Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XV Number 2, February 2007
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, February 22, 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.
Saturday, March 10, 11:00 AM. Film Screening. Laemmle's One Colorado
Theatre, 42 Miller Alley, Old Pasadena. Amnesty International USA's
Western Region & Stop Violence Against Women Coordinator Sakinah Kahn
are pleased to support: A screening of "View from a Grain of Sand"
followed by Q & A with filmmaker Meena Nanji. Tickets: $10.
Combining vérité footage, interviews and archival material, filmmaker
Meena Nanji has fashioned a harrowing, yet intimate portrait of the
plight of Afghan women in the last 30 years from the rule of King
Mohammed Zahir Shah to the current government to the activist work of
RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Over a
period of five years, she spent months in a refugee camp in Pakistan,
where she documented the efforts of three women to rebuild their lives
and help others: Shapire, a teacher; Roeena, a physician; and Wajeeha,
an activist.
Seating is limited. Please call 323-632-5558 for tickets. Crafts from
RAWA's Income Generation Project will be on sale at the event. All
proceeds will benefit RAWA's vital social programs. For more info call
(323) 632-5558 or email rawasupporterssouthcal@hotmail.com.
Tuesday, March 13, 7:30 PM. Letter-writing Meeting at the Athenaeum.
Corner of California & Hill. We meet downstairs in the cafeteria. This
informal gathering is a great way for newcomers to get acquainted with
Amnesty!
Sunday, March 18, 6:30 PM. Rights Readers Human Rights Book Discussion
Group. Vroman's Book Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. This
month we read the late Anna Politkovskaya's last book, Putin's Russia
(More below.)
March 21 & 22, Conference, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles.
Join the Aliados con Amnesty Network in a conference to Stop Violence
Against Women in Guatemala. MuJER and Loyola Marymount University will
be hosting an international conference in Los Angeles, on the violent
murders of women in Guatemala which has surpassed 2,500 since 2001. The
conference will create a safe space to lecture and debate femicide, its
theories, the culture of violence behind this issue, and actions to
investigate, prevent and stop the violent murders of women in this
country. For more info please visit: www.stopfemicide.com.
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
Hello everyone! This is Joyce, substituting for our co-coordinator
Kathy, who usually writes this column. Kathy has embarked on a Masters
program in School Nurse Education that will occupy all her weekends and
her summer break. We wish her the very best success, but we'll miss her
column. Various Group 22 members will be taking turns to write the
column, and this month you're stuck with me.
On Sunday, Jan. 28, some of us from Group 22 went to see the film "God
Grew Tired of Us." This documentary follows three of the Lost Boys of
Sudan as they start new lives in the USA. The film is warm with flashes
of humor as the youths cope with alien American gadgets and food and
culture. It's inspiring to watch them grow into thoughtful, dignified
young men who are eager to help their people back in Africa. John Dau,
in particular, was most impressive. After the film, we enjoyed a
pleasant discussion and equally pleasant beers at Gordon Biersch. Thanks
to Marie-Helene and Lucas for organizing another enjoyable film night.
Unfortunately this film didn't get any Academy Award nominations, but
two films that our group attended last year did receive nominations:
Last King of Scotland for Best Actor and "Water" for Best Foreign
Language Film. ("Water" was the terribly touching story of child widows
in India, set in 1938, but the widow houses still exist today.) "Blood
Diamond" is another award nominee that's related to Amnesty concerns.
And don't forget the nominations for "Inconvenient Truth" and "Letters
from Iwo Jima." Dare we hope there's a trend here? In future, watch for
"Bordertown" with Jennifer Lopez, about the Juarez murders -- no US
release date yet.
Usually around this time of year I'd be getting ready for Group 22's
participation in the Los Angeles Environmental Education Fair at the
Arboretum. Veronica arranged our first exhibit there in 2000, and with
Martha's help it's been a really successful and fun event for us every
year since. But alas, no longer! The LAEEF steering committee has made
major changes this year. They are inviting only "environmentally based
organizations" and they feel that we do not fit their new 2007
qualifications for the Fair. It's disappointing. However, we still plan
to be in the Pasadena Earth Day event on April 21 -- save the date.
Happy Year of the Boar! (sounds better than Pig?) And remember to
celebrate Women's Day March 8 (see Up-coming Events and the SVAW below
for suggestions!)
