NAACP Responds to Racists in Tea Party

After decades of progress, hate is on the rise in America. At rallies, on television, and across the Web racism and race-baiting has crept back into our public discourse. Against this tide, the NAACP unanimously pass the Tea Party Resolution, requesting that the Tea Party repudiate its racists members. We call on all Americans to stand for the values that have made our country great. Please read and sign the pledge.

THE PLEDGE

• I believe all Americans have equal rights and equal value.
• I cherish the diverse cultures, beliefs, and values of America.
• I believe we can disagree without being disagreeable.
• I repudiate all acts of racism and hate, both in words and action.
• I have faith in the promise of America – a promise built on mutual respect, common civility, and hope for a better tomorrow.
• I commit to building that better America by participating actively and peacefully in the democratic process.

We are one people. We are one nation. I’m an NAACP American.

SIGN THE PLEDGE

 

Promised Land | POV on PBS

Though apartheid ended in South Africa in 1994, economic injustices between blacks and whites remain unresolved. As revealed in Yoruba Richens incisive Promised Land, the most potentially explosive issue is land. The film follows two black communities as they struggle to reclaim land from white owners, some of whom who have lived there for generations. Amid rising tensions and wavering government policies, the land issue remains South Africas ticking time bomb, with far-reaching consequences for all sides. Promised Land captures multiple perspectives of citizens struggling to create just solutions. A co-production of the National Black Programming Consortium, American Documentary/POV and the Diverse Voices Project, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

A documentary film by Yoruba Richen

Airing on July 6, 2010 at 10pm, POV on PBS (Check your local listings).

Watch Promised Land | POV on PBS on July 7 through October 5, 2010.

 

Presumed Guilty | POV on PBS

Imagine being picked up off the street, told you have committed a murder you know nothing about and then finding yourself sentenced to 20 years in jail. In December 2005 this happened to Toño Zúñiga in Mexico City and, like thousands of other innocent people, he was wrongfully imprisoned. The award-winning Presumed Guilty is the story of two young lawyers and their struggle to free Zúñiga. With no background in film, Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete set about recording the injustices they were witnessing, enlisting acclaimed director Geoffrey Smith (The English Surgeon, POV 2009) to tell this dramatic story. A co-presentation with Latino Public Broadcasting.

A documentary film by by Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete
Directed by Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith

Airing on July 27, 2010 at 10pm, POV on PBS (Check your local listings)
Watch Presumed Guilty online: July 28 through August 4, 2010

 

Death to the Death Penalty | Amnesty International

 

Witnesses Recant in Troy Davis Case – by Eamon McNiff | ABC News

A man who dodged his date with the executioner three times, once by a mere 90 minutes, returns to a Savannah, Ga., courtroom today where so far four witnesses have recanted testimony that put him on death row 19 years ago.

Troy Anthony Davis, now 40, was convicted in 1991 of murdering Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.

According to court documents, the conviction was based on the testimony of nine witnesses who identified Davis as the man who shot MacPhail in 1989. There was no physical evidence introduced in the trial and the murder weapon was never found.

Now, 19 years later, most of those witnesses are recanting their testimony, including four who appeared in court Wednesday.

“I was so scared I told them anything they wanted to hear,” Jeffrey Sapp, a witness who fingered Davis as the shooter in the 1991 trail, said Wednesday in released testimony.

Sapp said in court Wednesday the police told him, “Just say Troy told you. Just say Troy told you.” Other witnesses told similar stories Wednesday, as Davis fights for his life after sitting on death row for close to 20 years.

Kevin McQueen had testified in 1991 that Davis admitted killing MacPhail, yet now McQueen says there is simply “no truth” to his original testimony.

“He never told me nothing like this. … He never confessed to shooting anybody to me,” McQueen testified Wednesday.

Last year the Supreme Court, for the first time in 50 years, granted a writ of habeas corpus for a case filed directly to its docket rather than hearing an appeal from a lower court ruling.

Excerpt, read entire article: Witnesses Recant in Troy Davis Case – by Eamon McNiff | ABC News

Join the Campaign: Justice for Troy Davis!

 

Iran’s Grim History of Death by Stoning – by Mike Wooldridge | BBC News

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani

Iran has said Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, will be spared being stoned to death for adultery while leaving it unclear what fate does await her. The mother of two was arrested in 2005 and subsequently convicted of having an “illicit relationship” for which she was given 99 lashes witnessed by her son, then in his late teens. Her case was then reopened and she was convicted of adultery during her marriage, for which she was given the sentence of death by stoning.

Iran’s existing penal code provides for this form of execution for one crime – adultery, an offence “against divine law” – though murder, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking are also punishable by death. Human rights campaigners say Iran has one of the highest rates of executions in the world.

Death by stoning came into use in Iran after the 1979 revolution. The case has sparked an international outcry Amnesty International says that at least eight people were stoned to death in 1986. The group says some people have linked this to the passing of a law that year which allowed the hiring of judges with minimal experience and that it led to an increase in the number of judges from a traditional religious background. In 1995, Amnesty International received reports that as many as 10 people may have been stoned to death that year. In 2002, the Iranian judiciary placed a moratorium on death by stoning.

