"Impiety was the companion of credulity, avarice the metropolis of vice."
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Cynics
--wiki--
1.The goal of life is happiness which is to live in agreement with Nature.
2.Happiness depends on being self-sufficient, and a master of mental attitude.
3.Self-sufficiency is achieved by living a life of Virtue.
4.The road to virtue is to free oneself from any influence such as wealth, fame, or power, which have no value in Nature.
5.Suffering is caused by false judgments of value, which cause negative emotions and a vicious character.
--wiki--
1.The goal of life is happiness which is to live in agreement with Nature.
2.Happiness depends on being self-sufficient, and a master of mental attitude.
3.Self-sufficiency is achieved by living a life of Virtue.
4.The road to virtue is to free oneself from any influence such as wealth, fame, or power, which have no value in Nature.
5.Suffering is caused by false judgments of value, which cause negative emotions and a vicious character.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
With participants naming "reducing the size of federal government" as their top issue, the 74-year old libertarian hero (Ron Paul) captured 31 percent of the 2,400 votes cast in the annual contest, usually seen as a barometer of how the GOP's conservative wing regards their potential presidential candidates.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney finished second with 22 percent of the vote, ending a three-year winning streak at CPAC. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin finished third with 7 percent of the vote, followed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 6 percent and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence at 5 percent.
They were followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who tied at 4 percent. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour rounded out the results. Five percent of participants voted for "Other" and 6 percent was undecided.
Of the 2395 Polled-
when asked is Barak Obama is doing a good job - 2% Approved 98% Disapprove
when asked are the Republican in Congress doing a good job- 63% Approved 37% Disapprove
53% voted that they wished the GOP had a better field of candidates while 46% were generally satisfied with the field of potential candidates
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney finished second with 22 percent of the vote, ending a three-year winning streak at CPAC. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin finished third with 7 percent of the vote, followed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 6 percent and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence at 5 percent.
They were followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who tied at 4 percent. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour rounded out the results. Five percent of participants voted for "Other" and 6 percent was undecided.
Of the 2395 Polled-
when asked is Barak Obama is doing a good job - 2% Approved 98% Disapprove
when asked are the Republican in Congress doing a good job- 63% Approved 37% Disapprove
53% voted that they wished the GOP had a better field of candidates while 46% were generally satisfied with the field of potential candidates
Friday, February 19, 2010
All under heaven say that my Tao is great,
That it seems useless.
Because it is great,
Therefore it seems useless.
If it were useful,
It would have long been small.
I have three treasures,
To hold and to keep:
The first is motherly love,
The second is frugality,
The third is daring not to be at the world's front.
With motherly love one can be courageous,
With frugality one can be wide reaching,
Daring not to be at the world's front,
One can grow to a full vessel.
Now to discard motherly love, yet to be courageous,
To discard frugality, yet to be wide reaching,
To discard staying behind, yet to be at the front,
One dies!
One with motherly love is victorious in battle,
Invulnerable in defence.
When Heaven wills to save a people
It guards them with motherly love.
"Three Jewels"
Lao Tzu
Tao Te-Ching
Chapter 67
That it seems useless.
Because it is great,
Therefore it seems useless.
If it were useful,
It would have long been small.
I have three treasures,
To hold and to keep:
The first is motherly love,
The second is frugality,
The third is daring not to be at the world's front.
With motherly love one can be courageous,
With frugality one can be wide reaching,
Daring not to be at the world's front,
One can grow to a full vessel.
Now to discard motherly love, yet to be courageous,
To discard frugality, yet to be wide reaching,
To discard staying behind, yet to be at the front,
One dies!
One with motherly love is victorious in battle,
Invulnerable in defence.
When Heaven wills to save a people
It guards them with motherly love.
"Three Jewels"
Lao Tzu
Tao Te-Ching
Chapter 67
(59) You must couple together things whole and things not whole, what is drawn together and what is drawn asunder, the harmonious and the discordant. The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one.
(92) Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.
(104) It is not good for men to get all they wish to get. It is disease that makes health pleasant and good; hunger, plenty and weariness, rest.
(111) For what thought or wisdom have they? They follow the poets and take the crowed as their teacher, knowing not that there are many bad and few good. For even the best of them choose one thing above all others, immortal glory among mortals, while most of them fill their bellies like beasts.
--Heraclitus--
(92) Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.
(104) It is not good for men to get all they wish to get. It is disease that makes health pleasant and good; hunger, plenty and weariness, rest.
(111) For what thought or wisdom have they? They follow the poets and take the crowed as their teacher, knowing not that there are many bad and few good. For even the best of them choose one thing above all others, immortal glory among mortals, while most of them fill their bellies like beasts.
