From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 12:16 PM
Subject: FYI: Tomorrow: Rally to Save the Right to Know Act

Rally to Save the Right to Know Act
Tuesday, Dec. 19 fr/ 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM
https://facebook.com/events/172598263344003/ https://facebook.com/nycdsa/events/
http://socialists.nyc http://twitter.com/nycDSA  Public · Hosted by NYC Democratic Socialists of America

Ritchie Torres, in coalition with the Mayor and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), is now pushing a toothless version of his part of the #RightToKnowAct, which is not even remotely what was initially agreed to. He is pushing a new piece of the legislation called Intro.182D, which seeks to undo the protections we’ve fought for and undermine our neighbors’ safety in daily police encounters.

HOWEVER, the better news is that Council Member Reynoso has followed through with his half of the Right to Know Act: Intro.541C is finally up for a vote on Tuesday! We need the City Council to vote YES on Intro541C to help end unconstitutional searches by the NYPD.

The next council meeting will be Tuesday, December 19th at City Hall.

Our partners at CPR are asking everyone to show up from 11:00AM to 2:00PM on Tuesday for this final push to save the Right to Know Act, urging a NO vote on Torres’ bill and a YES vote on Reynoso’s bill.

WE NEED EVERYONE WHO IS ABLE TO SHOW UP TO SEND A STRONG MESSAGE TO CITY COUNCIL: We won’t tolerate backroom deals or bills that serve the NYPD at the expense of the public!
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NYC chapter of the largest socialist organization in the country. We fight, and organize, for more democracy in more places with activism and education.

FYI: Three Palestinian lawyers seized by Israeli occupation

From: Torres, Azalia
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2017 11:37 AM
Subject: FYI: Three Palestinian lawyers seized by Israeli occupation

Please read carefully. This is another attack on lawyers who, like us, stand up for human rights. Let’s show our support!

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Three Palestinian lawyers seized by Israeli occupation

4 December 2017

Israeli occupation forces seized three Palestinian lawyers well-known for their involvement in defending Palestinian human rights and particularly the rights of Palestinian prisoners in armed, overnight, pre-dawn raids. The three lawyers are:

• Khaled Zabarqa, seized from his home in Lydd in Palestine ’48 and a defense lawyer for imprisoned Sheikh Raed Salah
• Iyad Misk, seized from his home in Kufr Aqab in Jerusalem and legal director of the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission
• Firas al-Sabbah, seized from his home in the city of Jerusalem and director of the al-Meethaq Foundation for Human Rights

All three of the lawyers’ homes was stormed at night by police and intelligence agents who ransacked the home before taking him. The three were taken to the Petah Tikva interrogation center.

Zabarqa is one of the most prominent lawyers defending Palestinian political detainees and prisoners in occupied Palestine ’48. Most recently, his advocacy on behalf of imprisoned Sheikh Raed Salah has highlighted the sheikh’s solitary confinement and political targeting. Zabarqa has been targeted in the past, barred from entering Jerusalem in 2015. Misk is also the former legal director for Defence for Children International – Palestine and, as current director of legal work for the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, has a leading role in defending many Palestinian prisoners before Israeli occupation courts.

Al-Sabbah is the director of al-Meethaq Foundation, which offers public legal services to the Jerusalemite population, including dealing with Israeli occupation entities like insurance officials, the municipality, and the interior department. The foundation also works together with Physicians for Human Rights to document abuses against child prisoners and support parents in filing complaints about their children’s treatment.

The targeting of the three lawyers comes hand in hand with the ongoing attacks on Palestinian human rights defenders such as Salah Hamouri, new Palestinian lawyer and field researcher for Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association; Hasan Safadi, Arabic-language media coordinator for Addameer; Issa Amro, al-Khalil organizer against settlements; Khalida Jarrar, Palestinian parliamentarian and Addameer board member; Abdallah Abu Rahma, coordinator of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements.

“Human rights defender” is a term used to describe people who, individually or with others, act peacefully to promote or protect human rights. These three Palestinian lawyers are human rights defenders who serve as a first line of defense for Palestinian civilians under occupation targeted for arrest, detention and persecution by Israeli occupation forces.