Joyce aigp22@caltech.edu
CHINA/TIBET
Tibetan Refugees Fear for Safety at Border
A group of Tibetans who were detained in September 2006, when they were
trying to flee from China to Nepal were tortured in custody. According
to members of the group who were released, the older teenagers and
adults were beaten with rubber batons and electric-shock prods. The
younger children were not beaten, but were interrogated. It is not clear
if all those who were detained have been released or if some still
remain in custody.
On 30 September 2006 a group of approximately 70 unarmed Tibetans who
were trying to flee China were shot at by the Chinese border control
troops at Nangpa pass in the Himalayas. The Nangpa pass is a commonly
used escape route for those fleeing China to Nepal. The shooting was
witnessed by an international group of mountaineers who videotaped one
person, a 17 year old nun Kelsang Namtso, die at the scene and two
others fall.
At least 25 members of the group, 10 of whom were children, were taken
into custody while the rest managed to escape to Nepal. According to one
of the detainees who later managed to flee from Tibet, those detained
were first taken to a detention centre in Dingri but were transferred to
Shigatse after a few days. Altogether they were kept in custody for
periods ranging from several days to several months, and some may still
remain in custody. Parents of the children were allowed to collect them
from detention for a fee between 100 yuan (US$12) and 500 yuan (US$60).
In Shigatse, the younger children were assigned to do cleaning work and
the older teenagers and adults were assigned to construction work.
Following international pressure, the Chinese authorities admitted that
one person had died at the shooting, and that two others, one of whom
later died from "lack of oxygen" were taken to a local hospital for
medical treatment.
It is believed that one of them is a young Tibetan boy named Kamsang
Namgyal. The authorities claimed that the troops had shot at the group
in self-defense and that this is part of "normal border management." At
the time of the shooting there were reports of up to six further
casualties but these reports remain unconfirmed.
Background information. Freedom of religion, expression and association
continue to be severely restricted in Tibet, and as result many are
imprisoned for peacefully exercising their basic human rights. As
elsewhere in China, arbitrary detentions, unfair trials and torture and
ill-treatment remain commonplace. According to the ICT, between 2,000
and 3,000 Tibetans flee China every year via Nepal to India. About a
third of them are children who are sent to Tibetan schools in India,
while many others are monks and nuns seeking religious education.
Tibetans fleeing China have been shot at by both the Chinese and
Nepalese military personnel before, but this is the most severe incident
that has come to public attention in recent years.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:
- calling for an official investigation into the allegations of torture,
with a view of bringing those found responsible to justice;
- calling on the authorities to clarify whether all those detained at
Nangpa pass on 30 September 2006 have been released; to clarify the
names, whereabouts and legal status of those who may remain in detention;
- calling upon the authorities to release those who may still be
detained immediately and unconditionally; unless they are charged with a
recognizably criminal offence;
- condemning the reported shooting of civilians by Chinese border
control personnel;
- urging the authorities to confirm the identity of those who died or
were injured in the shooting, and adequately compensate the victims or
their families.
APPEALS TO:
Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China:
WEN Jiabao Guojia Zongli
The State Council
9 Xihuangcheng Genbeijie
Xuanwuqu
Beijingshi 100032, People's Republic of China
Email: gazette@mail.gov.cn
Minister of Public Security of the People's
Republic of China:
ZHOU Yongkang Buzhang
Gong'anbu
14 Dongchang'anjie
Dongchengqu
Beijingshi 100741, People's Republic of China
Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Regional
People's Government:
Jampa PHUNTSOG Zhuren
Xizang Zizhiqu Renmin Zhengfu
1 Kang'angdonglu
Lasashi 850000
Xizang Zizhiqu, People's Republic of China
COPIES TO:
Ambassador Wen Zhong Zhou
Embassy of the People's Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington DC 20008
Email: chinaembassy_us@fmprc.gov.cn
ERITREA
Death of Fessahaye Yohannes in Custody
On February 15 Amnesty International released a public statement,
"Eritrea: Prominent journalist reported dead in secret prison." (The
statement is available at http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/eritrea.)