--Heraclitus--
--wiki--
During the war, the Pakistan Army and its local collaborators carried out a systematic execution of the leading Bengali intellectuals. A number of professors from Dhaka University were killed during the first few days of the war. However, the most extreme cases of targeted killing of intellectuals took place during the last few days of the war. Professors, journalists, doctors, artists, engineers, writers were rounded up by Pakistan Army and the Razakar militia in Dhaka, blindfolded, taken to torture cells in Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Nakhalpara, Rajarbagh and other locations in different sections of the city to be executed en masse in the killing fields, most notably at Rayerbazar and Mirpur. Allegedly, the Pakistani Army and its paramilitary arm, the Al-Badr and Al-Shams forces created a list of doctors, teachers, poets, and scholars.
During the war, the Pakistan Army and its local collaborators carried out a systematic execution of the leading Bengali intellectuals. A number of professors from Dhaka University were killed during the first few days of the war. However, the most extreme cases of targeted killing of intellectuals took place during the last few days of the war. Professors, journalists, doctors, artists, engineers, writers were rounded up by Pakistan Army and the Razakar militia in Dhaka, blindfolded, taken to torture cells in Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Nakhalpara, Rajarbagh and other locations in different sections of the city to be executed en masse in the killing fields, most notably at Rayerbazar and Mirpur. Allegedly, the Pakistani Army and its paramilitary arm, the Al-Badr and Al-Shams forces created a list of doctors, teachers, poets, and scholars.
Czech Court Bans Far-Right Party
By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: February 18, 2010
PRAGUE — A Czech court has banned the far-right Workers’ Party, the first time a political party has been outlawed since the Czech Republic was founded in 1993.
In its 120-page ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme Administrative Court said the Workers’ Party, established in 2003, was a threat to Czech democracy. The court described the party as xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic and said it shared the ideology of Hitler’s Nazi party and maintained links to openly white-supremacist and racist groups.
“This ruling needs to be understood as a preventive one, to maintain the constitutional and democratic order in the future,” Judge Vojtech Simicek said in issuing the ruling. Noting that the party held up an uncomfortable mirror to Czech society, he added: “Society must realize that the causes for the Workers’ Party lie deeply within itself. The Workers’ Party is not an external enemy to society, but one of its faces.”
The party’s chairman, Tomas Vandas, said he would appeal. He insisted that the ruling would not stop him or other members from running in elections this May through a party that is closely connected to the dissolved group.
“The Workers’ Party is dead, long live the Workers’ Party,” he shouted into a megaphone to dozens of his followers outside the courtroom. “We are only being banned because we are voicing uncomfortable opinions. But if anybody thinks that this decision is wiping us off the political map, they are wrong.”
The ban against the party, which was instigated by a legal complaint from the government, comes as fears are growing that right-wing parties in Eastern and Central Europe are exploiting the global financial crisis to foment hatred and make scapegoats of minority groups.
In the Czech Republic, where radical right-wing demonstrators have clashed with the police as they have tried to march through Gypsy, or Roma, neighborhoods, a small child was severely burned last April after assailants threw gas bombs into her home in the town of Vitkov, in northern Moravia.
In Hungary, where the far-right party Jobbik won three seats in the European Parliament elections last year, at least seven Roma have been killed and Roma leaders have counted about 30 firebomb attacks against Roma homes.
Yet analysts emphasized that the Workers’ Party remained very much a fringe party in the Czech Republic and had little prospect of passing the 5 percent threshold necessary to win seats in the Czech Parliament in the May elections. The party won just over 1 percent of the vote in last year’s European Parliament elections.
Interior Minister Martin Pecina, who filed the motion on behalf of the cabinet, welcomed the decision, saying it was necessary to help safeguard democracy.
“I said right from the very beginning that in a democratic society the battle against extremism never ends,” Mr. Pecina said. “However, we can fight the manifestations of far-right activity.”
He added that the authorities faced a choice between eradicating far-right groups as soon as they emerged or waiting “for police cars to be set on fire and petrol bombs to be thrown.”
Some legal experts questioned how effective the ruling would be in eliminating hate crimes and speech, noting that banned parties often reconstituted themselves under different names. Others argued that guaranteeing free speech was the best safeguard of democracy because it exposed racism rather than forcing it underground.
Robert A. Kushen, a human rights lawyer who is managing director of the European Roma Rights Center, a support group in Budapest, said the ruling was a useful symbolic gesture that hatred and xenophobia would not be tolerated. But he stressed that aggressively prosecuting individuals responsible for hate crimes was a far more effective legal tool to fight racism than banning xenophobic political parties. “Laws to limit free speech can also be used against the good guys,” he said.
Experts said the ruling could give impetus to a separate attempt by a group of Czech senators to ban the Communist Party, the only surviving one in the former Eastern Bloc and, to its many critics, a national embarrassment and aberration.
Jan Krcmar contributed reporting.
