Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XXI Number 11, November-December 2013
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, December 5, 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.
Saturday, December 14, 10 AM to 4 PM.
Letter writing marathon at Pasadena's Zephyr
Cafe, 2419 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, 91107.
Phone 626-793-7330. See you there!
Sunday, December 15, 6:30 PM. Rights
Readers Human Rights Book Discussion
group. This month we read "Beautiful Souls"
by Eyal Press.
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
Hi All
Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgivukkah
(the first day of Hanukkah was on Thanksgiving
day!) and are getting ready for Christmas! Only
a few weeks awayÉPersonally, I make a point
to stay away from shopping malls from
Thanksgiving until after Christmas and do my
shopping online!
This year only two of our members attended the
Western Regional Conference in LA. Here's
Stevi's photo of Kalaya'an Mendoza at the
opening session. http://tinyurl.com/pfepff7
All of Stevi's photos and reports are on Group
22's Facebook page, http://tinyurl.com/n8ylgsj
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, Dec. 15, 6:30 PM
Beautiful Souls
by Eval Press
Note: Meeting will be held at private home, not
Vroman's Bookstore. 187 S. Catalina Ave.,
Unit 2, Pasadena. 626-795-1785
KIRKUS REVIEW
Press (Absolute Convictions: My Father, a City, and
the Conflict That Divided America, 2006) returns
with a disquisition on conscience, "about the
mystery of what impels people toÉstop, say no,
resist."
The author builds his account on the foundation
of social psychology and examines the stories of
several people from a variety of times, cultures
and situations. He begins--where else?--with
the Nazis in Poland, 1942, when the German
Order Police committed a mass execution of
Jews, but about a dozen soldiers refused to
participate. Press then moves to Paul Gruninger,
a Swiss policeman who in 1938 admitted into
the country a number of Jewish refugees--
ignoring official policy. Next the author looks at
a Serb soldier who saved a number of Croats
targeted for ethnic cleansing in 1991. Another
case was an Israeli soldier who defied policy in
an operation against the Palestinians. Press' final
example is Leyla Wydler, a financial advisor
employed by the Stanford Group Company in
2000 who reported to the SEC her company's
gross deceptions. Throughout, Press notes the
consequences of his principals' actions:
ostracism, firing, psychological, social and
financial losses. Interviewing those still living,
he learns some surprising things. Not all are
intellectuals, or even had rational reasons for
behaving as they did (to some, it just didn't feel
right); not all had religious or even moral
reasons for their behavior. Some attribute their
decision to family history or to simply looking
in the mirror; none had regrets. Press believes
that saying no is always possible, never easy
and that the outcome is surely never certain. To
buttress his analysis, he includes allusions to
philosophers, psychologists and even relevant
films--e.g., Silkwood.
An intelligent though sometimes dense
examination of moral courage and its
consequences.
Author Biography
Eyal Press is a writer based in New York. His
work has appeared in the New York Review of
Books, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic,
The Nation, and the Raritan Review. He is the
author of Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking
Ranks and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark
Times (2012), and Absolute Convictions (2006), a
narrative account of the abortion conflict. He is a
past recipient of the James Aronson Award for
Social Justice Journalism.
FREEDOM FOR CHINA
Rally in Long Beach
By Wen Chen
Oct. 20, 2013 was a beautiful day in Marina
Green Park at Long Beach. At the other side of
the Pacific Ocean, millions of people like me are
still suffering in labor camps and jails for their
belief. I am fortunate enough to live on the side
of ocean with freedom, and able to join 4,000
Falun Gong practitioners from all over the
world to do something to support our fellows in
China.
Many people came early and did mediation
before the public rally started. At 11am, more
than 100 victims from China gathered near the
stage. Each of them only got a couple of minutes
to tell their years of experience of torture in
labor camps, jails or mental hospitals.
The youngest victim was a teenager girl, she
was jailed together with her parents when she
was five years old. A woman described how she
lost her baby after she was violently beaten
during pregnancy. Many people were beaten
up, shocked by electric batons, force fed or
poisoned by unknown drugs via injection or
feeding. A victim was shocked by 6 electric
batons at the same time. A lot of them witnessed
the death of their children, parents or friends
from the persecution. All of them lost their jobs.
Almost every victim described going through
complicated physical checkups during
detention, including blood tests, X-ray, function
of their heart and lung, but they were never told
the results. The police kept inquiring about their
social connections. Those Falun Gong
practitioners from rural area, with few relatives
or friends, were numbered and taken to
unknown places in truck loads. All of these
reminded me the huge number of organ
transplants in China, and the shocking
statements from hospitals that "We will find
matching organs for you within 24 hours."
(http://stoporganharvesting.org).
The most touching scene appeared at noon,
when Congressman Dana Rohrabacher
appeared in the crowd. He told a story about his
father, who was in Shanghai during WWII as an
American soldier. He was proud that Americans
can do something to save the lives of Chinese
again. As a member of the foreign relations
committee he recalled that one of the most
embarrassing hearings occurred when a great
American computer company admitted
designing and installing for the communist
dictatorship a system to control Chinese people
and even control criticism. At that hearing, a
woman testified that her son, a journalist, was
tracked down and arrested for criticizing the
government over the internet via that system.
