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Wednesday, August 12th 2009

7:38 PM

Honour Aung San Suu Kyi

Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:50:29 -0400
From: Alice Jay - Avaaz.org  avaaz@avaaz.org
Subject: Honour Aung San Suu Kyi


Dear friends,

Please activate images! 
Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced yesterday, but it's the Burmese generals who jailed her who have committed the real crimes. Join the call for justice for the Burmese people by signing the petition to put the generals on trial.

Sign The Petition! 


Yesterday, the ailing Nobel laureate and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to another year and a half in detention by a Burmese kangaroo court.

Suu Kyi's treatment is just the tip of the iceberg of the brutality of the Burmese regime -- spanning 40 years of murder, torture, mass rape, and slave labour.

It's time for the world to put the Burmese generals on trial. Avaaz is launching a call for the UN Security Council to investigate the regime for crimes against humanity -- a judgment of guilt could lead to prosecution of top generals by the International Criminal Court. Click below to join the call and see a mock up of a banner that we plan to drop in front of the UN calling for action:

www.avaaz.org/en/jail_the_generals

Over the next two months the UK and the US hold the powerful Presidency of the United Nations Security Council - both President Obama and Prime Minister Brown have spoken passionately about Burma, so now is our best chance in years to get the Security Council to act.

But the US, UK and other Council members are still dragging their feet -- concerned about challenging China, a key sponsor of the Burmese regime. If a global outcry demands it, they will try harder to get China to agree, as happened when the Council decided to allow prosecution of another China-sponsored regime in the case of Darfur, Sudan.

Calls for investigation and prosecution of the Burmese Generals have been growing. The pressure is building on Obama and Brown as already dozens of US and British legislators have called for an inquiry. And a recent Harvard University report by top global jurists reveals that the UN has already quietly documented the forced recruitment of tens of thousands of child soldiers, more than one million refugees and internally displaced persons, numerous cases of killings and torture, mass rape and the forced displacement of 3,000 ethnic minority villages -- as many as reported in Darfur. Let's join them in this call to hold the regime to account:

www.avaaz.org/en/jail_the_generals

The Avaaz community has stood with and supported the Burmese people through cyclone Nargis, through the massive repression of democracy activists in 2007, and this year over 400,000 of us have called for the release of political prisoners. Today, if enough of us act together, we have a chance to call upon the highest body under international law to finally end the tyranny. Sign the petition and send this on to friends and family to send a clear message to the UN Security Council that the world expects them to lead:

With hope,

Alice, Ricken, Brett, Graziela, Paula, Paul, Pascal and the whole Avaaz team.


Sources:
* For the politics behind the guilty verdict visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8177328.stm
* Read the Harvard report here: www.law.harvard.edu/programs/hrp/newsid=59.html
* For a United Nations Official's appeal to the Security Council visit: www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/opinion/28iht-edpineiro.html
* See the Sudan Commission of Inquiry process here: www.unausa.org/Document.Doc?id=253
* For the UK MPs call for Commission of Inquiry visit: http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=38487&SESSION=899
* For the US Senators call for a Commission of Inquiry visit: http://avaazmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/Obama UNSC COI Final 6-15-2009.pdf

____
ABOUT AVAAZ Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Buenos Aires, and Geneva.
Click here to learn more about our largest campaigns.
Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Myspace and Bebo pages! You can also follow Avaaz on Twitter!


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Wednesday, August 12th 2009

12:20 AM

The clock ticks ever faster for Leonard Peltier

http://biscuits007.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/the-clock-ticks-ever-faster-for-leonard-peltier/

The clock ticks ever faster for Leonard Peltier

by Harvey Wasserman
August 11, 2009



By Tuesday, August 18, the four sitting members of the Federal Parole Commission must decide whether they will let Leonard Peltier rejoin his family.

Leonard has been in prison for a staggering 33 years, six more than Nelson Mandela. When he was locked up, Three Mile Island was three years away, and Ronald Reagan had barely begun to run for President.

Leonard has great-grandchildren he has never held.

His most recent hearing was June 28. According to his lawyer, Eric Seitz, it went very well. The Parole Commission had 21 days from then to issue its decision.

We are now in the final week.

All those familiar with the case agree that a positive political climate can affect the decision. Calls to politicians (202-224-3121) could make all the difference, as could overnight letters to the Parole Commission ( http://www.usdoj.gov/uspc/).

Below are two draft letters the attorney has termed "a little melodramatic but otherwise ok". Your own versions are more than welcome.

Leonard's release would do much to begin the healing process between the native community and the US government. He has handled himself through this torturous third of a century with astonishing dignity, grace and eloquence.

Please do not let this moment go by without doing SOMETHING.


DRAFT LETTER ONE:

Dear Commissioners,
Isaac Fulwood, Jr., Cranston Mitchell, Edward Reilly and Patricia Cushware


Leonard Peltier is a man of deep sensitivities and compassion. It's no accident he has become a figure of tremendous empathy and personal pain all over the world.

For 33 years he has maintained his dignity and composure under incredibly difficult circumstances. He is now approaching the age of 65, and suffers from a wide range of ailments that threaten his continued existence. He has grandchildren and great-grandchildren he has never seen.

Leonard has a community of relations and supporters desperately awaiting his return. His freedom will come as a huge boost to our country's standing in the world. It will begin a desperately-needed healing process between our government and the native peoples of our own country and around the globe.

I urge you to look into your hearts at this man who has spent more than half his life behind bars and reunite him at last with his family.

Thank you,


DRAFT TWO:

To: US Parole Commission
Commissioners Isaac Fulwood, Jr., Cranston Mitchell, Edward Reilly and Patricia Cushware

Dear Commissioners

It is in your power to right a great wrong, to grant a man and his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren the right to live the rest of their lives together in peace, and to remove a great stain from the global reputation of the American justice system.

For more than half his life, Leonard Peltier has been held in prison for a crime millions of people worldwide do not believe he committed.

Throughout his imprisonment, Mr. Peltier has conducted himself with extraordinary dignity and grace. His behavior has become an inspiration to countless citizens within the United States and virtually everywhere else on Earth.

Leonard Peltier's time in prison now exceeds that of Nelson Mandela by six years. Yet he is viewed with much the same reverence and respect as the man who went from a jail cell to the presidency of the nation that put him there. When Mandela was finally set free, the system of racial hatred and separation that plagued South Africa began to crumble, to the betterment of all.

Leonard Peltier was a young man when he entered the prison system; he is now nearly 65. He is plagued with diabetes and a range of other serious illnesses that make it highly possible further imprisonment could result in his death, an outcome of horrific personal and political implications for all Americans. We would all have his blood on our hands.

To follow the history of the legal proceedings that put Leonard Peltier in prison is to journey enter a nightmare of missing documents, perjured testimony, implausible accusations and an impossible conviction.

It is not our intent here to reproduce the massive record surrounding this case. But we would be remiss to say any thing other than this incarceration is viewed throughout the world as a blight on the reputation of American jurisprudence.

We believe that 33 years of imprisonment meets the standard of cruel and unusual punishment set out in the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Its drafters would have freed Leonard Peltier long ago. Indeed, we do not believe great legal thinkers such as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would have put Mr. Peltier in prison in the first place.

Every day Leonard Peltier is kept behind bars drives a wedge that grows deeper between this nation's government and its native population. His time in jail is viewed with great antipathy by native populations, and their supporters, throughout the world.

This is a five-century wound that can only begin to heal when Leonard Peltier is released. We ask that you bring to yourselves and the rest of this nation the great relief that will accompany Leonard Peltier's return to his family.

Thank you,
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