Volume X Number 1, January 2002
UPCOMING
EVENTS
Thursday,
January 24, 7:30 PM. Monthly Meeting 414 S. Holliston, Caltech Y Lounge.
Help us plan future actions on Afghanistan, Tibet, the Campaign against Torture
and abolition of the death penalty.
Monday,
January 28, 8:00-10:00 PM. Vigil to protest the execution of Stephen Wayne
Anderson. All Saints Church, 132 N. Euclid Avenue. Interfaith
program begins at 9:00 P.M. See
inside for details about this case.
Tuesday,
February 12, 7:30 PM.
Letter-writing Meeting at the Athenaeum.
Corner of California & Hill in the basement recreation area. An informal meeting, a great place for
first-timers to ask questions!
Sunday, February 17, Time TBA. Rights Readers Human Rights Book Discussion Group. Vroman's Museum Collection (340 S. Lake Avenue in
Pasadena) This month we discuss Blindness by Jose Saramago. We
will most likely meet at 6:00 PM, but need to confirm with Vroman's. Call
Martha at 626-281-4039 to confirm. (See below for more information about the
book).
Saturday,
February 23, 7:30 PM. Mini-Conference at Calstate-Fullerton. Workshops on a variety of
human rights topics. Meet other area Amnesty activists! See attached flyer for
more information.
PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE
Ngawang Pekar, Tibetan Monk
Group 22 has a
long-term commitment to work in behalf of our adopted POC, Ngawang Pekar. He is
a Tibetan monk who has been imprisoned since 1989, when the Chinese authorities
arrested him for participating in a peaceful demonstration.
In a survey that
rated political rights and civil liberties around the world, Tibet had the
worst score of the areas categorized as "Disputed Territories". The
survey, released in December 2001 by Freedom House, is a widely respected annual
comparative study. On a scale of 1 to 7, from most free to least free, Tibet
scored 7, while China itself was rated slightly better at 6.5. You can find
more information at http://www.freedomhouse.org.
One U.S. elected
official is trying to do something about this bleak state of affairs.
Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) visited China this month and urged the Chinese
authorities to release Tanak Jigme Sanak, a Tibetan political prisoner whose
current sentence runs until 2011, by which time he will be 85 years old and
have spent 41 years in prison. Speaking to journalists in Beijing on Jan.
9,Lantos praised China's cooperation in the war on terror, but warned that
Beijing will use the war to crack down on domestic dissent President Bush is
now scheduled to visit China on February 21-22.
Therefore this month
we suggest that you write directly to President Bush expressing your concerns
about Ngawang Pekar. A sample letter follows:
Dear President Bush,
I am writing to bring to your attention a
prisoner being held by Chinese authorities in Tibet Autonomous Region Prison
No. 1. The prisoner's name is NGAWANG PEKAR (layname: Paljor). Ngawang Pekar, a Tibetan monk, was
arrested in1989 for participating in a peaceful demonstration in the city of
Lhasa and sentenced to 8 years in prison. Subsequently, his sentence was
increased by an additional 6 years. Amnesty International considers him to be a
prisoner of conscience and I am concerned that he has been imprisoned solely
for the peaceful exercise of his universally recognized right to freedom of
expression. I am further deeply concerned about reports that he has been beaten
and denied access to medical care.
During your upcoming visit to China, I respectfully urge you to
request the Chinese authorities to review Ngawang Pekar's case, along with
those of other Tibetan political prisoners. Please ask the Chinese authorities
to give information on Ngawang Pekar's current status and state of health to
Amnesty International or other international organizations.
Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter. I
wish you a successful and safe journey.
Sincerely,
Address your letter to:
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Fax: 1 202 456 2461
E-mail: president@whitehouse.gov
LETTER COUNT
This Month
Prisoner of Conscience (Ngawang
Pekar): 4
Campaign Against Torture 5
Government Action Network 55
Just Earth Network 4
Death Penalty 3
Urgent Actions: 30
Israel/Palestine 18
Holiday Card Action 25
Total: 144
2001
Totals
Prisoner of Conscience (Ngawang
Pekar): 237
Death Penalty 18
Campaign Against Torture 67
Just Earth Campaign 74
Government Action Network 107
Summer/Holiday Postcard Actions 56
Urgent Actions 150
Total: 709
Want to add your letters to the
total? Get in touch with lucas.kamp@jpl.nasa.gov
Vroman's Museum
Collection
(340 S. Lake Avenue in Pasadena)
|
Blindness By Jose Saramago A
city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no
one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the
criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping
women. There is |
one
eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with
no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barren streets,
and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A
magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the
horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with
its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's
ultimately exhilarating spirit.
Jose
Saramago was born in Portugal in 1922..