The journalist is Fessahaye Yohannes (known as "Joshua"), who was
arrested in September 2001 along with other journalists and former
government ministers, including Group 22's adopted prisoner of
conscience, Estifanos Seyoum. These detainees were held incommunicado
without charge or trial since their arrest. AI considers them to be
prisoners of conscience, since they had neither used nor advocated
violence in the expression of their political opinions.
Group 22 began working in behalf of Estifanos Seyoum in the spring of
2006. However, Amnesty International has now closed the case files of
all the individual Eritrean POCs and replaced them with a new thematic
action file, Political Repression in Eritrea. Part of the motivation for
the restructuring of the Eritrea casework were unconfirmed reports
circulating on the Internet concerning the deaths of several of the
detained journalists. Because Eritrea is closed to human rights
investigators, AI cannot confirm these reports by direct evidence, but
evidently has now assessed their credibility to be high enough to issue
a public statement.
The case of Fessahaye Joshua Yohannes was one of those featured in the
new Eritrea action file. The AI Casework office suggested that local
groups who do not wish to abandon their adopted POC could link their POC
with one of the featured cases in the new action file. So Group 22 will
continue to mention Estifanos as we work on the new thematic file.
Here is a sample letter for this month that you can copy or use as a
guide. Postage to Eritrea is 84 cents.
His Excellency
Issayas Afewerki
Office of the President
PO Box 257
Asmara, Eritrea
Your Excellency,
I read with dismay and deep sadness the public statement issued by
Amnesty International regarding the reported death of Eritrean
journalist Fessahaye Yohannes.
I join the members of Amnesty International in urgently calling upon you
to do the following:
--Establish an impartial and independent judicial inquiry to investigate
the reported death of Fessahaye "Joshua" Yohannes and that of other
co-detainees who have also allegedly died, and to authorize this inquiry
to visit the Eiraeiro prison;
--State publicly what has happened to Fessahaye Johannes and Estifanos
Seyoum and other detainees who were arrested in September 2001;
--If any detainees are dead, return their bodies to their families for
burial, and bring to justice those responsible for any criminal actions
or negligence resulting in their deaths;
--If the detainees are alive, release them immediately and
unconditionally, as prisoners of conscience who have neither used nor
advocated violence.
Thank you for your attention to these urgent matters.
[Your name and address]
RIGHTS READERS
Human Rights Book Discussion Group
Keep up with Rights Readers at http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com
Sunday, March 18, 6:30 PM
Vroman's Bookstore
695 E. Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena
Putin's Russia
by Anna Politkovskaya
Putin's Russia depicts a far-reaching state of decay. Politkovskaya
describes an army in which soldiers die from malnutrition, parents must
pay bribes to recover their dead sons' bodies, and conscripts are even
hired out as slaves. She exposes rampant corruption in business,
government, and the judiciary, where everything from store permits to
bus routes to court appointments is for sale. And she offers a scathing
condemnation of the ongoing war in Chechnya, where kidnappings,
extrajudicial killings, rape, and torture are begetting terrorism rather
than fighting it.
LETTER COUNT
Eritrea 8
Urgent Actions 25
Total: 33
To add your letters to the total contact lwkamp@sbcglobal.net
DEATH PENALTY
Texas man faces execution on weak evidence
Donald Miller is scheduled to be executed in Texas on 27 February 2007.
He was sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of Michael Mozingo
earlier that year. Donald Miller was 19 years old at the time of the
crime. He has been on death row for nearly 25 years.
Michael Mozingo and another man, Kenneth Whitt, were robbed and shot
dead on 2 February 1982. Three men were charged with the crime: Eddie
Segura, Danny Woods and Donald Miller.
Before Donald Miller's trial, Eddie Segura pleaded guilty to aggravated
robbery and became a key witness against Donald Miller. Segura was
sentenced after Miller's trial, to 25 years in prison. Before Miller's
trial, Danny Woods, who admitted to shooting Kenneth Whitt, pleaded
guilty to murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Woods did not
testify at Miller's trial. Donald Miller, according to his trial
attorney (now deceased), faced a death penalty trial after he refused a
plea bargain of a life sentence in return for a guilty plea.
Following an evidentiary hearing in 2002, a federal district court judge
ruled in 2004 that the prosecution had withheld exculpatory evidence at
Donald Miller's trial, in violation of the US Supreme Court's 1963
ruling, Brady v. Maryland. The federal judge found that the withheld
evidence was material to the question of sentencing: that is, the
sentence might have been different if the evidence had not been suppressed.