This is also a specific and targeted attack on Palestinian legal work and Palestinian lawyers, in what appears to be an attempt to deprive Palestinian prisoners of even the barest legal representation which is in and of itself frequently barred from providing any meaningful defense in a colonial system meant merely to legitimize the ongoing detention of Palestinians. It also appears to be an attempt to intimidate and suppress Palestinian lawyers from engaging public work to defend Palestinian political prisoners and people under attack.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges international organizations, especially lawyers’ and legal organizations, to take a stand and pressure the Israeli state and international governments to take a stand against the escalating attacks on Palestinian lawyers and other human rights defenders

Tonight FYI: The Criminalization of Home: Organizing to Protect Communities from NYC to Palestine

From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2017 10:49 AM
Subject: Tonight FYI: The Criminalization of Home: Organizing to Protect Communities from NYC to Palestine

Moderated by Bina Ahmad (CDP Manhattan). Sponsors include the Center for Constitutional Rights.

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The Criminalization of Home: Organizing to Protect Communities from NYC to Palestine

https://www.facebook.com/events/513700239003246/

Wednesday, November 29 at Verso Books, 20 Jay St., Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY
Doors open at 7 p.m., panel begins at 7:30

With
Sahar Francis of Addameer
Darializa Avila-Chevalier of Black Youth Project–100
Mujahid Farid of Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP)
And moderated by Bina Ahmad

This panel explores the different ways criminalization fractures communities and separates people from the place(s) they call home. Bringing together activists from New York City to Palestine, it looks at how state violence enforces a system of racialized dispossession, whether through eviction, deportation, incarceration, or colonization and ethnic cleansing. We’ll also learn how people are protecting their communities by fighting back against the increasingly militarized policing of their neighborhoods, supporting prisoners’ rights, and advancing a vision of freedom and self-determination.

DARIALIZA AVILA-CHEVALIER is an organizer with the NYC chapter of Black Youth Project 100, a member-based organization of radical 18-to-35-year-old people that work toward the liberation of Black people. BYP100 works to center the most marginalized, which includes incarcerated people and trans/gender non-conforming people. Their work is done via direct action, political education, and internal leadership development. Their current long-term project is Campaign H.O.M.E. (Housing Over Monitoring and Evictions), which seeks to end the racist NYCHA policy of Permanent Exclusion. Before joining BYP100, Darializa organized with Students for Justice in Palestine and helped launch the Columbia University Apartheid Divest campaign.

MUJAHID FARID is the lead organizer for the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign (RAPP), which aims to decarcerate US prisons by accelerating the release rate of elderly people. Farid himself was confined for 33 years in New York State and released in 2011, after entering the system in 1978 with a sentence of 15 years to life. While confined, Farid earned four college degrees, including two Master’s, and was part of a trio that created the first HIV/AIDS peer education program in NYS prisons, which later developed into the widely acclaimed PACE (Prisoners AIDS Counseling & Education) program. In 2013 he was awarded an Open Society Soros Justice Fellowship, a joint NYS legislative commendation, and a Citizens Against Recidivism, Inc. award for social activism. In 2016 RAPP was awarded the New York Nonprofit Media’s Cause Award.

SAHAR FRANCIS has been the director of Addameer (Arabic for conscience), a prisoner support and human rights advocacy organization, since 2005, and has been a human rights legal advocate since 1994. She specializes in issues of Palestinian political prisoners, including ill treatment and torture, administrative detention, prison conditions, and prisoners’ rights. She has extensive litigation experience in the Israeli military court system as well as in Israeli civil courts.

Co-organized by Adalah-NY: Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, Addameer Prisoner Support & Human Rights Association, BYP100 NYC chapter, and the Center for Constitutional Rights

Verso Books is wheelchair accessible.

Coverage of Yesterday’s Brooklyn Walkout Against ICE Arrest

From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2017 10:22 AM
Subject: Coverage of Yesterday’s Brooklyn Walkout Against ICE Arrest

Organized by Brooklyn CDP ALAA membership (joined by 1199SEIU members and staff from Brooklyn Defender Services), in the tradition of Eric Garner Die-In in Brooklyn (2014) and long history of ALAA collective solidarity and social justice activism.