In 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
JUST EARTH NETWORK
New Threats to Mexican
Environmentalists
Elifonso Martinez Torres (m), municipal representative of El
Zapotillal
Juan Bautista Valle (m), Hector Carrillo (m)
Other members of the Organizacion de Campesinos Ecologistas de la
Sierra de Petetlan y Coyuca de Catalan
The Mexican army has maintained a presence in
the communities of El Zapotillal and Canelejas, in the municipality of
Petetlan, Guerrero State, since 26 December 2001, reportedly intimidating and
harassing local people. Amnesty International is concerned for the safety of
people in the communities.
The OCESP, an environmental group that
campaigns against logging operations that threaten the forests of Guerrero with
activists and sympathizers in the area, particularly El Zapotillal. Members of
the Organizacion de Campesinos Ecologistas de la Sierra de Petetlan y Coyuca de
Catalan (OCESP), Peasant Environmentalist Organization of the Mountains of
Petetlan and Coyuca de Catalan have claimed that soldiers operate in collusion
with local political bosses (caciques) to fabricate charges against them. Over
recent years several OCESP members have been been detained by the military and
charged with drugs and firearms offences.
The army is responsible for counter
insurgency and counter narcotics operations in Guerrero. The presence of the
19th Infantry Battalion in Canalejas and El Zapotillal was reportedly part of
these duties. However, people in the communities have reported that soldiers
have threatened and intimidated them, positioning soldiers outside the house of
municipal representative (comisario municipal) Elifonso Martinez Torres, firing
shots into the air and asking about the whereabouts of OCESP members.
OCESP members Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro
Cabrera were arbitrarily detained by the army in 1999, in Petetlan
municipality, and tortured to force them to confess to drug and firearm offences.
They were later tried and convictes on the basis of these confessions. In
November 2001 President Fox ordered their release, after international and
national pressure highlighted the injustice the men had suffered.
Leading human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa, who
had represented Montiel and Cabrera, was murdered in her office in Mexico city
in October 2001. No one has yet been brought to justice for her murder. In
November 2001 many OCESP members and residents of El Zapotillal and other
nearby communities went to Mexico City to demand justice for the murdered
lawyer and petition the authorities to extend their investigation into the
murder to Guerrero. On their return to Guerrero a leading OCESP member
reportedly received death threats.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION. Political violence is
endemic in Guerrero. There is a heavy military presence in many parts of the
state, ostensibly to combat armed opposition groups and drug trafficking. This,
together with the presence of armed opposition groups, has contributed to the
grave human rights situation in the state. Over the years there have been
persistent reports of the military being responsible for human rights
violations.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to
arrive as quickly as possible:
á
expressing concern for the safety of people living in the
communities of Canalejas and El Zapotillal, Guerrero state, in particular
municipal representative Elifonso Martinez Torres and members of the
Organizacion de Campesinos Ecologistas de la Sierra de Petetlan y Coyuca de
Catalan (OCESP), including Juan Bautista Valle and Hector Carrillo, and asking
the authorities to guarantee their safety;
á
calling for a full, impartial and independent investigation into
reports that soldiers of the 19th Battalion have threatened and harassed these
communities, and for those responsible to be brought to justice;
á
reminding the authorities of their obligation to ensure that the
military carry out their work, including policing operations, in line with
international standards to protect human rights.
APPEALS TO:
President of the Republic:
Lic. Vicente Fox Quesada
Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Residencia Oficial de 'Los Pinos'
Col. San Miguel Chapultepec
Mexico D.F., C.P. 11850
MEXICO
Salutation:
Senor Presidente / Dear Mr President
Governor of Guerrero:
Lic. Rene Juarez Cisneros
Gobernador del Estado de Guerrero
Palacio de Gobierno, segundo piso
Plaza Central, Primer Congreso de Anahuac
Colonia Centro
Chilpancingo 39000
Guerrero
MEXICO
Salutation:
Senor Gobernador / Dear Governor
COPIES TO:
Ambassador Juan Jose Bremer Martino
Embassy of Mexico
1911 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20006
ICC PROGRESS REPORT
Senate drops Helms amendment!
Thanks to
your emails, faxes, and phone calls we succeeded in our effort to get the
Senate to remove the Helms version of the American Servicemembers Protection
Act and recede (defer) to the House on its version, which is only in effect for
one year. In the end, the final bill coming out of conference committee is
stripped of the notorious anti-International Criminal Court Helms amendment.
The bill will be voted on this week in the Congress. Our work is cut out for us next year, but we should declare
victory when we can -- and we can today.
The
removal of the Helms amendment is a big shot in the arm for individuals working
to support strong international justice.
While we could not remove all of the anti-ICC language, we helped
convince members of the conference committee to reject Senator Jesse Helms'
amendment that would have created a permanent law banning cooperation with the
court. The committee instead
agreed to maintain Representative Henry Hyde's amendment, which restricts the
use of U.S. funds to support or negotiate the ICC during this fiscal year.