The evidence in question related to statements made by witnesses prior
to the trial. The federal judge noted that pre-trial statements made by
Ray McCall, who was the brother of Eddie Segura's then-girlfriend, were
inconsistent with his trial testimony against Miller and could have been
used by the defense to undermine McCall's credibility. At the 2002
evidentiary hearing, Miller's trial lawyer had described McCall's
testimony as "the most devastating testimony in the whole trial" in
that it depicted Donald Miller as a cold-blooded and remorseless killer.
The federal judge also noted inconsistencies in the statements of
another witness, Archie Morris, who was Ray McCall's grandfather. Prior
to the trial, Morris had told investigators that he only owned a .22
caliber handgun and had not given it to Donald Miller. At the trial,
however, he testified that on the day of the crime Miller had borrowed
from him the .38 caliber gun used in the shooting.
In addition, the state suppressed affidavits from four people who did
not testify at the trial. Robert White, for example, stated that Danny
Woods had told him that after one of the victims had been killed with a
shotgun, "either Danny or the guy with Danny then reached down into his
boot and pulled a .38 pistol and shot the other guy when he started to
run". Miller's appeal lawyers have argued that this was important
because it was established at trial that Miller was not wearing boots at
the time of the murders. White's affidavit also states that the day
after the murders, Woods had denied that Miller was involved. The
federal judge found that the affidavits indicated that Woods may have
killed both victims and that Segura was armed at the time.
On appeal to the US Court of Appeals to the Fifth Circuit, the state
argued that District Court's decision was wrong, and Miller's appeal
lawyers countered that the suppressed evidence not only went to the
question of the reliability of the sentence, but also to the question of
Miller's guilt. The Fifth Circuit panel rejected Miller's arguments
about guilt and overturned the District Court's ruling on sentencing.
One of the three judges dissented, arguing that "the various pieces of
evidence, taken together, could have raised a reasonable doubt in a
juror" when deciding whether to vote for a death sentence. On McCall's
testimony, the dissenting judge noted that although McCall was
"generally impeached on cross-examination as a dishonest criminal who
was not always truthful with the police during the investigation",
there "is a significant difference between evidence that a witness is
generally not truthful and specific evidence that he gave inconsistent
statements with respect to the subject of his crucial testimony....The
defence was not able to cross-examine McCall about his [pre-trial]
statements..." The judge said that McCall provided "important
corroboration of Segura's account of the crime, which portrayed Miller
as a leader in the killings, so weakening his testimony could have cast
doubt on whether Miller planned the killings and was an actual shooter".
Similarly, Archie Morris' testimony had provided "critical
corroboration...linking Miller to one of the murder weapons" and yet
the credibility of his testimony had gone unchallenged at the trial.
In Texas, a jury can only pass a death sentence if it unanimously agrees
that the defendant would likely commit future criminal acts of violence
if allowed to live, even in prison (the "future dangerousness"
question). The dissenting Fifth Circuit judge noted that undermining the
prosecution's portrayal of Donald Miller as ringleader and gunman in the
crime could have affected the jury's finding that he posed a future danger.
A study published by the Texas Defender Service in 2004 concluded that
predictions of "future dangerousness" in the Texas death penalty
system were wrong in a majority of cases, and that "basing capital
sentencing decisions on predictions of future dangerousness is
unjustifiable -- and not only because a system that so allots punishment
in effect punishes defendants for offences they may or may not commit,
thus violating the fundamental legal principle that the accused is
innocent until proven guilty." During his nearly 25 years on death row,
Donald Miller is reported never to have been disciplined for violent or
aggressive behaviour towards other inmates, guards, or anyone else. He
was reportedly once accused of assaulting a guard, but was cleared of
this by the prison system.
In 1995, a US Supreme Court Justice wrote that executing a prisoner who
had been on death row for 17 years -- eight years less than Donald Miller
has suffered -- arguably negated any deterrent or retributive
justification for the punishment. In 2002, in the case of an inmate who
had been on death row for about 27 years, another Justice wrote of this
"extraordinarily long confinement under sentence of death, a
confinement that extends from late youth to later middle age." If
executed, the Justice stated, the prisoner would have been "punished
both by death and also by more than a generation spent in death row's
twilight. It is fairly asked whether such punishment is both unusual and
cruel", in violation of the US Constitution.
