOC
/GaoZhisheng.html.
A documentary film, Transcending Fear: The
Story of Gao Zhisheng, was screened in New
York on Aug 14. The trailer includes brief clips
of Tianyu and his sister.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byJXA3mm3pQ
It's not on Netflix --we'll have to find out how
we can get a copy to watch.
For next month, we suggest writing letters to
Gao Zhisheng in prison and telling him about our
action for his son's birthday. See the aigp22
website above for Gao Zhisheng's prison
address.
DEATH PENALTY NEWS
By Stevi Carroll
Billy Slagle
The Ohio executioner's needle was robbed of its
kill on August 4 when Billy Slagle hanged
himself. Mr. Slagle was scheduled for execution
on August 9. His appeal for clemency had been
denied; although, litigation in the courts
continued.
Mr. Slagle was sentenced to death for the 1987
murder of Mari Anne Pope, his neighbor. The
current prosecutor of Cuyahoga County
supported clemency for Mr. Slagle as did one of
the Ohio Supreme Court judges earlier in 1992.
In 2006, a federal judge issued a strong dissent
in the case because of prosecutorial misconduct
that had infected the trial. One of parole
board's members who voted for clemency July
16, 2013, wrote, "Slagle's age and immaturity at
the time of the offense significantly mitigate his
sentence in this horrible crime. Evolving
standards of decency as well as medical,
scientific, and sociological studies suggest that a
penalty as final and irrevocable as death should
not be imposed upon an individual who, like
Slagle, retained the capacity for significant
maturation and change at the time he or she
committed the crime. Slagle's capacity for
maturation and change at the time of his offense
is evidenced by his positive institutional
adjustment."
Mr. Slagle was 18 years old at the time of the
murder. By the time of his suicide, he had spent
all but eight months of his adulthood in prison.
He told the clemency board he was very
remorseful for what he had done and what he
had put the family of Mari Anne Pope through.
He also apologized to his family for what he
had done to them.
John Ferguson
"The (Supreme) Court (of the United States)
held in Ford v. Wainwright that the Eighth
Amendment prohibits the state from carrying
out the death penalty on an individual who is
insane, and that properly raised issues of
execution-time sanity must be determined in a
proceeding satisfying the minimum requirements
of due process."
For 40 years, government doctors recorded
paranoid delusional behavior in John Ferguson.
At the time of his execution this month is
Florida, Mr. Ferguson continued to believe his
was the "Prince of God" and would be
resurrected after death. Not only did the
Florida Supreme Court and the 11th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals execute a mentally ill man but
they also have undermined Ford v. Wainwright.
Go Florida; go Governor Rick Scott, Evangelical
Christian.
Although I am not a religious person, since Mr.
Ferguson thought he was the "Prince of God," a
quote from the book of Matthew seems
appropriate: "I tell you the truth, when you did
it to one of the least of these my brothers and
sisters, you were doing it to me!"
Montez Spradley
Five years ago, Montez Spradley was sentenced
to death. Although 10 of the 12 jurors
recommended life without parole, the judge
overruled the decision and sentenced him to
death. Through the appeals process, flaws in
the prosecution emerged. Two of the witnesses,
his ex-girlfriend and a jailhouse snitch, who said
Mr. Spradley had confessed to them had serious
credibility problems. His ex-girlfriend had been
paid more that $10,000 in reward money after
she testified against him. Earlier this year, she
recanted and said he had not confessed to her.
Mr. Spradley is still in prison. He has entered
an Alford plea. "According to University of
Richmond Law Review, 'When offering an Alford
plea, a defendant asserts his innocence but
admits that sufficient evidence exists to convict
him of the offense.'" Even though this does not
establish his innocence, he will not face a death
sentence and he will, one day, get to be free.
Reggie Clemons
Reggie Clemons has not given up hope for his
survival from death row. He has, however,
accepted that he may, in fact, be executed. Mr.
Clemons' case has been reviewed by Judge
Michael Manners, the Special Master, who has
submitted his findings to the Missouri Supreme
Court. He finds that the prosecutors
suppressed evidence. Mr. Clemons has
admitted his confession to the crime of rape was
secured after he was beaten by police. Warren
Weeks, a bail investigator, said he remembers
seeing Mr. Clemons with injuries on his face.
This information was scratched out of Mr.
Weeks' statement, and he said he did not
remove this information. This piece of evidence
has recently come to light. Mr. Weeks is quoted
as saying to his wife, "I think there's something
unusual going on - nobody wants to talk about
what happened to this gentlemen when he was
being interviewed by the police."
In a press release, Amnesty International says it
"hopes that the state's highest court will move
to eliminate any possibility that Reggie Clemons
might be executed."
For an online action, go to
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/ad
vocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=6oJCLQPAJiJUG&b
=6645049&aid=14230
To see an interview with Reggie Clemons, go to
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/m
ar/18/new-witness-reggie-clemons-injury
Those pesky drugs
Inability to get drugs to execute people may be
the end of state sponsored murder in the United
States. And then again, states may reintroduce
other methods such as the electric chair. People
condemned to die can choose a method other
than lethal injection. Remember Gary Gilmore
and the firing squad in Utah in 1977.
The drugs used to execute people in the United
States are getting difficult to obtain. As we
have seen, European and American
pharmaceutical companies do not want their
drugs used for executions. The prison officials
of many death penalty states are finding their
stash of drugs going out of date, and they are
unable to refill their supplies. Over the course of
the next few years, I look forward to seeing how
the states' politicians address this issue.
Executions
July
25 Andrew Lackey* Alabama
3-drug lethal injection
31 Douglas Feldman Texas
1-drug lethal injection
August
5 John Ferguson Florida
3-drug lethal injection
*volunteer- an inmate who waived ordinary
appeals that remained at the time of his or her
execution
GROUP 22 MONTHLY LETTER COUNT
UAs 22
Total 22
To add your letters to the total contact
lwkamp@gmail.com.
Amnesty International Group 22
The Caltech Y
Mail Code C1-128
Pasadena, CA 91125
www.its.caltech.edu/~aigp22/
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com