There is still much more work to be done over the coming year to ensure the
U.S. is able to participate in ICC in the future. Your help will be crucial for this ongoing effort.
The
International Criminal Court, which will try those responsible for war crimes,
genocide and crimes against humanity, is expected to open in the Netherlands
next year with the support of the majority of the international community. The
1998 Rome treaty establishing the court needs 13 more ratifications to come
into force. So far, the court has
the support of nearly every European country, including key U.S. allies
Germany, England and France. We
will continue to press the U.S. Government to drop its opposition to the court
and to support efforts to bring those responsible for the world's worst human
rights abuses to trial.
Thanks to
all of the individuals whose efforts are helping to turn the tide for
international justice in the right direction. Your efforts are making a difference.
For more
information about the international criminal court visit http://www.amnestyusa.org/icc
and to continue. To receive updates on this issue email legal@aiusa.org
EXECUTION VIGIL
The poetry of Stephen
Wayne Anderson
Please join us Monday, January 28, 8:00-10:00 PM
for interfaith vigil to mark the execution of Stephen Wayne Anderson and call
for an end to the death penalty at All Saints Church, 132 N. Euclid Avenue.
Interfaith program begins at 9:00 P.M.
Mr. Anderson's case has been taken up
by PEN. PEN first learned of Mr. Anderson when he submitted several pieces of
creative writing to PEN American Center's Prison Writing Program. This program was launched in 1973 in
the belief that writing is inherently rehabilitative, and since then thousands
of inmates in U. S. Prisons have entered PEN's annual literary competition for
prisoners. Mr. Anderson was a
co-recipient of the 1990 Prison Writing Award for Poetry, and in 1999, his
poem, "Conversations With the Dead," was anthologized in Doing Time:
25 Years of Prison Writing. Please
find a sample of his writing below.
We will share more of his poetry at the vigil.
Like Raindrops Falling
Over these incarcerated years
I have heard men wail in the night,
mourning misplaced lives and lost
souls.
Most chilling was the sound of a man
weeping, his sorrow slowly splattering
over my awareness like raindrops
increasing upon the roof, until it
echoed
hollow through my mind. Let me tell you,
nothing seems as forlorn as the
profound crying
of an unseen man weeping in solitude.
- Stephen Wayne Anderson, 1 December
2000
DEATH PENALTY ACTION
California Prepares to
Execute Stephen Anderson
Stephen Anderson,
white, aged 48, is scheduled to be executed in California on 29 January 2002.
He was sentenced to death for the murder of 81-year-old Elizabeth Lyman, a
retired piano teacher, who was killed in her home in Bloomington, San
Bernardino County, in May 1980.
Stephen Anderson
broke into Elizabeth Lyman's home to burgle it after drinking a large quantity
of vodka. He states that he thought the house was empty and claimed that he
shot Elizabeth Lyman when she woke up and surprised him. After the shooting, he
did not attempt to leave the house, and was arrested when the police arrived
three hours later. He confessed to the crime. He is said to remain very remorseful
about the murder.
Anderson was
sentenced to death in 1981. He was granted a new sentencing because the jury
had not been asked to consider whether the murder had been intentional. In
1986, after a deliberation lasting many days, a second jury concluded that it
had been, and he was sentenced to death again.
To date, three jurors
from the earlier proceedings have stated that they do not believe that the
death sentence should be carried out. Their reasons include the fact that
Stephen Anderson's lawyer was 'completely outclassed' by the prosecutor and
'ill-prepared to present his case'; that family members of Elizabeth Lyman
believe a life sentence is adequate; and that some jurors felt pressured into
voting for death by other jurors.
At his trial and
re-sentencing, Stephen Anderson was represented by the same lawyer. The latter
defended two other capital clients in San Bernardino County between 1981 and
1986. In each case, the appeal courts found that his representation had fallen
below the standard required by the Constitution. The courts described the
lawyer's conduct, among other things, as 'deplorable'. Stephen Anderson's death
sentence has been allowed to stand, despite evidence that the lawyer's
representation of him was similarly inadequate - for example, he presented only
one mitigation witness at the 1986 re-sentencing, a retired prison minister
whose only meeting with Anderson had taken place the day before. The lawyer
failed to investigate or present to the jury compelling details of the physical
abuse and neglect Stephen Anderson suffered during his childhood and of his
other traumatic life experiences, including those he suffered while in prison
in New Mexico as a 21-year-old.