Being a devout Christian, he sees the merits of
Falun Gong. "... we know it is up to us, all of us,
to perfect ourselves and I see that with the Falun
Gong talking about those aspects (Truth,
Compassion, Tolerance) of the human soul that
will make us more tolerant and more forgiving
and energetic towards helping others," he said.
Rep. Rohrabacher(center) joined the victims and sang
"Free China" (from the award-winning documentary
Free China - Courage to Believe.
http://freechina.ntdtv.org/).
DEATH PENALTY NEWS
By Stevi Carroll
I'm writing this column on the day after
Thanksgiving. While I have many things for
which to be thankful, the important one here is
that 18 US states and the District of Columbia do
not use the death penalty. Additionally, six of
these states have abolished the death penalty
since 2007 and 'popularity' for the death penalty
has fallen from 80% in 1994 to about 63% in
2012.
RIP - Delbert Tibbs
November 23, 2013, Delbert Tibbs died.
In 1974 while walking across the country on a
spiritual quest, Delbert Tibbs was arrested for
the rape of Cynthia Nadeau and the murder of
Terry Milroy, her traveling companion, in
Florida. Both Ms Nadeau and Mr. Milroy were
white and Mr. Tibbs was African-American.
Although Mr. Tibbs was taller and had a lighter
complexion than the person Ms Nadeau
described, when she was shown Polaroid
snapshots of Mr. Tibbs, she said he was the man
who killed Mr. Milroy and raped her. Mr. Tibbs
was tried before an all-white jury, found guilty
and sentenced to death.
Joan Baez and Pete Seeger raised money for the
Delbert Tibbs Defense Committee so that Mr.
Tibbs was able to hire legal representation. He
was released in 1977 and in 1982, the Florida
State Supreme Court overturned his conviction.
Mr. Tibbs became an advocate for death penalty
abolition and worked as an Assistant Director of
Membership and Training for Witness to
Innocence, the country's only organization
dedicated to empowering exonerated death row
survivors.
To see an interview with Mr. Tibbs, go to
http://www.oneforten.com/delbert-tibbs.
To see the lyrics of Pete Seeger's song "Delbert
Tibbs" and the fundraising done for his case in
Songwriter Magazine, go to
www.peteseeger.net/songwriter_magazine.htm
Reginald Griffin
For Reginald Griffin, October 25, 2013, will be
the day to remember. After spending almost 30
years on Missouri's death row, the prosecution
dismissed the charges with which he'd been
condemned, and although he'd been released on
bond pending retrial since December 2012, in
October 2013 Mr. Griffin became the 143rd
person in the US to be exonerated and freed
from death row since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1973. His conviction for killing a
fellow inmate in 1983 relied on testimony from
two jailhouse snitches who received benefits
from their testimonies and who later renounced
them. Mr. Griffin is the 4th person in Missouri
to be exonerated along with Clarence Dexter
(exonerated 1999), Eric Clemmons (2000), and
Joseph Amrine (2003).
California and the Death Penalty
As we remember last November 6th,
Proposition 34 was defeated by a mere 250,000
votes. I've wondered if people voted 'no' on
Prop 34 because they opposed the death penalty
and did not realize that voting 'yes' was not in
FAVOR of the death penalty but rather a vote
for life without the possibility of parole (LWOP).
Recently, Paula Mitchell, a career federal judicial
law clerk for Senior Circuit Judge Arthur L.
Alarc—n on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,
published 'California's Death Penalty: A Year in
Review.'
Here are a few highlights:
* California has not carried out any more
executions; there have been no
executions now for nearly a decade.
* California taxpayers continue to pay a
surcharge of $184 million per year to
house and provide medical care for over
740 inmates on California's death row,
and to provide decades-long, publicly-
funded counsel for those inmates. Those
expenditures are not incurred under an
LWOP system.
* Over 135 men on death row are between
60 and 89 years old, many of whom have
significant medical care needs.
* Six more California death row inmates
died from either natural causes or
suicide, bringing the total non-execution
deaths to 90. By contrast, a total of 13
inmates have been executed by the state
since 1978.
* For the 90 inmates who died while on
death row, taxpayers provided the
"lifetime housing/healthcare benefits"
death penalty proponents warned voters
they would be forced to pay if the state
were to switch to LWOP as the state's
toughest penalty. And those housing and
healthcare costs come at a premium
because we now know that death row
costs more than other maximum security
facilities.
* Death penalty appeals continue to make
up roughly one third of the California
Supreme Court's caseload.
* The backlog at the California Supreme
Court is now so severe that it is taking
almost 20 years for the court to decide
direct appeals in death penalty cases.
After that, death row inmates begin their
state and federal habeas corpus
proceedings, for which they are also
provided publicly funded counsel, and
which typically drag on for at least
another ten years.
