Civil Rights

By Jeremy Borden, Daily Progress

It sounded like approaching thunder.

By Stephen Lendman

For regular readers of this site, Al-Arian needs no introduction. For others, here's a brief snapshot of his case before updating his current status:

-- Al-Arian is a Kuwaiti-born son of Palestinian refugees who fled during the 1947-49 Nakba catastrophe;

-- he came to America in 1975 and was denied citizenship because of his faith and ethnicity; ever since, he's been an award-winning scholar, community leader and civil activist;

-- he was a distinguished University of South Florida (USF) computer science professor until being unjustly fired for his human rights efforts for Arabs and Muslims;

-- now he's one of hundreds of political prisoners doing hard time in US prisons and treated no differently than others like him at Guantanamo;

By David Swanson

The guards at Guantanamo are terrified. Even a man with no legs (amputated after being intentionally exposed to extreme cold by American guards in Afghanistan) is treated as a horrifying threat:

"The bandages wrapped around Abdul's stumps were never changed. When he took them off himself, they were full of blood and pus. He showed the bandage to the guards and pointed to his open wounds. The guards ignored him. Later I saw how he tried to wash the bandages in his bucket of drinking water. But he could hardly move his hands, so he wasn't able to. And even if he had, where would he have hung them up to dry? He wasn't allowed to touch the fence. He wrapped his stumps back up in the dirty bandages.

"When the guards came to take him to be interrogated, they ordered him to sit with his back to the door and put his hands on his head. When they opened the door, they stormed in as they did with every other prisoner. They hit him on the back and pushed him to the ground. Then they handcuffed and bound him so he could no longer move. Abdul howled in pain."

I'm looking for folks who are either already involved in cross-disability rights activism or are interested in becoming involved in cross-disability rights activsims in the C'ville/Albemarle area. You can contact me at AlisonHymes@spamex.com

I have a blog that is mostly about psychiatric disability rights advocacy in Virginia here: http://hymes.wordpress.com

By David Swanson

I recently sent the following note to a friend. The note I was replying to is pasted in below it. You might want to skip down and read it first.

**

Thanks for raising an extremely important topic, one that I think we should all be examining closely and discussing in depth, especially with those who are starting from different positions, and even if we're afraid we may have to - in the end - agree to disagree.

CCPJ supports the efforts of the People United and their planned border crossing to highlight the struggles of immigrants to this country.

CCPJ supports the efforts of the Tibetan Association of Charlottesville to Stop the Killings and Oppression in Tibet. See:

http://www.tibetinfonet.org

http://www.tchrd.org

http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?s=tibet

_______

Olympic torch protesters scale Golden Gate Bridge
By Mary Anne Ostrom, San Jose Mercury News

Three members of Students for Free Tibet have climbed the suspension cables of the Golden Gate Bridge as activists, drivers and tourists converge on the bridge now at the center of an advance protest to the coming Olympic torch relay.

The protesters are wearing helmets and one is carrying a suitcase with him. All three protesters are tethered together. Ginger Cassady, spokeswoman for the group, identified the climbers as Duane Martinez, Laurel Sutherlin, both men of Sausalito, and Hannah Strange, from Oakland.

Four other members of the group are providing support to the climbers on the bridge walkway. One of the climbers pulled out a Tibetan flag.

Other groups, including the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, have also gathered on the bridge. But normal vehicle traffic, while slow, continues. Pedestrians and bicyclists are not being allowed to cross the bridge.

Bay Area News Service contributed to this report.

Slavery is not a thing of the past. It's alive and well for immigrant workers in south Florida who are brought into this country on false pretenses, put into debt, and beaten and threatened if they try to leave. CCPJ supports the efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to improve their lot. Please SIGN THIS PETITION.

The Hook has the story. King came here in 1963 just before the Birmingham marches and before the March on Washington. It was a low point following Albany campaign. King, being black, couldn't eat in most restaurants in Charlottesville or sleep in most hotels. (He stayed at the motel on Emmett Street now called the Budget Inn.) After King spoke, local residents took nonviolent action aimed at integrating a restaurant. Charlottesvillians and cavaliers failed to fill Cabell Hall for King's speech. I guess that's understandable though, since he wasn't a dead guy with a Nobel prize and a national holiday, but rather an agitator who would be as disgusted with how we're behaving now as he was with how people behaved back then.

Please call Governor Tim Kaine and ask him to improve it

The Virginia legislature has just passed a payday lending bill that slightly improves the current law permitting predatory lending in Virginia.

Governor Kaine can offer amendments to the bill that could truly break the cycle of debt.

On Sunday, February 24th, Chief Billy "Red Wing" Tayac of the Piscataway Nation spoke at the University of Virginia at an event sponsored by the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice (CCPJ), the American Indian Student Union, the National Native American Law Student Association, and the Office of the Dean of Students of UVA.

Chief Tayac has been an Indian activist for several decades, participating in many indigenous struggles, including Wounded Knee, Gankineh, Big Mountain, OK'a, Gustafson Lake, and the Salvadorian Indian and Ecuadorian Indian Movements. Chief Billy Tayac is currently working to assist Spanish speaking Indians who are suffering a new era of economic invasion resulting from NAFTA and the unregulated practices of many multinational corporations based in the United States. Once again Indian people are being forced off their land.

CCPJ produced a video of Chief Tayac's remarks: 3GP VIDEO.