Video and more photos

NY Post: ICE agents ‘pounced’ on immigrant in Brooklyn courthouse: attorney

Village Voice: Legal Aid Lawyers Stage Walkout After Yet Another ICE Court Arrest

WNYC: Courthouse Immigration Arrest Leads to Courthouse Protest

ALAA Statement: Brooklyn Legal Aid Attorneys Walk Out Against ICE-NY Courts Collaboration

LAS Statement: Statement on Today’s ICE Arrest in Brooklyn

Additional coverage:

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/11/29/headlines/lawyers_stage_walkout_at_brooklyn_criminal_court_to_protest_ice_arrests_at_courthouse

http://pix11.com/2017/11/28/legal-aid-attorneys-demand-ice-agents-stop-targeting-immigrants-at-court/

https://www.telemundo47.com/noticias/local/Abogados-protestan-contra-arrestos-de-ICE_TLMD—Nueva-York-460623053.html

http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2017/11/29/immigration-and-customs-enforcement-detain-genaro-rojas-hernandez-in-brooklyn-court

FYI: Tues. 11/14: Reimagining Justice Towards a World Without Prisons

From: Letwin, Michael 
Date: Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 9:21 AM
Subject: FYI: Tues. 11/14: Reimagining Justice Towards a World Without Prisons

https://www.facebook.com/events/1934498340136702

Please join CUNY School of Law’s Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild in an open conversation with community members critical in the movement towards Prison Abolition. It is our objective to hold an honest and intersectional discussion that encourages our communities to reflect on the challenges facing the movement for prison abolition. In this space, we will strive to imagine a world without prisons, and inspire those wary of prison abolition to reconsider a punitive paradigm to problems that largely have their root in social and economic systems of oppression.

Speakers:

Abraham Paulos, Communications Director, Black Alliance for Just Immigration

Cory Greene, Co-Founder, H.O.L.L.A. (How Our Lives Link Together!)

Justine “Taz” Moore, Co-Founder/Member, National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls

Tray “Rock” Johns, National Director, Black and Pink; Member, National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls

Gabriel Arkles, Core Collective Member, Sylvia Rivera Law Project and Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU LGBT & HIV Project

Register here: http://bit.ly/breakingdownwallscunynlg
*Food will be provided*

Access Notes: CUNY School of Law has a wheelchair/mobility device accessible entrance, and there is elevator access to the 2nd floor. The Auditorium is also accessible, but there is a slight decline from the entrance of the Auditorium towards the front. CUNY Law is unfortunately not a scent-free building, but we are encouraging attendees to create a scent-free atomopshere in the auditorium.

If any interpretation or visual/audio support is needed, please reach out to nlg@mail.law.cuny.edu!

Co-sponsored by: Outlaws, Labor Coalition, Police Accountability Organization, Students for Justice in Palestine, Luis DeGraffe Racial & Social Justice Orientation, CUNY Law Review, Parole Preparation Project, NLG NYC, Brooklyn Law School NLG, Cardozo Law School NLG, and National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls

FYI: 9/28: Book Talk: Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971

From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2017 10:17 AM
Subject: FYI: 9/28: Book Talk: Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971

Join us on [Thursday] 9/28 when @hthompsn presents
“Blood In The Water: The #Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy”:
$5 tix:  http://bit.ly/2i6auA5
https://twitter.com/brooklynhistory/status/909896109681672193
@brooklynhistory http://twitter.com/brooklynhistory 718.222.4111 www.brooklynhistory.org
Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in History, Heather Ann Thompson shares the complicated and gripping tale of the five-day prison uprising, as well as the muddied investigations, lawsuits, and untold stories that followed.

Book Talk: Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971
Thursday, September 28
Doors: 6:00 pm
Event: 6:30 pm
$5 General Admission / Free for Members

BHS Members: to reserve tickets at the member price, click on “Tickets” and enter your Member ID on the following page after clicking on “Enter Promotional Code.”

REFUND POLICY Brooklyn Historical Society requires 24 hours notice before the date of the event to refund a ticket. No refunds are provided after that point. No refunds are provided on the day of the event and all subsequent days.

Thu, September 28, 2017
6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
Brooklyn Historical SocietY
128 Pierrepont St
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Organizer of Book Talk: “Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971”

Founded in 1863, Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) is a library, museum, and urban education center dedicated to the people of Brooklyn, providing opportunities for civic dialogue and thoughtful engagement.

. Transparency, Journalism, and the White House tickets
$5
Tue, Oct 3 6:30 PM
Transparency, Journalism, and the White House

. Criminalizing Poverty, Community Organizations, and Fighting Back tickets
Free
Thu, Oct 5 6:30 PM

© 2017 Eventbrite

FYI: Sunday: Stop Fascism & White Supremacy: National Day of Action in Solidarity with Berkeley

From: Letwin, Michael
Date: Fri, Aug 25, 2017 at 10:54 AM
Subject: FYI: Sunday: Stop Fascism & White Supremacy: National Day of Action in Solidarity with Berkeley

Stop Fascism & White Supremacy: National Day of Action in Solidarity with Berkeley
Sunday August 27th
Union Square
3pm – to coincide with the counter-demonstration against the fascist mobilization in Berkeley

In the wake of Charlottesville, the streets of Boston this weekend were a resounding showing of the mass outrage against fascist mobilizations. The more than 40,000 people in Boston today have outnumbered and made it impossible for the racists to congregate on Boston Common.

