Mexico: Tell Mexico to clean up its act - SEND AN EMAIL

Amnesty International UK

      Claudia was violently beaten by Mexican marines, but the authorities never examined the bruises and scars she was left with – key evidence against her torturers. But bruises heal, and many torture victims, like Claudia, are badly let down by a broken system where the torturers can get away with it.

      We have a real chance to change this. This month, Mexican authorities will meet to decide whether to strengthen their investigations into torture. Tell Mexico to get tough on torture.

Click here for more information and ACTION.

Iran: Ismail Abdi, a prominent trade unionist, unlawfully detained - URGENT ACTION

Amnesty International
     Ismail (Esmail) Abdi was arrested on 27 June after he went to the Prosecutor’s Office at Evin Prison to inquire about the travel ban placed on him. He had been prevented from travelling to Armenia to apply for a visa to attend the 7^th Education International World Congress in Ottawa, Canada in July 2015. Ismail Abdi was transferred to Section 2A of Evin Prison, which is run by the intelligence unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and subjected to at least 17 days of interrogation, without access to his family or lawyer. It seems the authorities have denied Ismail Abdi the right of access to his lawyer based on a provision in Iran’s new Code of Criminal Procedures which restricts access to legal counsel during the investigative phase, for people facing national-security-related charges, to only a list of lawyers approved by the Head of the Judiciary.

Click here for more information and addresses.  
8/7/2015 NOTE: This link is not working at this time.  
                          NOTE: Link to Arabic and French found here. 

Madison and Milwaukee, WI: Lanterns for Peace - August 6th and August 8th, 2015

Lanterns for Peace in Madison and Milwaukee

Madison August 6th at 7-9pm : Milwaukee August 8th at 2pm-9pm 

Madison

     Madison's event is titled: Marking 70 Years Since Hiroshima.  It is hosted by Physicians for Social Responsibility Wisconsin -  and co-sponsored by WNPJ, Vets for Peace Madison, United Nations Association of Dane County, Pax Christi Madison, and Madison Area Peace Coalition.  Local peace and public health advocates will gather on Thursday, August 6 at 7pm, which marks seventy years since the first U.S. nuclear bombing of Japan, to call for a nuclear-free world. This year's "Lanterns for Peace" event, to be held at Vilas Park in Madison, will feature a sing-a-long and families making and floating peace lanterns on the Vilas Park Lagoon. The Lanterns for Peace event features a collection of 7000 origami cranes donated to PSR Wisconsin by the Hiroshima Peace Foundation.

Milwaukee

Milwaukee's event is titled:  *We Will Always Remember*.  It is Peace Action WI's Annual Lanterns for Peace and Peace Benefit Concert.  WNPJ will be there tabling.   

The Peace Benefit Concert will be from 2-6pm and features: "The Ronnie Long and Mitch Cooper Duet", "Sorry...We're Open!", and "Miss Meaghan Owens".  Lanterns will be from 6-9pm.  There will be many organizations speaking about their work with a particular focus on groups that are part of the Wisconsin Jobs Security Coalition.  

Urban Ecology Center - Washington Park
4145 W Lisbon Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53208

Event is free and open to the public.  Find out more about the event and becoming a sponsor at: http://www.peaceactionwi.org/lanterns2015/

Click here for more information.

Iran: Narges Mohammadi, Human Rights Defender, Denied Urgent Medical Care - URGENT ACTION

Amnesty International

     Narges Mohammadi was taken from Tehran’s Evin Prison to the city’s Taleghani Hospital on 1 August, she had suffered partial paralysis for eight hours that day. Doctors at the hospital advised her that she needed to be examined by a specialist in order to be treated. Despite this medical recommendation, she was returned to Evin Prison the next day without receiving specialized care. 

     Narges Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani, a refugee in Paris, France, has said that Narges Mohammadi was also taken to hospital on 27 July after complaining of lung pains. He said the doctor advised that Narges Mohammadi needed to be hospitalized for treatment of a possible pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in her lungs), but she was returned to prison without receiving adequate care. The next day, prison officials refused to take her to an appointment with a neurologist for her medical history of partial paralysis.