In 2000, a
three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the death
sentence by two votes to one. Last month, six Ninth Circuit judges dissented
against the majority's refusal to conduct a rehearing in front of the full
court (en banc): 'At a time when much of the civilized world is questioning the
fairness of our application of the death penalty...it is regrettable that this
court refuses to consider en banc the case of an individual sentenced to
death...after being represented by a court-appointed attorney whom we have now
twice deemed constitutionally ineffective in capital cases -- an attorney who
has demonstrated a willingness to lie to the court and to betray the interests
of his capital clients.' The dissenters said that Anderson's 'death sentence
may well have been imposed, not because of the crime that he committed, but
because of the incompetence of an attorney with little integrity and a pattern
of ineffective performance in capital cases', noting evidence from the other
two cases that the lawyer had been 'deceptive, untrustworthy, and disloyal to
his capital clients'. Of one client he had reportedly said that he 'did not
care 'what happened to him, and of the other that he 'deserves to fry'.
The dissent
concluded: '...we must at least ensure that the process we afford to
individuals whose lives we propose to take is both fair and consistent with
fundamental constitutional values. If the courts appoint incompetent counsel to
handle a capital case, we should not then compound that judicial error by
permitting the state to execute the ill-represented defendant. The system has
now failed doubly in Stephen Anderson's case.'
Amnesty International
opposes the death penalty in all cases. Those who lose relatives to murder
deserve compassion and respect, but a retributive execution is not such a
response. It simply extends the suffering to the family and friends of the
condemned,who for years anticipate the killing of their loved one. The loss
which Stephen Anderson's execution will inflict upon his mother, brother and
two sons has been brought to the attention of the Governor as part of the
clemency petition. The death penalty also denies the possibility of
rehabilitation. Stephen Anderson, for example, has become an award-winning
artist and poet on death row. His writings have been published in various media,
and his play, 'Lament from Death Row',was performed in New York in 1991.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to
arrive as quickly as possible, in your own words:
á
expressing sympathy for the family and friends of Elizabeth Lyman,
explaining that you are not seeking to minimize the suffering her death will
have caused;
á
opposing the execution of Stephen Anderson;
á
expressing concern at compelling evidence that his defence
representation was inadequate, noting the appalling record of the lawyer who
defended him and the dissent of the six Ninth Circuit judges;
á
noting that a number of the jurors now support clemency;
á
expressing concern that executions cause further suffering, to the
family of the condemned prisoner;
á
noting Stephen Anderson's efforts towards rehabilitation;
á
urging the Governor to grant clemency.
APPEALS TO:
Governor Gray Davis
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: 1 916 445 4633
E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov
Salutation: Dear Governor
NEW REPORT ON 9/11
FALLOUT
"War
on Terror" Degenerating into Global "Dirty War"
In a new report,
Amnesty International indicts governments' actions following September 11 that
put human rights at grave risk worldwide.
The report, "Rights at Risk," was released to coincide with a
meeting of the UN Security Council that will review the work of the Council's
Counter-Terrorism Committee.
"Amnesty
International is concerned that the 'war on terror' may be degenerating into a
global 'dirty war' of torture, detentions and executions," said Curt
Goering, Senior Deputy Executive Director for Amnesty International USA.
"A number of states have introduced new laws that violate human rights
standards while others have used existing measures to crack down on
opposition."
The Counter-Terrorism
Committee was established by the Security Council following the September 11
attacks to monitor the far-ranging steps the Council said they must take to
combat terrorism. Today it will
start examining more than 100 reports from states about those measures.
Amnesty International's
50-page report describes human rights violations arising from
"anti-terrorist" measures taken by countries around the world both
before and after the attacks of September 11, including indefinite detention
without charge or trial; incommunicado detention, which facilitates torture;
unfair trials; and infringement of rights to freedom of expression, association
and assembly.
Amnesty
International's Secretary General, Irene Khan, wrote to the Security Council
urging it to take concrete steps to ensure that governments do not violate the
obligations and standards of international human rights law in the process,
stressing that "otherwise there is a grave risk, already borne out in some
countries, that security considerations will prevail over human rights."
In addition, as none
of the six experts the Committee appointed to assist it in its monitoring task
are experts in human rights, Amnesty International is calling upon the Security
Council to request the Counter-Terrorism Committee appoint an expert in international
law, including human rights, to assist the Committee in monitoring the actions
of states, and provide specific guidance on how states can comply with
international human rights standards in the context of implementing measures to
combat "terrorism."
"When the
security of a state and the safety of its people are at risk," Amnesty
International said, "it is vital that human rights standards and the rule
of law are upheld. Respect for all human rights is the only way to ensure real
security for all."
Editor's Last Word:
Read us on line: http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~aigp22
Martha Ter Maat, 626-281-4039 / mtermaat@hsc.usc.edu
From the 210 exit on Lake Avenue, head south, turn left
on Del Mar
From the 110 continue on Arroyo Parkway north, turn
right on California
Street parking is generally available.
Amnesty International
Group 22 P.O.
Box 50193 Pasadena, CA 91115-0193 Amnesty International |