By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: February 18, 2010
PRAGUE — A Czech court has banned the far-right Workers’ Party, the first time a political party has been outlawed since the Czech Republic was founded in 1993.
In its 120-page ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme Administrative Court said the Workers’ Party, established in 2003, was a threat to Czech democracy. The court described the party as xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic and said it shared the ideology of Hitler’s Nazi party and maintained links to openly white-supremacist and racist groups.
“This ruling needs to be understood as a preventive one, to maintain the constitutional and democratic order in the future,” Judge Vojtech Simicek said in issuing the ruling. Noting that the party held up an uncomfortable mirror to Czech society, he added: “Society must realize that the causes for the Workers’ Party lie deeply within itself. The Workers’ Party is not an external enemy to society, but one of its faces.”
The party’s chairman, Tomas Vandas, said he would appeal. He insisted that the ruling would not stop him or other members from running in elections this May through a party that is closely connected to the dissolved group.
“The Workers’ Party is dead, long live the Workers’ Party,” he shouted into a megaphone to dozens of his followers outside the courtroom. “We are only being banned because we are voicing uncomfortable opinions. But if anybody thinks that this decision is wiping us off the political map, they are wrong.”
The ban against the party, which was instigated by a legal complaint from the government, comes as fears are growing that right-wing parties in Eastern and Central Europe are exploiting the global financial crisis to foment hatred and make scapegoats of minority groups.
In the Czech Republic, where radical right-wing demonstrators have clashed with the police as they have tried to march through Gypsy, or Roma, neighborhoods, a small child was severely burned last April after assailants threw gas bombs into her home in the town of Vitkov, in northern Moravia.
In Hungary, where the far-right party Jobbik won three seats in the European Parliament elections last year, at least seven Roma have been killed and Roma leaders have counted about 30 firebomb attacks against Roma homes.
Yet analysts emphasized that the Workers’ Party remained very much a fringe party in the Czech Republic and had little prospect of passing the 5 percent threshold necessary to win seats in the Czech Parliament in the May elections. The party won just over 1 percent of the vote in last year’s European Parliament elections.
Interior Minister Martin Pecina, who filed the motion on behalf of the cabinet, welcomed the decision, saying it was necessary to help safeguard democracy.
“I said right from the very beginning that in a democratic society the battle against extremism never ends,” Mr. Pecina said. “However, we can fight the manifestations of far-right activity.”
He added that the authorities faced a choice between eradicating far-right groups as soon as they emerged or waiting “for police cars to be set on fire and petrol bombs to be thrown.”
Some legal experts questioned how effective the ruling would be in eliminating hate crimes and speech, noting that banned parties often reconstituted themselves under different names. Others argued that guaranteeing free speech was the best safeguard of democracy because it exposed racism rather than forcing it underground.
Robert A. Kushen, a human rights lawyer who is managing director of the European Roma Rights Center, a support group in Budapest, said the ruling was a useful symbolic gesture that hatred and xenophobia would not be tolerated. But he stressed that aggressively prosecuting individuals responsible for hate crimes was a far more effective legal tool to fight racism than banning xenophobic political parties. “Laws to limit free speech can also be used against the good guys,” he said.
Experts said the ruling could give impetus to a separate attempt by a group of Czech senators to ban the Communist Party, the only surviving one in the former Eastern Bloc and, to its many critics, a national embarrassment and aberration.
Jan Krcmar contributed reporting.
A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment Conducted at Stanford University
"Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. Please join me on a slide tour describing this experiment and uncovering what it tells us about the nature of human nature."
--Philip G. Zimbardo
"Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. Please join me on a slide tour describing this experiment and uncovering what it tells us about the nature of human nature."
--Philip G. Zimbardo
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
According to an ancient Sri Lankan source, the Mahavamsa, Greek monks seem to have been active proselytizers of Buddhism during the time of Menander: the Yona (Greek) Mahadhammarakkhita (Sanskrit: Mahadharmaraksita) is said to have come from "Alasandra" (thought to be Alexandria of the Caucasus, the city founded by Alexander the Great, near today’s Kabul) with 30,000 monks for the foundation ceremony of the Maha Thupa ("Great stupa") at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, during the 2nd century BC:
"From Alasanda the city of the Yonas came the thera ("elder") Yona Mahadhammarakkhita with thirty thousand bhikkhus." (Mahavamsa, XXIX)
"From Alasanda the city of the Yonas came the thera ("elder") Yona Mahadhammarakkhita with thirty thousand bhikkhus." (Mahavamsa, XXIX)
--wiki-- was one of the missionaries sent by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka to proselytize the Buddhist faith. He is described as being a Greek (Pali: "Yona", lit. "Ionian") in the Mahavamsa, and his activities are indicative of the strength of the Hellenistic Greek involvement during the formative centuries of Buddhism.
