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

FYI: Decolonize This Place! Ask New York City to Change Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day

From: Letwin, Michael 
Date: Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 10:25 AM
Subject: FYI: Decolonize This Place! Ask New York City to Change Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day

For the same reasons that LAS has changed the name to Indigenous People’s Day:

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Sign here: Decolonize This Place! Ask New York City to Change Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day

• by: NYC Stands with Standing Rock, Decolonize This Place, Black Youth Project 100, Eagle and Condor Community House, and South Asian Solidarity Initiative
• Location: New York City, NY

368 SUPPORTERS IN NEW YORK CITY

6,446 SUPPORTERS

7,000 GOAL

For more than 80 years, the U.S. has celebrated Christopher Columbus with a federal holiday in his name. Columbus is celebrated for having discovered the Americas. But Columbus didn’t “discover” anything. In fact, he dispossessed the native peoples already living in the Americas of their land, and laid the groundwork for centuries of ongoing Western colonization across the globe.

The genocidal violence of Columbus is well attested to by his own journals, where he recounts unspeakable acts carried out by his forces against the indigenous population. In addition, Columbus has the bloody distinction of having inaugurated the transatlantic slave trade, which over subsequent centuries would result in the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of African people.

Columbus is not a venerable hero. He is an odious conquistador. It is time to stop honoring him.

From Los Angeles to Seattle, many U.S. cities have chosen to do what is just and renamed Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Why is New York not among them? There is no reason for holding out any longer. It’s time for the Mayor and City Council to stand on the right side of history. Please sign this petition to ask New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio to officially replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

New York City sits on the territory of the Lenape people, which was expropriated from them by Dutch and British settler-colonists in the 17th century. Yet many thousands of Indigenous people from the New York region, the country, and across the Americas currently live in the city–more than any other in the United States. Let us honor the rich histories, moral claims, and ongoing presence of Indigenous people in this city, and reject the celebration of imperial conquest. This public holiday must be relaunched with a new ethical compass, one that acknowledges history and points towards a just future. We must no longer remain in the thrall of a figure widely associated with exploitation and enslavement.

Please sign to ask New York City to acknowledge these injustices by creating Indigenous People’s Day!

This petition is being initiated by NYC Stands with Standing Rock, Decolonize This Place, Black Youth Project 100, Eagle and Condor Community House, and South Asian Solidarity Initiative.

#decolonizethisplace #notmyhero

decolonizethisplace.org
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Update #16 hours ago

Please join us in an Anti-Columbus Day Tour at the American Museum of Natural History on Monday, October 9th, beginning at 3:30 PM. All are welcome to join the tour, tickets will be provided. Read our public letter here.

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2nd Annual Anti-Columbus Day Tour

RSVP and details at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1302697323192187/

 

The 2nd Annual Anti-Columbus Day Tour is upon us. On October 9th at 3:30 pm we will gather in the main atrium of the American Museum of Natural History, and through an alternative narrative tour developed in collaboration with communities and groups based throughout the city and beyond, we will collectively press for the three demands we articulated last year: Remove the white supremacist statue in front of the museum, Rename the day to Indigenous People’s Day, and Respect the Ancestors. This action will be strong and beautiful with your participation and presence.

Family friendly
Tickets provided
Bring a friend

#decolonizethisplace
#notmyhero

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: 4-7pm Today: #NoDAPL ! No Dakota Access Pipeline

From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2017 2:15 PM
Subject: FYI: 4-7pm Today: #NoDAPL ! No Dakota Access Pipeline

Legal observers please!

No Dakota Access Pipeline
Today at 4 PM – 7 PM
Thomas Paine Park (Foley Square)
Worth St, New York, New York 10013

Water Protectors Call for Global Mass Mobilizations as Army Plans to Approve Dakota Access Pipeline (Democracy Now)
On Tuesday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday it will greenlight the final phase of construction of the pipeline. Amnesty International called the announcement “an unlawful and appalling violation of human rights.” In recent months, police have launched an escalating and violent crackdown against the resistance at Standing Rock. Last week, more than 70 people were arrested after militarized police raided a new resistance camp set up on historic Sioux treaty land. Among those arrested was award-winning Pueblo journalist Jenni Monet, who was on assignment for Indian Country Media Network.

FYI: Urgent Response to Trump’s Easement for Dakota Access Pipeline

From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2017 2:42 PM
Subject: FYI: Urgent Response to Trump’s Easement for Dakota Access Pipeline

-Please share widely-

ABC NEWS: “The Army Corps of Engineers could reach a decision as early as this week on whether to grant an easement to the Dakota Access pipeline, according to an attorney for the government.”

