AI Madison Group #139 Weekly Update - March 11, 2016

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(Some of the many images supporting International Women's Day 2016!)

​Greetings Everyone!
     This was an exciting week filled with International Women's Day (IWD) celebrations and actions. Many organizations including Amnesty International and the United Nations joined together to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievement of women.The roots of IWD began in the early 1900's. In 1975, the United Nations officially celebrated IWD.Today, International Women's Day is celebrated around the world. Pledge today to become champion of gender parity.

(Debbie and Azam celebrating International Women's Day and promoting Amnesty International's My Body My Rights Campaign!)

     

     Please read our important article about Nowruz by our Group Leader, Azam, and consider sending out Nowruz cards today. Here is the link to this year's Nowruz Action. Also, click here for some Nowruz Celebration images that could be used for YOUR card. I admit, my favorite one is the fish! 

     I would like to apologize to our member, Atapattu Sumudu, for not including you in our list of contributors last week. Thank you so much for sending us the information about the University of Wisconsin Madison Law School: The Annual Mildred Fish-Harnack Lecture - April 20th, 2016. 

     

     -Debbie, Weekly Update Editor

From our Group Leader

     Nowruz "new day/daylight" is the traditional Iranian festival of spring which starts at the exact moment of the vernal equinox, commencing the start of Spring and Iranian New Year. For the last several years, Amnesty International in US (AI-USA) has taken Nowruz Action to bring comfort and show solidarity and support to prisoners of conscience (POC) in Iran and their families. Unfortunately, many of Iranian POC will not be able to celebrate this holiday with their families / friends. Therefore, it is especially important to remind POC during Nowruz that they are not forgotten.

     AI-USA has selected seven (7) POC cases to honor the tradition of the Haft Seen where (7) items representing Spring Time and whose first letter is the Persian Seen (equivalent to the English S) are set on Haft Seen Table. The seven POC for this year include: Seven leaders of Iran’s Baha’i community; physicist Omid Kokabee; human rights defender Narges Mohammadi; journalist Hossein Ronaghi Maleki; artist Atena Farghadani; student and women’s rights activist Bahareh Hedayat, and human rights attorney Abdolfattah Soltani.

     Please take the Nowruz Action from the AI-USA web site and send Nowruz cards to 7 POC and their families:http://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/Nowruz_action_2016.pdf

     Thank you for taking Nowruz Action on behalf of 7 POC in Iran.
     Happy Nowruz,
     Azam Niroomand-Rad,
     Coordinator, AI-USA Group 139, Madison, WI

     (Click here for Azam's complete Nowruz message.)

Click here for links to this week's Amnesty International and Human Rights Information and Actions