Greek communities had been present in neighbouring Bactria and in northwestern India since the time of the conquests of Alexander the Great around 323 BCE, and developed into the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms until the end of the 1st century BCE. Greeks were generally described in ancient times throughout the Classical world as "Yona", "Yonaka", "Yojanas" or "Yavanas", lit. “Ionians".
Greek communities had been present in neighbouring Bactria and in northwestern India since the time of the conquests of Alexander the Great around 323 BCE, and developed into the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms until the end of the 1st century BCE. Greeks were generally described in ancient times throughout the Classical world as "Yona", "Yonaka", "Yojanas" or "Yavanas", lit. “Ionians".
--aljazeera.net--
The Chinese government has branded the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader a separatist [Reuters]
The US president will meet the Dalai Lama in Washington next week, the White House has said, ignoring strong protests from Beijing to withdraw the invitation. China, which had already warned that any meeting could hurt already-strained relations between the two countries, quickly reiterated its call for the meeting not to go ahead. In a statement on Thursday White House spokesman Robert Gibbs confirmed that Barack Obama would meet the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader on February 18.
"The Dalai Lama is an internationally respected religious leader. He's a spokesman for Tibetan rights," Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said on Thursday. "The president looks forward to an engaging and constructive meeting."
In a possible nod to Chinese sensitivities the meeting is scheduled to take place in the White House Map Room, and not the symbolic surroundings of the Oval Office, where Obama normally meets foreign dignitaries.
'High sensitivity'
It is unclear as yet if Obama and the Dalai Lama, branded a separatist by the Chinese government, would meet in the open or behind closed doors. "China urges the US... to immediately call off the wrong decision of arranging for President Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama... to avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations" Ma Zhaoxu, China foreign ministry spokeman
Hours after the White House announcement, China's foreign ministry lodged a formal protest urging the US to immediately withdraw the decision. "We firmly oppose the Dalai Lama visiting the United States and US leaders having contact with him," Ma Zhaoxu, a ministry spokesman, said in a statement. "We urge the US side to fully understand the high sensitivity of Tibet-related issues, and honour its commitment to recognise Tibet as part of China and to oppose 'Tibet independence'," he said.
He added that the meeting was a "wrong decision" and said it should be called off "to avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations". The 74-year-old monk fled his Tibet homeland to exile in India in 1959, after a failed uprising against Beijing rule some nine years after Chinese troops were sent to take control of the region.
Strained ties
Obama avoided meeting the Dalai Lama when he visited Washington last year. However in November the US president had warned Chinese leaders on a visit to Beijing of his intention to meet the exiled Tibetan leader. Next week's meeting comes at a time when China-US ties have become strained over several issues, including a $6.4bn arms sale to Taiwan, the self-governing island Beijing claims as its own.
Relations have also been strained over internet censorship, with search giant Google Inc threatening to shut down its China business following what it said were cyber-attacks against the email accounts of rights activists.
The Chinese government has branded the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader a separatist [Reuters]
The US president will meet the Dalai Lama in Washington next week, the White House has said, ignoring strong protests from Beijing to withdraw the invitation. China, which had already warned that any meeting could hurt already-strained relations between the two countries, quickly reiterated its call for the meeting not to go ahead. In a statement on Thursday White House spokesman Robert Gibbs confirmed that Barack Obama would meet the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader on February 18.
"The Dalai Lama is an internationally respected religious leader. He's a spokesman for Tibetan rights," Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said on Thursday. "The president looks forward to an engaging and constructive meeting."
In a possible nod to Chinese sensitivities the meeting is scheduled to take place in the White House Map Room, and not the symbolic surroundings of the Oval Office, where Obama normally meets foreign dignitaries.
'High sensitivity'
It is unclear as yet if Obama and the Dalai Lama, branded a separatist by the Chinese government, would meet in the open or behind closed doors. "China urges the US... to immediately call off the wrong decision of arranging for President Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama... to avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations" Ma Zhaoxu, China foreign ministry spokeman
Hours after the White House announcement, China's foreign ministry lodged a formal protest urging the US to immediately withdraw the decision. "We firmly oppose the Dalai Lama visiting the United States and US leaders having contact with him," Ma Zhaoxu, a ministry spokesman, said in a statement. "We urge the US side to fully understand the high sensitivity of Tibet-related issues, and honour its commitment to recognise Tibet as part of China and to oppose 'Tibet independence'," he said.
He added that the meeting was a "wrong decision" and said it should be called off "to avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations". The 74-year-old monk fled his Tibet homeland to exile in India in 1959, after a failed uprising against Beijing rule some nine years after Chinese troops were sent to take control of the region.
Strained ties
Obama avoided meeting the Dalai Lama when he visited Washington last year. However in November the US president had warned Chinese leaders on a visit to Beijing of his intention to meet the exiled Tibetan leader. Next week's meeting comes at a time when China-US ties have become strained over several issues, including a $6.4bn arms sale to Taiwan, the self-governing island Beijing claims as its own.