     As well as being denied the medical care she requires, Narges Mohammadi is not allowed to make phone calls to her children, eight-year old twins who recently moved abroad to live with their father as they had no caregiver in Iran.

Click here for more information and addresses.

Tips for Writing Amnesty International URGENT ACTIONS - NEW BLOG TOPIC

August 6, 2015
from Open Forum (our AI Madison Group #139 blog)
NEW BLOG TOPIC

     "This is a place where members can share their suggestions for writing URGENT ACTIONS. Do you write once a week? What is the cheapest way to mail letters from the US to other countries? Do you send letters or postcards? Do you ever receive responses? Share your thoughts and suggestions here!"

There's one comment so far...

• dknitAugust 6, 2015 at 9:20 AM

There are several ways to mail letters from the U.S. to other countries. I personally use Global Forever stamps. You can purchase them at your post office or order them online. They are $1.10 each and come in groups of 20. 

If you would like more information about participating in our Open Forum blog, click here. 

Iran: Execution for Salar Shadizadi, a juvenile at the time of his arrest, has been postponed - URGENT ACTION August10, 2015!

Amnesty International
August 6, 2015
     Please find below an Urgent Action update that Amnesty International has issued today on juvenile offender Salar Shadizadi whose execution has been postponed to 10 August. He remains at imminent risk of execution after a conviction for murder. He was 15 years old at the time of the crime.
The Urgent Action update will soon be available on the Amnesty International website at the following link:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/MDE13/2209/2015/en/

More information:

Salar Shadizadi’s execution in Lakan Prison, Rasht, northern Iran, has been postponed for 10 days from the initial date of 1 August to 10 August. The change occurred late on 31 July. He remains in solitary confinement.
Salar Shadizadi was arrested in February 2007 and charged with the murder of a friend. He was not granted access to a lawyer at the investigative stage and was only allowed to retain a lawyer when his case was sent to court for trial. He says that he was also tortured and otherwise ill-treated during the investigative stage when he was held in the Investigation Unit (Agahi) in Rasht. He was first sentenced to death in December 2007 under the Islamic principle of qesas (retribution-in-kind) by Branch 11 of the Criminal Court of Appeal in Gilan province, which sat as a court of first-instance. Branch 37 of the Supreme Court upheld the sentence three months later.
In 2013, Salar Shadizadi submitted a request for judicial review based on a new article in Iran’s revised Penal Code, passed into law in May 2013. Branch 13 of Iran’s Supreme Court accepted the request for judicial review and sent the case back to the court of first instance to examine Salar Shadizadi’s maturity at the time of the crime. The court then referred Salar Shadizadi to Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization (LMO) for psychological examination. The LMO found that “there is no evidence to conclude that Salar Shadizadi was insane at the time of the crime but examining his mental growth seven years after the event is impossible.” Based on this finding, Branch 13 of the Supreme Court upheld the original death sentence.

Madison, WI: Go Big Read, "Just Mercy" - October 26, 2015

     Winner of Sweden's Olof Palme International Human Rights Award, Bryan Stevenson, has written a compelling book called "Just Mercy" that blends U.S. case law, the coming of age of a young lawyer, and a spellbinding case that will keep you on the edge of your seat. This nonfiction book delves into provocative topics including: death row in America, juveniles in adult prisons, mental illness & incarceration, racial discrimination, women prisoners & their families, and cases involving cruel & unusual punishment. Most of all, this book is about compassion, justice, and mercy.

      Go Big Read is a community reading program in Madison, Wisconsin. Bryan Stevenson will be speaking on Monday, October 26th, 7-8:30pm at Varsity Hall in Union South on the University of Wisconsin Madison campus.

    For more information on this topic: (1) Bryan Stevenson's TED Talk: We Need to Talk About an Injustice, (2) “Alabama Releases Man Held On Death Row for Six Years,” New York Times, March 3, 1993, (3) “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander, and (4) Go Big Read.