But such sentences have continued to be reported. And Amnesty said this week that eight men and three women were awaiting the carrying out of sentences of stoning and since 2006 at least six people had been put to death in this manner. It also said 15 people had been saved from stoning.

The brief statement from the Iranian embassy in London announcing that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani would not be executed by stoning said that “this kind of punishment has rarely been implemented” in Iran. It also said stoning was not in a draft Islamic penal code currently under consideration in the Iranian parliament.

Excerpt, read entire article: Iran’s Grim History of Death by Stoning – by Mike Wooldridge | BBC News

 

Homes in Gaza Destroyed by Hamas | Al Jazeera

In Gaza, around 20 families have had their homes demolished as part of a plan to regulate housing in the strip. The deposed government of Hamas says the houses were built illegally on government -owned land and should be torn down. But the families say they paid for the land.

Al Jazeera’s Nicole Johnston reports from Rafah, in southern Gaza.

 

Cuba Vows to Release 52 Prisoners – by Marc Lacey | NYT

MEXICO CITY — The Cuban government on Wednesday agreed to release 52 political prisoners in the coming months, a dramatic move that may ease international criticism as well as save the life of a prominent dissident who has been on a hunger strike for four months to push for the liberation of inmates.

Ladies in White weekly march in Havana / Photo: Desmond Boylan/ Reuters

The announcement, which would reduce the number of prisoners of conscience on the island by about a third, came after a meeting that included President Raúl Castro of Cuba; Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana; and the Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos.

The prisoners to be released, five initially, and then, 47 others, were all detained during a major crackdown on dissent in 2003, when the government of President Fidel Castro rounded up 75 activists and journalists who were accused of acting as “mercenaries” on behalf of the United States.

Of the original 75 detainees, some completed their sentences or were released on health grounds. Those who remained behind bars turned into potent symbols to Cuba’s critics of the government’s heavy-handed approach to dissent.

The announcement of the decision to release the prisoners came in a statement from Orlando Marquez, the spokesman for Cardinal Ortega.

The five prisoners to be released first, whose identities were not made public, were to be flown to Spain with their families. The others to be set free will be repatriated, church officials said. “This process will be concluded in three to four months from now,” the church statement said.

Although the United States did not play a role in the negotiations over the release, some analysts said the accord might help improve relations between Cuba and the United States.

Wayne S. Smith, a former American diplomat in Havana who favors an end to the American embargo of Cuba, said the prisoner release should prompt the Obama administration to “do something to encourage the trend.”

Mr. Moratinos, the Spanish foreign minister, had arrived in Havana this week in a bid to save the life of Guillermo Fariñas, 48, a psychologist and journalist who has been on a hunger strike since Feb. 24.

A previous hunger striker, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died earlier in February, delivering an embarrassing blow to the Cuban government. He had been a political prisoner and had stopped eating for 85 days to protest prison conditions.

Guillermo Fariñas / Photo: Alejandro Ernesto/European Pressphoto Agency

Mr. Fariñas, who began his hunger strike to protest Mr. Zapata’s death and to call for the release of inmates who are ill, was too weak to talk to reporters on Wednesday, his sister told Reuters. He told The Associated Press though that he might continue forgoing food and water.

His mother, Alicia Fernandez, was clearly hopeful that he would start eating again. “I feel like I’m born again,” Reuters reported that she had said.

Mr. Fariñas left little doubt before the announcement on Wednesday that he was ready to die.

“I want to die in my country right under the noses of the dictators who have the guns, rifles, cannons and bombs,” he wrote on an opposition blog. “I have the moral weight of the people from below, who have been deceived and repressed for 51 years by those who have the weapons, the violence and totalitarian laws they use to govern poorly from above.”

It was clear that the government was closely following Mr. Fariñas’s protest. Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, published an article that quoted his doctor as saying that he was “in danger of potential death.” The paper, however, failed to describe the subject of Mr. Fariñas’s protest.

The Roman Catholic Church in Cuba has played an increasing role in recent months in trying to moderate the government. Cardinal Ortega recently helped prod the authorities to lift a ban on marches staged by the Ladies in White, a group of wives and mothers of political prisoners. Church leaders also helped persuade the government to move some prisoners to jails closer to their families.

Excerpt, read the entire article here: Cuba Vows to Release 52 Prisoners – by Marc Lacey | NYT

 

Rock and Repression in Cuba | Amnesty International

Cuba’s repressive legal system has created a climate of fear among journalists, dissidents and activists, putting them at risk of arbitrary arrest and harassment by the authorities.

The Amnesty International report Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in Cuba highlights provisions in the legal system and government practices that restrict information provided to the media and which have been used to detain and prosecute hundreds of critics of the government. Cuban rock musicians, bloggers and activists demand a change to the country’s repressive laws.

 

Creating Art From Haiti’s Rubble

Since the January earthquake, and in general, we’ve seen and heard a lot from Haiti and, unfortunately, many of those stories have been negative. Granted — Haiti’s position is still pretty grim. But if there is one thing that characterizes Haitians, according to NPR photographer David Gilkey, it’s their resilience.

Sculptor Andre Eugene, for example, has not only continued to create art post-earthquake but actually has been newly inspired. “Look at my art and look at Haitians,” he told Gilkey in May. “Look at my art and look at resistance, look at resilience.” He creates recycled art from scraps found around town; it goes without saying that he now has more material than ever.