Call the Army Corps now: 202-761-8700
Tell them to deny permit: #NoDAPL

**And to join Labor for Standing Rock call 8pm tomorrow (Weds.) night with Native leaders, please register here.

FYI: Two More Events Today: Protest Uber & Labor for Standing Rock

From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2017 10:59 AM
Subject: FYI: Two More Events Today: Protest Uber & Labor for Standing Rock

Thursday, 5-6pm in NYC:
Protest at Uber’s Headquarters NoBanNoWall
Location: 3100 47th Ave, Long Island City, NY
Facebook event page

Join us to protest Uber on the day before Uber CEO Travis Kalanick meets with Donald Trump as part of his advisory council.

**** PLEASE NOTE: We’ve updated the our protest end time to 6 PM so that folks can head over to Foley Square for the Rise Up for #RamarleyGraham protest****

Now is the time for all those who value justice and equality to join together in holding Uber accountable, not only for its complicity with Trump’s hateful policies but also for impoverishing workers.

Backed by billions from Wall Street, gig economy corporations like Uber and Lyft are upending labor standards for which workers have spent centuries fighting.

Let’s send Uber and its gig-lord allies a message: workers’ rights and democracy come before profit. #NoBanNoWall

LIST OF SPONSORS IN PROGRESS

32BJ SEIU

ALIGN New York

Black Lives Matter Greater New York

Center for Popular Democracy

DRUM – Desis Rising Up & Moving

Labor for Palestine

Make the Road New York

Muslim Democratic Club

National Lawyers Guild Labor and Employment Law Committee

New York Communities for Change

New York Immigrant Action Fund

New York Immigration Coalition

New York Progressive Action Committee

New York Taxi Workers Alliance

New York Worker Center Federation

New York Working Families Party

Strong Economy for All

 

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Thursday 8-9pm EST:
Urgent Labor for Standing Rock Conference Call with Water Protectors 

In recent days, Donald Trump has met with pro-DAPL building trade leaders and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, and pressured the Army Corps of Engineers to grant a final easement for DAPL. Today, highly militarized police made mass arrests of 76 water protectors.

In response, Chase Iron Eyes of the Lakota People’s Law Project and Last Real Indians will speak about what those of us in organized labor can do at this point to support water protectors at Standing Rock.

Call times in US/Eastern: Thursday, Feb 02, 2017, 8pm (1 hour). To participate, please register here.

 

FYI: NYC Protest Calendar

From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2017 2:41 PM
Subject: FYI: NYC Protest Calendar

“Event calendar of NYC protests, political actions, protests, demonstrations, workshops, organizing trainings, and planning meetings. Attend, act, and create social change!”
http://takeactionnyc.com/nyc-protest-event-calendar/

From Labor for Standing Rock: Urgent Mobilization This Weekend

From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2016 5:02 PM
Subject: From Labor for Standing Rock: Urgent Mobilization This Weekend

During the past few days, highly-militarized police in North Dakota have escalated brutality and arrests against Native American opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

To demand an end to this growing repression, defend indigenous rights, and stop DAPL, Labor for Standing Rock has called Union Camp this weekend (October 29-30) at Standing Rock.

To support this historic campaign, please:

*Sign Urgent Call on the AFL-CIO: Reverse Support for the Dakota Access Pipeline
*RSVP Union Camp and like Labor for Standing Rock on Facebook
*Contribute to Labor for Standing Rock

For more info: LaborForStandingRock@gmail.com

FYI: NLG Statement of Solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against Dakota Access Pipeline

From: Letwin, Michael
Date: Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 11:42 AM
Subject: FYI: NLG Statement of Solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against Dakota Access Pipeline

NLG Statement of Solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against Dakota Access Pipeline
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG), the oldest and largest human rights bar association in the United States, by its International Committee, its Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Committee and its Environmental Human Rights Committee, as well as the NLG’s Environmental Justice Committee, stands in solidarity with the sovereign Oceti Sakowin Oyate (the Great Sioux Nation), the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and its people in their just opposition to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline across their sacred and ancestral lands.

Donate: RED WARRIOR CAMP LEGAL FUND #NoDAPL
From NLG: URGENT: DONATE to LEGAL FUND for #NoDAPL activists! #DirectAction and subsequent arrests continue as indigenous activists stand strong at #StandingRock against the #DakotaAccessPipeline. Please give generously to bail them out and get them the legal support they need to continue this crucial work. #solidarity