Relations have also been strained over internet censorship, with search giant Google Inc threatening to shut down its China business following what it said were cyber-attacks against the email accounts of rights activists.
Deaths in Colombia rebel ambush
Monday, February 15, 2010
09:29 Mecca time, 06:29 GMT
--aljazeera.net--
Five people have been killed and four others wounded after fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) attempted to kidnap a candidate for governor of Colombia's southern Guaviare province, officials have said.
Jose Perez Restrepo was travelling in a convoy when it was ambushed by the Farc rebels, a military spokesman said.
Three of Perez's bodyguards and two police officers were killed in the shootout, while Perez was wounded in the leg and taken to an area hospital, he added.
Sunday's attack came as Colombia prepares for legislative elections in March and a presidential vote in May.
Election violence
Alvaro Uribe, the Colombian president, has still not said if he wants to run again for what would be an unprecedented third term in office.
The incident shows that the Farc still has the capacity to launch major attacks despite Uribe's US-backed military campaign aimed at destroying the group.
The Farc is at its weakest in decades after Uribe's campaign to force the rebels back into jungles and mountains. But the guerrilla group remains a threat in rural areas, aided by funds from their involvement in cocaine trafficking and extortion.
In December, the Farc kidnapped and killed a governor of Caqueta statein a rare urban assault. Luis Francisco Cuellar was abducted from his home in Florence by armed men dressed in military uniforms and later found with his throat slit.
The Farc, Colombia's biggest armed group, has been affected by the loss of several senior commanders and a flood of desertions as its fighters come under increasing military pressure.
Colombia's troops are benefiting from better mobility with helicopters, improved training and intelligence, forcing the Farc to resort to ambushes and improvised landmines to attack troops.
The Farc, which is thought to number 6,000 to 10,000 fighters, has been at war with the Colombian government for around 45 years.
Monday, February 15, 2010
09:29 Mecca time, 06:29 GMT
--aljazeera.net--
Five people have been killed and four others wounded after fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) attempted to kidnap a candidate for governor of Colombia's southern Guaviare province, officials have said.
Jose Perez Restrepo was travelling in a convoy when it was ambushed by the Farc rebels, a military spokesman said.
Three of Perez's bodyguards and two police officers were killed in the shootout, while Perez was wounded in the leg and taken to an area hospital, he added.
Sunday's attack came as Colombia prepares for legislative elections in March and a presidential vote in May.
Election violence
Alvaro Uribe, the Colombian president, has still not said if he wants to run again for what would be an unprecedented third term in office.
The incident shows that the Farc still has the capacity to launch major attacks despite Uribe's US-backed military campaign aimed at destroying the group.
The Farc is at its weakest in decades after Uribe's campaign to force the rebels back into jungles and mountains. But the guerrilla group remains a threat in rural areas, aided by funds from their involvement in cocaine trafficking and extortion.
In December, the Farc kidnapped and killed a governor of Caqueta statein a rare urban assault. Luis Francisco Cuellar was abducted from his home in Florence by armed men dressed in military uniforms and later found with his throat slit.
The Farc, Colombia's biggest armed group, has been affected by the loss of several senior commanders and a flood of desertions as its fighters come under increasing military pressure.
Colombia's troops are benefiting from better mobility with helicopters, improved training and intelligence, forcing the Farc to resort to ambushes and improvised landmines to attack troops.
The Farc, which is thought to number 6,000 to 10,000 fighters, has been at war with the Colombian government for around 45 years.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Letter from Morris Dees, about the unlawful murder of Bernard Monroe, a victim of police brutality in Louisiana.
Feb. 16, 2010
Dear Friend,
As you may have read in yesterday's New York Times, we've just filed an important new lawsuit against the town of Homer, Louisiana, where an elderly black man was shot dead by a white police officer while standing harmlessly on his own front porch.
Our suit seeks justice for Bernard Monroe's widow and his five children. But there's also a larger issue at stake — the pattern of racial profiling and police harassment of African Americans that led directly to Monroe's death.
Last year, the white police chief in the town told a newspaper: "If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names. I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested."
Monroe, 73, a retiree known as "Mr. Ben," was enjoying a gathering of family and friends on a mild winter day last February when two white police officers pulled up in front of the modest wood-frame house he had called home for the past 25 years.
For no good reason, the officers chased his adult son into the house. They had no warrant, and nobody there was wanted for any crime. When Mr. Monroe walked up the front porch steps during the commotion to check on his elderly wife, an officer who was still inside the house opened fire through the screen door, hitting him multiple times in the chest, back and arms.
This terrible tragedy should never have happened. And it wouldn't have happened if the police had acted responsibly. But, apparently, this type of police intimidation was well known to African Americans in the town.