We need to continue to show our numbers and our refusal to allow Nazis to grow or mobilize. Next weekend, another “alt-right” call is convening in Berkeley – and they will be met with resistance. A large ad hoc coalition is organizing a broad, large call to counter the right. They have put out a call for a national weekend of solidarity actions. As one chant in at demonstration today highlights: “Wherever you go, whatever you do, we are many, you are few!” So next weekend, let’s make it a national day of action against hate that the fascists will remember.

***We want this to be as broad and large and representative as possible – email ntylim@gmail.com to endorse. We will list endorsers and make them admins for this event as we receive them. There will be an organizing meeting on Wednesday 8/23 at 7pm at the Brooklyn Free School (372 Clinton Ave) – an event page for this is posted on the wall of this event***

____________________________________________________________

We have seen, all too chillingly, the impact the Trump presidency has had on an emboldened and rebranded “alt-right”. Charlottesville has exposed the nature of these organized racists who aim to enact violence against people of color, activists, and anyone who stands in their way. While mourning the life of Heather Heyer, we must redouble our commitment to stopping these murderers in their tracks. We need to unite every organization and every individual in the shared goal of marginalizing their message, halting their efforts at organizing, and refusing to accept the normalization of Nazis in the streets.

Tens of thousands have rallied against the right since Charlottesville. We have another upcoming opportunity to stake our ground next weekend. Berkeley, which has been at the center of right wing mobilizations since the election, is calling for a day of solidarity actions as a broad, united front of trade unions and political and faith-based organizations seek to counter a far-right provocation. Now is the time to take up the call. There is a renewed opening in the aftermath of Charlottesville to unite tens of thousands across the country against racism, against fear, and against fascist mobilizations.

Let’s take this opportunity to build as large and broad a demonstration as we can here in NYC on August 27th. This is a crucial next step in better organizing our side, and to take on the fights against racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-semitism and all the forms of oppression and hatred stoked by the Trump regime. Showing in numbers that these forces are not welcome is the only way to demoralize and isolate them. This is an urgent task.

Sponsored by (list in formation): American Muslims for Palestine, Decolonize This Place, International Socialist Organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, Jews say No, NYC Solidarity With Palestine, Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Science for the People NYC

FYI: Palestinian Prisoners Hunger Strike in Day 39

From: Torres, Azalia
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 6:07 PM
Subject: FYI: Palestinian Prisoners Hunger Strike in Day 39

On March 15, 2017, the Legal Aid Society and Attorneys of Color of Legal Aid jointly said:“[F]or as long as The Legal Aid Society exists, we will stand in solidarity with marginalized communities in their fight for equal justice and racial equity.” Today, in the very same spirit, people around the world are standing in solidarity with 1,500 Palestinian political prisoners now in their 39^th day of a hunger strike against conditions that Amnesty International calls “unlawful and cruel.”

Hunger strikes, like that held by U.S. prisoners last fall, are part of a long international tradition of resistance to injustice. But the Israeli government — which receives $3.8b/year in U.S. weapons, and closely coordinates with the NYPD and other police agencies that systematically target Black, Brown, and Native communities in this country — has branded the strikers “terrorists,” just as the South African apartheid regime once labeled Nelson Mandela.

Despite threats of force-feeding, the prisoners remain steadfast: “Our chains will be broken before we are, because it is human nature to heed the call for freedom regardless of the cost.”

With our own government funding this injustice, the prisoner strike concerns us all. Dr. Martin Luther King, while himself a political prisoner in Birmingham Alabama, put it best: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

*Legal Workers, Legal Organizations and Law Students Letter of Support for Palestinian Hunger Strikers (National Lawyers Guild, April 2017)

*An Injury to One is an Injury to All: Workers Support Palestinian Prisoners on Hunger Strike (Labor for Palestine, May 21, 2017)

In addition, there is a NYC solidarity protest for the prisoners, 5:30pm tomorrow (Friday) in Union Square. Legal observers needed.

The Black Panthers, Then & Now: Kathleen Cleaver Speaks | 3/7 6PM NYU Law VH210

From: Sampeur, Jane-Roberte
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2017 2:40 PM
Subject: The Black Panthers, Then & Now: Kathleen Cleaver Speaks | 3/7 6PM NYU Law VH210

Happing tonight if folks are interested. Should be great.

