Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XXI Number 10, October 2013
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, October 24, 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, November 12, 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, November 17, 6:30 PM. Rights
Readers Human Rights Book Discussion
group. This month we read "Looking for
Trans-Wonderland - Travels in Nigeria" by
Noo Saro-Wiwa.
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
Hi All
This year Amnesty International's Western
Regional Conference will be held in Los Angeles
November 1-3, at the Sheraton Four Points near
LAX. It is too late to get the discounted hotel
rate for AI members, but not too late to register
for the conference itself. Go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/events/regional-
conferences/western-regional-conference
The deadline to register online is Monday
October 28th. You can also show up and register
at the conference.
We will be out of town for a family emergency
that weekend. I expect a report from those who
attend for our next newsletter!
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, Nov.17, 6:30 PM
Vroman's Bookstore
695 E. Colorado, Pasadena
Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in
Nigeria
By Noo Saro-Wiwa
BOOK REVIEW
A Nigerian-born English journalist makes peace
with the land that killed her father.
Ken Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian nonviolent
political activist campaigning against
government corruption and environmental
degradation when he was falsely accused by the
military regime and executed in 1995. His
daughter Noo, a twin to her sister, Zina, born in
1976 and educated in England and the United
States, maintained a mostly antagonistic
relationship toward the land of her Ogoni
parents, who sent the children on summer
holidays back to the family compound where
the heat, disorder, lack of running water and
electricity consumed the author with dread.
Now a young woman self-admittedly spoiled by
the amenities of English life, the author allows
her love-hate relationship with Nigeria to flavor
this thoughtful travel journal, lending it irony,
wit and frankness, yet also an undertone of
bitterness. Starting in Lagos, staying at the home
of her mother's friend, she was overwhelmed by
the noise and tumult of the city, teeming with
300-odd ethnic groups that were miraculously
not worn down by quotidian inconveniences
such as five-hour commutes, poorly paid jobs
($2 at most per day) and a constant need for
haggling and hustling to make ends meet.
Indeed, a Pentecostal faith inspired many
Nigerians, rendering them by one account the
happiest people in the world. From Lagos, "feral
and impenetrable," Saro-Wiwa trekked through
Nigerian land and history, to the university
town of Ibadan, the modern urban metropolis of
Abuja, Kano and the Islamic northern recesses,
national parks and nature preserves, civic-
minded Calabar and formerly glorious Benin,
before facing the "tense oil-city" and difficult
childhood memories of Port Harcourt.
A vigorous, scathing look at Nigeria then and
now.
From Kirkus Reviews
AUtHOR BIOGRAPHY
Noo Saro-Wiwa was born in Nigeria in 1976 and
raised in England. She attended King's College
London and Columbia University in New York
and has written travel guides for Rough Guide
and Lonely Planet. She currently lives in
London.
Her first book Looking for Transwonderland:
Travels in Nigeria was published by Granta in
January 2012 to brilliant reviews and
was chosen by the Financial Times Life & Arts as
one of the best books of the year, and by The
Sunday Times as Travel Book of the Year 2
SECURITY WITH HUMAN
RIGHTS
by Robert Adams
US has killed far more civilians with
drones than it admits, says UN
By Michael Isikoff
NBC News National Investigative
Correspondent
A new report from a special U.N.
investigator says drone strikes have killed
far more civilians than U.S. officials have
publicly acknowledged - at least 400 in
Pakistan and as many as 58 in Yemen - and
chides the U.S. for failing to aid the
investigation by disclosing its own figures.
U.N. Special Rapporteur Ben Emmerson,
who issued the "interim" report, said the
U.S. had created "an almost insurmountable
obstacle to transparency."
"The Special Rapporteur does not accept
that considerations of national security
justify withholding statistical and basic
methodological data of this kind," wrote
Emmerson in the report, which is due to be
presented to the U.N. General Assembly
next Friday.
U.S. intelligence officials have consistently
downplayed the number of civilian deaths
from drone strikes. In a June 2011 speech,
White House counter-terrorism advisor John
Brennan, who is now CIA director, said that
"for nearly the past year, there hasn't been a
single collateral death because of the
exceptional proficiency [and] precision" of
U.S. counter-terror strikes.
Later, the CIA acknowledged some civilian
casualties, but told Congress that they were
in the "single digits," according to a
February 2013 statement by Senate
Intelligence Committee chair Sen. Diane
Feinstein, D.-Calif.
In a major speech on drone strikes this May,
President Obama openly acknowledged
civilian deaths, saying "they will haunt us
for as long as we live" -- but didn't provide
any hard numbers or estimates.
"It is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have
resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that
exist in every war," Obama said. "And for
the families of those civilians, no words or
legal construct can justify their loss."
According to Emmerson, the Pakistani
government provided him with new
casualty numbers for strikes in the country's
Federally Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA), where the U.S. government has
targeted Al Qaeda operatives and their
associates since 2004. While acknowledging
the difficulty in compiling precise figures in
a region largely beyond government control,
he states that Pakistani officials confirmed
"at least 400 civilians had been killed as a
result of remotely piloted aircraft strikes and
a further 200 individuals [killed] were
regarded as probably non-combatants." He
added that Pakistani officials said those
figures were likely to be an underestimate,
due to "underreporting and obstacles to
effective investigation."