Earlier on the day Monroe was killed, the police officer who fired the deadly shots had also searched and questioned other African Americans who were doing nothing more than sitting in their yard, minding their own business.
I'm outraged that this type of racial profiling is still occurring almost half a century after Jim Crow segregation was struck down in the South. The people of Homer deserve a police department that protects, rather than harasses them.
We're determined to get justice for the Monroe family and to stop unlawful discrimination.
The dangers of bigotry are clear. Please speak out against racial profiling and every form of discrimination. Thank you for supporting our work and for everything you do to promote justice in your own community.
Feb. 16, 2010
Dear Friend,
As you may have read in yesterday's New York Times, we've just filed an important new lawsuit against the town of Homer, Louisiana, where an elderly black man was shot dead by a white police officer while standing harmlessly on his own front porch.
Our suit seeks justice for Bernard Monroe's widow and his five children. But there's also a larger issue at stake — the pattern of racial profiling and police harassment of African Americans that led directly to Monroe's death.
Last year, the white police chief in the town told a newspaper: "If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names. I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested."
Monroe, 73, a retiree known as "Mr. Ben," was enjoying a gathering of family and friends on a mild winter day last February when two white police officers pulled up in front of the modest wood-frame house he had called home for the past 25 years.
For no good reason, the officers chased his adult son into the house. They had no warrant, and nobody there was wanted for any crime. When Mr. Monroe walked up the front porch steps during the commotion to check on his elderly wife, an officer who was still inside the house opened fire through the screen door, hitting him multiple times in the chest, back and arms.
This terrible tragedy should never have happened. And it wouldn't have happened if the police had acted responsibly. But, apparently, this type of police intimidation was well known to African Americans in the town.
Earlier on the day Monroe was killed, the police officer who fired the deadly shots had also searched and questioned other African Americans who were doing nothing more than sitting in their yard, minding their own business.
I'm outraged that this type of racial profiling is still occurring almost half a century after Jim Crow segregation was struck down in the South. The people of Homer deserve a police department that protects, rather than harasses them.
We're determined to get justice for the Monroe family and to stop unlawful discrimination.
The dangers of bigotry are clear. Please speak out against racial profiling and every form of discrimination. Thank you for supporting our work and for everything you do to promote justice in your own community.
Monday, February 15, 2010
UN envoy meets lawyers for Burmese opposition NLD
UN envoy meets Burma opposition
16:03 GMT, Monday, 15 February 2010
--bbc.co.uk--
A special UN Human Rights envoy has met lawyers for Burma's opposition party on the first day of a five-day visit to the country. Tomas Ojea Quintana has said that with elections due sometime in 2010, Burma is facing a critical year. Opposition groups welcomed the UN visit, with one activist saying human rights in Burma were "at the abyss".
It comes two days after pro-democracy leader Tin Oo was released following seven years in prison. A lawyer for the National League for Democracy party (NLD) told the BBC Mr Quintana had spoken with them in Rangoon for about an hour. The lawyer said the group had discussed Burma's legal system and the detention of their party leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Senior NLD member Win Tin called on Mr Quintana to "be decisive and perform his duties in the strictest manner without falling prey to the lies of the government".
"Myanmar's human rights conditions are at the abyss. The government continues to violate human rights and they don't have the will to alleviate human rights conditions," the Associated Press news agency quoted him as saying. Mr Quintana is also expected to meet several ministers in the military government and to visit Rangoon's notorious Insein prison.
Election question
But he has not been granted an audience with the man who makes all key decisions in Burma - General Than Shwe. Mr Quintana has also asked for permission to visit Ms Suu Kyi in detention, but on Monday said that he had not yet received a response to his request. Tin Oo, vice-president of the NLD was released from prison on Saturday, having been in prison since 2003.
As he visited NLD headquarters on Monday, he said he was optimistic that "things can be resolved" through Mr Quintana's visit. He said he thought Ms Suu Kyi could be freed soon as she had shown good behaviour under house arrest, a condition of her release. On Friday, Gen Than Shwe said elections - the first in two decades - would be held "soon". But Tin Oo has not yet said whether the party will take part.
There are some 1,200 such political prisoners in Burma and their release will be one of the main items on Mr Quintana's agenda, says the BBC's South East Asia correspondent Rachel Harvey. It is perhaps no coincidence that a high profile detainee such as Tin Oo won his freedom just ahead of the UN envoy's arrival, says our correspondent. But the Burmese leadership is adept at giving hints of progress on reform when international attention is focused in its direction, she adds.
Tin Oo was at the end of his latest period of detention, so his release does not represent a major concession on the part of the government.
Saudi doubts over Iran sanctions
01:37 GMT, Tuesday, 16 February 2010
--bbc.co.uk--
Imposing more sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme would not be a quick enough solution, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister has said. Prince Saud al-Faisal said the threat posed by Iran demanded a "more immediate solution" than sanctions.