On Thursday, February 21st, David Earnhardt, the writer, director, and producer of the best film yet released on election fraud, "Uncounted," showed the film and spoke about it in Charlottesville, Va., at an event hosted by the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice (CCPJ). The week of the event, Charlottesville's daily newspaper and its two weekly newspapers wrote about the movie and the issue of election fraud: Daily Progress, The Hook, and C'ville Weekly.

CCPJ recorded a 50-minute video that includes Earnhardt's opening remarks prior to the screening of the film, and his remarks and question-and-answer session at the end. During the Q&A, Earnhardt is joined on stage by CCPJ board member David Swanson.

Small faster-loading 3gp video.
Large higher quality m4v video.

Published by Friends of Gerry Mitchell on Jan 11, 2008

On November 5, Ben Gathright and Hayword Johnson watched as an Albemarle police officer drove his cruiser into artist Gerry Mitchell at the corner of West Main and Fourth streets.

Witnesses heard the driver apologize to Gerry, and say that he failed to see him because he was looking down instead of at the road. The officer pulled Gerry back into his wheel chair rather than calling for paramedics or offering first aid.

The wheelchair-bound Mitchell is suffering severe arm and shoulder injuries incurred in the incident. And a doctor believes the stress caused by the accidents and police misconduct may have caused his renal failure and the painful gout in all of his joints.

The Charlottesville police department has not charged the driver, but they went to the hospital and issued tickets to Gerry.

For weeks following the accident, the police, including Chief Longo, claimed there were no witnesses in spite of their own video proving that there were.

It is imperative that Gerry Mitchell be treated with respect and dignity and that the police departments be held accountable for their actions.

We have no confidence in the police department's ability or intention to adequately investigate themselves.

Petition:
Therefore, we call upon the Charlottesville City Council and the Attorney General of the Commonwealth to hold investigations into police misconduct and suspected corruption in the city and county police departments.

Sign the petition!

In 2008 many of us understand that our nation - and even the entire planet - are in a state of crisis. The deep longing for positive, lasting change is the bedrock upon which this conference is based. How do we fix our country and our world? And how can we form one mass movement to address the crisis?

In Radford, Virginia on May 22-25, thousands of activists, academics, journalists, poets, musicians and policymakers will converge at the 2008 "Building a New World" Conference. If you want to participate in building a new world, sign up now. Hotel and dorm rooms are limited.

Learn more about First WPA Summit 2008.

Register now.

Cindy Sheehan, William Blum, Kathy Kelly, Mike Whitney, Alice Lovelace, David Swanson, Gareth Porter, Medea Benjamin, Farid Bitar, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Robert Jensen, Kevin Zeese, Antonia Juhasz, Father Roy Bourgeois and many more leaders and luminaries will join thousands of people from across the country and from other lands as well, for a conference to lay the foundations for building a new world now.

Tomorrow, February 12, is the "Potomac Primary" -- the presidential primary contests for the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. Please make sure to cast your vote.

We also ask that you help us ensure that voting rights are protected and that the election is administered fairly.

If you experience, see or hear about voting problems in your state (or district), please call the toll-free, nonpartisan Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Virginia Constitution Article II, Section 3
http://legis.state.va.us/constitution/a2s3.htm
"Secrecy in casting votes shall be maintained, except as provision may be made for assistance to handicapped voters, but the ballot box or voting machine shall be kept in public view and shall not be opened, nor the ballots canvassed nor the votes counted, in secret."

In Virginia it is unconstitutional to count votes in secret, but on February 12th Virginia will use touch-screen electronic voting machines that count votes in secret with no possible way to verify the accuracy of the counting.

By David Swanson

By the time November 2008 rolls around, you will have endured over two years of breathless horse-race election coverage. (I, for one, am going to spend the next few days pushing Obama over Clinton, and then tune back in on Halloween to decide whether to vote for Obama, Nader, or McKinney. There are too many important things to work on in between.) But the big question (and one of the important things to work on) is this: will you have any way to know your vote is counted?

By Rian Chandler

During the Border Patrol recruitment at the Omni, about 15 activists infiltrated, gathered in the Border Patrol conference area, and carried out a mock arrest of fellow activist when they could not produce indigenous identification. The act temporarily halted recruitment activities and drew attention to the issues surrounding our failed immigration policies for all of those present. It also successfully drew the attention of the media and was covered by Channel 19 news, WINA radio, and The Daily Progress.

Here is the link to Channel 19 new's coverage.

Group Protests Border Patrol Recruitment
Reporter: Jummy Olabanji
Email Address: jummy.olabanji@wcav.tv

January 26, 2008

United States Border Patrol agents were in Charlottesville Saturday.

www.virginia-organizing.org

For more than a year, we have pushed for improved law enforcement training to reduce bias-based policing (including racial profiling). In order to evaluate current training standards and best practices, the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), the state agency that oversees police training, needs more resources.

Neocon Nutcase Frank Gaffney is scheduled to speak at UVA as part of the coming week's national fascistic lie fest known as Islamofascism Awareness Week. It would be very helpful if someone could find out the details (yes, even if you have to pretend to be a neocon) so that we can confront this bigotry before it grows.

By Tom Perriello (challenger to Virgil Goode next year), via OpenLeft

There are no shortcuts to securing our nation from attack. Our intelligence community needs our resources, not our rights.

The toxic combination of technology and terrorism has moved the surveillance debate from old-fashioned "wiretapping" into unfamiliar terrain. This is why I support modernizing "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" (FISA), and why I want those who thought they could bypass the current law to be held accountable. Some American companies had the courage to refuse supporting illegal surveillance. Shouldn't we be commending those who honored our freedoms instead of protecting those who went along?