Emmerson told NBC News that there is no
reason "on the face of it" to question the
Pakistani government's number because
they were broadly in line with the lower end
of figures compiled by non-governmental
groups and independent media monitoring.
He said one major difficulty in calculating
any numbers is a differing view of who
constitutes a civilian. Pakistani officials, he
said, tend to view the owner of a home
where suspected al Qaeda operatives are
staying as a non-combatant, an assessment
not generally shared by U.S. officials.
Emmerson also said that he and his
researchers had identified 33 "sample
remotely piloted aircraft strikes that appear
to have resulted in civilian casualties." Most
of these were by the U.S., he said, but about
"eight or nine" were Israeli strikes in Gaza.
He did not identify the strikes, saying he is
still investigating them and plans to present
his findings to the U.N. Human Rights
Council.
The highest level of civilian casualties,
Emmerson said, occurred when the CIA
ramped up drone strikes in Pakistan
between 2008 and 2010. Since then, he said,
drone strikes in Pakistan have steadily
declined and "the number of civilian deaths
has dropped dramatically."
Emmerson's estimate of civilian casualties
from drone strikes in Yemen ranged from 21
to 58.
A former Pakistani official told NBC News
that the figures the Pakistani government
supplied to Emmerson were much higher
than earlier estimates and could have been
influenced by domestic politics, given
mounting domestic resistance in that
country to U.S. drone operations.
The number is still "significant," said Letta
Taylor, a senior counter-terrorism researcher
for Human Rights Watch, because it is the
first time a United Nations investigator has
attached specific numbers to the issue of
civilian death. She acknowledged, however,
that "all the figures are estimates. We're all
operating in an information blackout."
In a statement, White House spokesperson
Laura Magnuson said, "We are aware that
this report has been released and are
reviewing it carefully."
She noted that at the National Defense
University on May 23, "[T]he President
spoke at length about the policy and legal
rationale for how the United States takes
action against al Qaeda and its associated
forces. As the President emphasized, the use
of lethal force, including from remotely
piloted aircraft, commands the highest level
of attention and care. Of particular note,
before we take any counter-terrorism strike,
there must be near-certainty that no civilians
will be killed or injured - the highest
standard we can set."
PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE
Gao Zhisheng
by Joyce Wolf
Human Rights Watch identified Gao Zhisheng,
Group 22's adopted prisoner of conscience, as an
example of a human rights defender singled out
for particularly harsh treatment by the Chinese
government.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/10/17/upr-
submission-china
This statement from HRW is for the Universal
Periodic Review (UPR) of China by the United
Nations Human Rights Council, scheduled for
October 22 in Geneva. The UPR is "a unique
process which involves a review of the human
rights records of all UN Member States. With the
UN Human Rights Council's support, the UPR
provides the opportunity for each State to
declare what actions they have taken to improve
the human rights situations in their countries
and to fulfill their human rights obligations. It
also provides the opportunity for civil society
organisations to engage in the process, which
aims at reminding States of their responsibility
to fully respect and implement all human rights
and fundamental freedoms."
http://www.hrichina.org/content/6979
The documentary film, Transcending Fear: The
Story of Gao Zhisheng, now has its own
website, http://transcendingfearfilm.com,
where you can read a statement from director
Wenjing Ma telling how she came to make the
film. It's showing Nov. 3 in Ottawa, Canada, at
the 4th annual festival of the Free Thinking Film
Society. Unfortunately the film is not available
on Netflix. We might consider contacting
Wenjing Ma about showing the film in the Los
Angeles area, if we can get the involvement of
other local human rights organizations. In the
meantime, you can "like" the film on its
facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/TranscendingFear.
?
Group 22's photo of our action to send birthday
cards to Gao Zhisheng's 10-year old son was
retweeted on the Twitter account dedicated to
Gao Zhisheng. Visit (and retweet if you wish)
https://twitter.com/GaoZhisheng.
DEATH PENALTY NEWS
By Stevi Carroll
Herman Wallace
Herman Wallace lived 41 years in solitary
confinement. In 1971, Mr. Wallace and two
other men were convicted of armed robbery and
sentenced to the Louisiana State Prison at
Angola. Because of the conditions at the prison,
including sexual assault and enslavement, Mr.
Wallace joined the Black Panthers and began
protesting for improved conditions and
protecting newly arrived inmates.
When Brent Miller, a prison guard, was
murdered, Associated Warden Hayden Dees
thought "A certain type of militant or
revolutionary inmate, maybe even a communist
type" should be locked down at all times. A
member of the Black Panthers definitely would
have fit that description.
Brent Miller's case had intrigue. The murdered
guard was born on the prison grounds in a
community made up of prison employees. The
star witness against Mr. Wallace and his co-
defendant, Albert Woodfox, was known
jailhouse snitch. The grand jury was not 'of his
peers.'