He spoke in Riyadh alongside US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who earlier said Iran was "becoming a military dictatorship". On Tuesday Turkey's foreign minister is due in Iran aiming to mediate. Turkey is a Nato member, and Ahmet Davutoglu is expected to try and promote a deal on Tehran's nuclear programme between Turkey's western allies and Iran's Islamic government.
More sanctions?
Speaking at a joint Riyadh news conference with Mrs Clinton, Prince Saud said: "Sanctions are a long-term solution. They may work, we can't judge.
"But we see the issue in the shorter term maybe because we are closer to the threat... So we need an immediate resolution rather than a gradual resolution."
While the Saudi minister did not detail his vision of a quick solution in public, it is likely that options were discussed behind closed doors in the meeting between Mrs Clinton and King Abdullah, says the BBC's Kim Ghattas, who is travelling with the top US diplomat.
Earlier, aides to Mrs Clinton - who is on a tour of the Gulf to try to build support for more sanctions on Iran - revealed she would press Saudi Arabia to help persuade China to support a tougher stand against Iran's nuclear ambitions.
China, which can wield a veto on the UN Security Council as a permanent member, is against imposing more sanctions. Beijing fears a major loss of revenue from investments in Iran, and disruption of oil supplies from a country providing it with 400,000 barrels a day, our correspondent says. The Saudi foreign minister said that China, also a top importer of Saudi oil, did not need to be prodded by the kingdom to know what it ought to do about sanctions against Iran.
He added that efforts to rid the Middle East of nuclear weapons must also apply to Israel.
'Dictatorship'
Speaking to students at a Qatar university earlier on Monday, she said Iran's elite army corps, the Revolutionary Guard, had gained so much power they had effectively supplanted the government. "We see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament, is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. That is our view," Mrs Clinton said on her maiden visit to the kingdom.
On Sunday, she urged Iran to reconsider its "dangerous policy decisions". Mrs Clinton told a conference in Qatar it was leaving the international community little choice but to impose further sanctions. The US and its allies fear Iran is attempting to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.
Turkish mediation
Turkey has already offered to store Iran's nuclear material as part of a swap arrangement agreed last year. Under terms of that deal, Iran would get medical isotopes from France in return for handing over its own enriched uranium. Turkey's government hopes its offer to act as a nuclear repository will appeal more to Iran than storing its uranium elsewhere, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul. But Iran is still insisting that any nuclear swap must take place on its own soil.
If no deal can be done with Iran, Turkey will soon be forced to choose its historically strong alliance with the US and Europe, and its desire for closer friendship with its eastern neighbour, our correspondent adds. Iran, meanwhile, rejected criticism from the West about its human rights record. "Iran is becoming one of the predominant democratic states in the region," said Javad Larijani, secretary general of the Iranian High Council for Human Rights.
Indigenous Peoples Fight for Rights, Buoyed by New Report
Monday 15 February 2010
by: Betwa Sharma GlobalPost
New York - A grandmother of seven, Colleen Swan, along with 400 members of her Eskimo community are preparing to leave their homes on the 8-mile barrier reef off the coast of the Chukchi Sea in Alaska. The sea ice that once protected the Kivalina village melts quickly because of rising temperatures which also cause storms, flooding and changes in the migratory patterns of the animals needed for subsistence hunting. “We’re angry, we shouldn't have to live like this,” said Swan, when reached by phone in Alaska. “Our impact on the environment is minimal but we live with the reality of climate change.”
The first U.N. report on indigenous peoples described the Arctic as the “barometer” for climate change, and the indigenous peoples who live there as the “mercury in that barometer.” But climate change isn't the only hazard described in the report entitled "State of the World's Indigenous Peoples," out this year. Its researchers find indigenous peoples trapped between the bottom rungs of all the main human development indexes like poverty, heath and education across 90 countries. The indigenous leaders view this as a historic document as it is solely the work of prominent doctors, academics, scientists and lawyers from their communities. “This is the first time people are not writing about us. We are writing about the current situation that we are living in different parts of the world,” said Myrna Cunningham, an activist and surgeon from the Miskitu Indian tribe of Nicaragua who contributed the chapter on health.
The startling revelation of the study is that while indigenous peoples make up around 370 million (5 percent) of the world’s population, they constitute around one-third of the world’s 900 million extremely poor rural people. “This is really a very damning statistic because we live in the richest parts,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, of the Igorot peoples in the Philippines and head of the U.N. forum on indigenous peoples. “We are not poor. We are impoverished because our access to our lands and our territories and resources have been curtailed very drastically by states and corporations,” she continued. The report is riddled with alarming statistics including: in Australia and Nepal, an indigenous child can expect to die 20 years earlier than a non-native, and 90 percent of the 4,000 languages spoken by indigenous peoples will be extinct or close to extinction by the end of the century.