Since the USA resumed judicial killing in 1977, there have been 1,062
executions, of which 383 (36 per cent) have been carried out in Texas.
Texas has executed nearly four times as many people as the next leading
death penalty state, Virginia. Although there are signs that the USA is
slowly turning against capital punishment, the rate of judicial killing
in Texas remains high. In 2006, Texas carried out 24 executions, five
times as many as the next highest state total. Four of the five
executions in the USA so far in 2007 have been carried out in Texas.
Governor Perry's governorship of Texas has seen 144 executions in the
state (since 2001). There were 152 executions in Texas during the
five-year term of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals:
- expressing sympathy for the family and friends of Michael Mozingo and
Kenneth Whitt, stating that you are neither seeking to condone the
manner of their deaths in 1982 nor to downplay the suffering caused;
- opposing the execution of Donald Miller for the murder of Michael Mozingo;
- expressing concern that the prosecution suppressed evidence at his
trial, and noting that two federal judges have concluded that the
evidence could have made a different to the sentencing outcome;
- noting that despite doubts about whether Donald Miller was the
ringleader in the crime, as the prosecution depicted, he would be the
only defendant to be executed, raising questions of arbitrariness;
- noting that the jury's determination that Donald Miller would be a
future danger to society, even in prison, has not been borne out by his
past 25 years on death row;
- calling on the Governor to stop this execution and do all in his power
to bring about clemency.
APPEALS TO:
Governor Rick Perry
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428, USA
STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Urge Congress to support Guatemala resolution
As our Women's Day action we encourage you to support the following action:
Sample Letter:
The Honorable Adam Schiff
United States House of Representatives
326 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-
Dear Representative Schiff:
I urge you to sign on to House Resolution 100 reintroduced on January
24, 2007 by Representative Solis (D-CA), and cosponsored by
Representatives Burton (R-IN) Lee (D-CA), Lantos (D-CA), and Engel
(D-NY). The resolution expresses the sympathy of the House of
Representatives to the families of women and girls murdered in Guatemala
and encourages the Government of Guatemala to bring an end to these
crimes. This resolution builds upon past Congressional support for this
issue; in May 2006, 117 Members of Congress signed a letter asking the
State Department to intervene to help end the violence.
More than 2,500 women and girls have been brutally murdered in Guatemala
since 2001. Many of the killings are preceded by abduction, sexual
assault or brutal mutilation. The lack of thorough and impartial
investigations into these and other violent crimes against women is
unacceptable. According to Amnesty International, as of June 2006, only
two convictions had taken place in over six hundred cases of women
reported murdered in 2005.
The Guatemalan government committed specifically to protecting the lives
of women in 1995 when it ratified the Convention of Belém do Pará (The
Inter-American Convention for the Prevention, Punishment, and
Eradication of Violence against Women) and the UN Convention to
Eliminate all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Yet
violence against women in the family and sexual harassment have not been
criminalized. The office of the Guatemalan Special Prosecutor for Crimes
Against Women receives approximately 800 reports of domestic violence
per month, with some of those cases ending in murder. If Guatemalan law
provided for prison sentences in cases of domestic violence, such
murders could be prevented.
I strongly urge you to sponsor House Resolution 100 and help put an end
to violence against women in Guatemala. Thank you for your attention to
this important matter.
Sincerely,
Your NAME and ADDRESS
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Ordinary People, Extraordinary Change
Despite milestone victories last year, violence against women remains a
world scourge. The United States government continues to condone torture
in the war on terror. Individuals around the world are at risk of human
rights abuses. Meeting these and other challenges takes extraordinary
effort. And it's up to activists to make change.
You are cordinally invited to participate in the 2007 Annual General
Meeting (AGM) March 23 - March 25, 2007 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The AGM is Amnesty International USA's annual national conference for
ALL members and activists to join, meet, learn, discuss and create
extraordinary change! With renowned speakers, inspirational programming,
and opportunities to connect with others, you won't want to miss the
2007 AGM.
A tentative program including workshops and panel discussions can be
found here: http://www.amnestyusa.org/events/agm/tentativeschedule.html
Details regarding registration and accommodations can be found at
http://www.amnestyusa.org/events/agm/