The Black Panthers, Then & Now: Kathleen Cleaver Speaks.
https://www.facebook.com/events/2248533725372747/

The NYU Law National Lawyers Guild will host former communications secretary of the Black Panther Party & professor of law at Emory University Kathleen Cleaver on March 7th at6PM at the NYU School of Law, Vanderbilt Hall Rm. 210.

Professor Cleaver will speak on the Black Panther Party, which just marked its 50th anniversary, and the implications and lessons that can be drawn from the Party’s experience in the age of Trump.

Professor Cleaver will join Palestinian-American youth organizer Aber Kawas and Black Lives Matter organizer Kei Williams to discuss what lessons young community organizers and grassroots activists can learn from the legacy of the Panthers in the struggle against racism, mass incarceration, imperialism, and police violence today.

Professor Cleaver has not only an important and unique perspective on the power of revolutionary black resistance in America, but a necessary one. We are in a time of unprecedented state violence against black and brown people in America — from Muslim bans and threats to deport millions of people, to the return of the Dakota Access Pipeline, to the explicit calls for racial profiling in policing, to the rise of right-wing extremists within the new administration. At the same time, the United States has threatened greater aggression abroad, from threats of war with Iran and the return of the use of torture to unyielding support for the violation of Palestinian rights, all expanding policies that are intricately linked with domestic abuses.

Please join us for a monumental opportunity as revive and expand the tradition of connecting anti-racist resistance at home with the fight against state violence abroad in line with the practice of the Black Panther Party.

Co-Sponsors:

NYU NLG
NYU Black Allied Law Students Association
NYU Law & Social Change
NYU Coalition on Law & Representation
NYU South Asian Law Students Association
Arab-American Association of NY
NYU Students for Justice in Palestine
New York City Students for Justice in Palestine
NYU Women of Color Collective

(Full & Updated list of sponsors here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2248533725372747/)

 

FYI: 1-3pm Today: Protest at KCDA

From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2017 9:32 AM
Subject: FYI: 1-3pm Today: Protest at KCDA

https://www.facebook.com/events/310169556052679/
Feet to Fire Campaign: NYC

Wednesday, February 22 at 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST
350 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201-2908, United States

From Nicholas Heyward, Sr., father of Nicholas Heyward, Jr who was killed by NYPD in 1994:

District attorneys must be held accountable!!!!

Calling all parents and families of police murder, activists, freedom fighters and all the people who are completely fed up and sick and tired of the police getting away with the killings of our children and loved ones. They never are held accountable. We say enough with being failed by our local prosecutors, who continue to show and prove that they have no interest in getting the cops who kill our innocent children and loved ones.

On February 22nd in cities across the country we will join P.O.S.T. (Protect Our Stolen Treasures) for a day of outrage. Parents and families in New York City whose loved ones have been murdered by the NYPD and who have never received any form of justice or #accountability for our murdered children will join in as one united family. Outraged at this nationwide epidemic, we have had enough of being lied to by prosecutors, who help to protect the killer cops instead of protecting and getting justice for our murdered children.

Enough is enough and it is time to hold these district attorneys responsible.

Just look at the numbers of innocent lives in New York stolen by these killer cops, with almost never any form of prosecution or accountability.

We ask you to come stand with the families in New York along with the supporters and freedom fighters.

In 2017 we will no longer tolerate or allow these kinds of injustices to continue.

Join us on February 22nd @ the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office @1pm to start the five-borough protest of failed prosecutors never holding the police accountable.

To all district attorneys: DO YOUR JOB OR LEAVE OFFICE!

_______________________________________________

Some of the participating organizations: The Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Faith & Social Alliance, Mothers Cry For Justice, Justice For Stolen Lives, People Over Profits San Diego, The National Stolen Lives Families Tour, Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ), San Diego Chapter Black Panther Party, Native Lives Matter, Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar Clark, Justice 4 Marcus Golden (Twin Cities, MN), Malcolm X Center, Black Lives Matter local chapter, South Carolina Stolen Lives (South Carolina)

Live coverage: https://www.facebook.com/edward.rhymes/posts/10202742371437594

Actions in other cities:
Detroit, MI: https://www.facebook.com/events/402473880104310/
Greenville, SC: https://www.facebook.com/scstolenlives/posts/1745708549077557
San Diego, CA: https://www.facebook.com/events/1882979388587253/