To read the entire article, go to
http://verdict.justia.com/2013/11/18/californias-
death-penalty-year-review
The Strange Case of Ronald Phillips
In 1993, Ronald Phillips was sentenced to die for
the rape and murder of his girlfriend's three-
year-old daughter. With his legal options
finished in mid-November this year, he was to
be executed by lethal injection. His mother has
kidney disease and his sister has a heart
condition. Mr. Phillips has offered to donate his
organs, and while this offer may be seen as a
delay tactic, he says it is his 'attempt to make a
final gesture for good.'
Ohio Governor John Kasich wants to look into
the possibility of organ donation not only of Mr.
Phillips but also other condemned prisoners.
Mr. Phillips is scheduled to be executed on July
2, 2014. At that time, we will see if organ
donation becomes a part of executions in the
USA.
Stay of Execution
November
14 Ronald Phillips Ohio
Executions
October
23 Robert Jones Arizona
1-drug lethal injection*
November
12 Darius Kimbrough Florida
3-drug lethal injection**
12 Jamie McCoskey Texas
1-drug lethal injection*
20 Joseph Franklin Missouri
1-drug lethal injection*
*pentobarbital
- ** with midazolam (a sedative) hydrochloride
(a painkiller)
SECURITY WITH HUMAN
RIGHTS
by Robert Adams
The following email was received from Zeke
Johnson, Director of Amnesty International
USA's Security & Human Rights Program, on
November 19, 2013:
Dear Friends,
With your help, we won a victory on
Guantanamo tonight! See our release
below!
The good Guantanamo transfer provisions
in the NDAA for 2014 made it through the
amendment process! We defeated a bad
amendment by Senator Ayotte and a
watered down amendment by Levin and
McCain that appeared to allow indefinite
detention in the mainland US.
However, now we begin the tough process
of preserving the good provisions in the
reconciliation process with the bad House
provisions. Stay tuned for new actions!
Thank you all for your support!
All those lobby visits, op-eds, calls, emails,
Tweets, rallies and educational events
made a difference!
Zeke
For Immediate Release
November 19, 2013
Amnesty International Welcomes
Senate Result on NDAA Guantanamo
Amendments
In response to the Senate vote on the
Guantanamo transfer provisions as part of the
National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal
year 2014 (S. 1197), Zeke Johnson, Director of
Amnesty International USA's Security and
Human Rights Program and an observer of the
military commissions at Guantanamo, issued the
following statement:
"Finally, the Senate did the right thing on
Guantanamo. The new detainee transfer provisions
will help ensure that each detainee is either given a
safe and fair trial in US federal court or is transferred
to another country if cleared to leave.
Section 1031 of the Senate bill would facilitate the
transfer to other countries of cleared detainees;
Section 1032 would allow transfers to the mainland
US for medical treatment; and Section 1033 would
allow transfers to the mainland US for trial. These
provisions must be preserved through the
reconciliation process with the House provisions.
Furthermore, President Obama need not wait for
final passage to move forward with transfers under
current law. People like Shaker Aamer, cleared to
leave with a safe place to go that wants him Ð the UK
Ð should be transferred out immediately."
Regarding the House bill for the 2014 NDAA,
H.R 1960, which then passed to the Senate, it
should be noted that in the House Republican
Conference summary it states, "H.R. 1960
maintains the prohibition against the transfer of
detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United
States or to countries where it has been
confirmed that previously released detainees
have engaged in terrorist activity after their
release." Thus, it will be a tough fight to
maintain the above transfer provisions in the
final legislation Ð as Zeke says, "Stay tuned!"
PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE
Gao Zhisheng
by Joyce Wolf
One year ago Amnesty International chose
human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, Group 22's
adopted prisoner of conscience, to be one of the
cases featured in the annual AI Write-a-thon.
Just one month later, in January 2012, Gao
Zhisheng's brother received permission to visit
him in prison. This was only the second family
visit permitted by the Chinese authorities
during Gao's imprisonment, so it seems that
letter-writing might have had some effect!
Gao Zhisheng is not a featured AI case this year,
but let's make sure that China realizes he is not
forgotten. Please send cards of support and
encouragement to him in prison:
Gao Zhisheng
Shaya Prison
P.O. Box 15, Sub-box 16
Shaya County, Aksu Prefecture
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, 842208
People's Republic of China
Check our website for more information about
Gao Zhisheng and a current sample letter to
Chinese authorities about his case.
http://tinyurl.com/GaoPOC
AI Group 148 and the Visual Artists Guild sent
an invitation to join them at an International
Human Rights Day Rally on Saturday
December 7 at 2 pm in Chinatown, followed by
a protest at the Chinese Consulate to demand
the release of all prisoners of conscience.
http://visual-artists-guild.org
If you are not able to attend a rally or letter-
writing event, please consider participating as
an individual. . You can find case descriptions
and sample letters at
http://tinyurl.com/WriteForRights
Happy International Human Rights Day!
GROUP 22 MONTHLY LETTER COUNT
UAs 20
Total 20
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
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.