Mr. Wallace was found guilty of Mr. Miller's
murder. At the time of his conviction, the
Supreme Court had ruled the death penalty to
be cruel and unusual; therefore, Mr. Wallace
received life without parole.
Mr. Wallace spent decades in solitary
confinement. A judge finally overturned his
sentence on constitutional grounds. He was
released from prison October 1, 2013. Three days
later Herman Wallace died a free man.
To learn more about this case, go to
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.ph
p?storyId=96199165
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/1
2/herman-wallace-angola-3-solitary-
confinement?page=2
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/14/
headlines/hundreds_honor_angola_3_member_
herman_wallace_at_funeral
Before Mr. Wallace died, Democracy NOW! did
segment on his release. This set of interviews
clarifies many of the details of this case.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/2/af
ter_4_decades_in_solitary_dying
Albert Woodfox
Albert Woodfox, a co-defendant with Herman
Wallace, continues to live in solitary
confinement where he has been for more than 40
years. He reports being strip searched,
including cavity searches, as many as six times a
day. According to Amnesty International, Mr.
Woodfox's conviction has been overturned three
times and yet he languishes in the SHU.
To read more on his case, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-
releases/state-of-louisiana-must-not-appeal-
federal-ruling-overturning-conviction-in-angola-
3-case
To take an online action, go to
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/ad
vocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=6oJCLQPAJiJUG&b
=6645049&aid=520358
Harry Mitts, Jr.
Harry Mitts, Jr. isn't as well known as Paris
Hilton or Sarah Palin, but what happened to
him is an historical event. He is the last man
Ohio executed before its supply of pentobarbital
expired the end of September, and Ohio and
other states won't be able to get any more of
their execution drug of choice. The Danish
manufacturer Lundbeck won't sell pentobarbital
to states that use it for executions and plans to
support this decision in accordance with Danish
law and European human rights law. Since
Ohio has an execution scheduled for November
14, they must find a solution to this problem.
But for Harry Mitts, Jr. - well, someone has to be
last, but he may not be the last person executed
in Ohio since a new plan for getting execution
drugs seems available.
Compounding Pharmacies
Compounding pharmacies may be the savior for
the execution business. That's what at least five
states, South Dakota; Texas; Ohio; Georgia; and
Colorado, hope. Apparently, three
compounding pharmacies are ready to supply
executioners with the drugs needed. October
9th, Michael Yowell died from a dose of
pentobarbital from a compounding pharmacy.
One problem with compounded drugs is that
they may not be safe or they may cause other
infections, diseases, or problems. In 2012, a
Massachusetts compounding pharmacy created
tainted drugs that caused an outbreak of a rare
type of meningitis. Fifty people died and more
than 700 other people were sickened in 20 states.
In the case of Michael Yowell, U. S. District
Judge Lynn Hughes succinctly put it,
"Pentobarbital will kill Yowell in five to eighteen
minutes and his consciousness will be
diminished almost immediately; therefore,
infections like meningitis will not hurt him
because they require weeks to incubate."
David Ball, a spokesman for the compounding
industry, has said that only three pharmacies
have supplied compounded drugs for lethal
injection at this point. He also said that no
compounding pharmacy actively seeks the
business of making drugs to kill people. Mr.
Ball said, "Every pharmacist that I know chose
their profession in part out of a desire to help
people, and that is what they focus on in their
work." Maybe this is why the owner of
Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy sent a
letter to Texas corrections officials telling them
he wanted the pentobarbital his pharmacy had
created and they'd purchased back.
We will have to see what happens with the
compounding pharmacies and state sanctioned
murder in the USA.
I Am Troy Davis
Many of us remember the months, weeks, days
and hours that led up to September 21, 2011,
when Troy Davis was executed. In September,
new book, I Am Troy Davis by Jen Marlowe,
Martina-Correia Davis, and Troy Davis, was
published by Haymarkets Books. Sister Helen
Prejean, long-time anti-death penalty activist
and author of Dead Man Walking, wrote the
forward.
To read more about the book and its authors, go
to
http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/I-Am-
Troy-Davis
http://thegrio.com/2013/10/18/i-am-troy-
davis-new-book-humanizes-death-penalty-
icon/#s:i_am_troy_davis_frontcover
Stays of execution
October
16 Larry Hatton Texas
23 Allen Nicklasson Missouri
Executions
September
25 Harry Mitts Ohio
1-drug lethal injection1
26 Arturo Diaz Texas
1-drug lethal injection
October
1 Marshall Gore Florida
3-drug lethal injection2
9 Edward Schad Arizona
1-drug lethal injection
9 Michael Yowell Texas
1-drug lethal injection
15 William Happ3 Florida
3-drug lethal injection4
Notes:
1. Pentobarbital
2 Pentobarbital - I don't know why only one drug is
listed
3. volunteer - an inmate who waived ordinary
appeals that remained at the time of his execution.
Mr. Happ had been on death row for 24 years.
4. midazolam hydrochloride
GROUP 22 MONTHLY LETTER COUNT
UAs 17
POC Cards 6
Total 23
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.