The authors of the report expect it to have a far-reaching impact on future policy because never before has the indigenous community been able to resent “disaggregated data” to expose their conditions as distinct from national populations. On the health front, for instance, it highlighted indigenous women as disproportionately suffering from violence. “Indigenous women are the most raped women in America but our tribes cannot prosecute the perpetrators,” said Charon Asetoyer, an activist of the Comanche tribe, working in South Dakota. The 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Oliphant v. Suquamish bans tribal courts from prosecuting non-Indian U.S. citizens but according to the Justice Department, one in three indigenous women are raped and 86 percent of the perpetrators are non-indigenous men.
Presently, the only international protection available to indigenous peoples is a non-legally binding U.N. declaration on their human rights, passed in 2007. The next big push will be getting countries to actually implement its provisions. “There are a couple of decades of work that need to be done by governments but these rights act as a reminder to them,” said Tom Goldtooth, a leading indigenous environmentalist in Mississippi. Bolivia is working the declaration into its national law but countries like United States, Canada and New Zealand have not signed on, expressing reservations about its implications on land rights and claims of self determination.
The most immediate danger, experts warn, is the danger of extinction faced by the “indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation.” In the past, limited contact with outsiders has led to outbreaks of whooping cough, small pox and influenza. While governments continue to deny their existence, the report describes these “uncontacted tribes” as being on the brink of “genocide” due to oil production, timber extraction, drug trafficking and tourism in the Amazonian rainforests. Plagued by epidemics, the Matsiguenka people living in the south of Peruvian Amazon, had to break their isolation to find help, according Beatriz Huertas, an anthropologist based in Lima who has been working on the problem for two decades. While recognizing these groups to be in imminent dangers of extinction, the U.N. has failed to provide them with any real protection.
“This agency has not adopted an effective mechanism needed to guarantee the physical and cultural integrity of the most vulnerable,” said Huertas. Despite the gloomy report on their overall condition, the indigenous leaders are asserting their international voice. One small victory came in December at the climate change talks in Copenhagen where they succeeded in getting the U.N. declaration incorporated into the text on preventing deforestation. This was the first time that any multilateral environmental agreement had made a reference to the indigenous declaration. “We had a very difficult time to get this because several governments like the U.S. did not like it,” said Tauli-Corpuz. The deforestation text, however, will only be finalized at the next climate meeting in Mexico. Goldtooth said, “the language is still not strong enough but we’re staying positive.”
Monday 15 February 2010
by: Betwa Sharma GlobalPost
New York - A grandmother of seven, Colleen Swan, along with 400 members of her Eskimo community are preparing to leave their homes on the 8-mile barrier reef off the coast of the Chukchi Sea in Alaska. The sea ice that once protected the Kivalina village melts quickly because of rising temperatures which also cause storms, flooding and changes in the migratory patterns of the animals needed for subsistence hunting. “We’re angry, we shouldn't have to live like this,” said Swan, when reached by phone in Alaska. “Our impact on the environment is minimal but we live with the reality of climate change.”
The first U.N. report on indigenous peoples described the Arctic as the “barometer” for climate change, and the indigenous peoples who live there as the “mercury in that barometer.” But climate change isn't the only hazard described in the report entitled "State of the World's Indigenous Peoples," out this year. Its researchers find indigenous peoples trapped between the bottom rungs of all the main human development indexes like poverty, heath and education across 90 countries. The indigenous leaders view this as a historic document as it is solely the work of prominent doctors, academics, scientists and lawyers from their communities. “This is the first time people are not writing about us. We are writing about the current situation that we are living in different parts of the world,” said Myrna Cunningham, an activist and surgeon from the Miskitu Indian tribe of Nicaragua who contributed the chapter on health.
The startling revelation of the study is that while indigenous peoples make up around 370 million (5 percent) of the world’s population, they constitute around one-third of the world’s 900 million extremely poor rural people. “This is really a very damning statistic because we live in the richest parts,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, of the Igorot peoples in the Philippines and head of the U.N. forum on indigenous peoples. “We are not poor. We are impoverished because our access to our lands and our territories and resources have been curtailed very drastically by states and corporations,” she continued. The report is riddled with alarming statistics including: in Australia and Nepal, an indigenous child can expect to die 20 years earlier than a non-native, and 90 percent of the 4,000 languages spoken by indigenous peoples will be extinct or close to extinction by the end of the century.
The authors of the report expect it to have a far-reaching impact on future policy because never before has the indigenous community been able to resent “disaggregated data” to expose their conditions as distinct from national populations. On the health front, for instance, it highlighted indigenous women as disproportionately suffering from violence. “Indigenous women are the most raped women in America but our tribes cannot prosecute the perpetrators,” said Charon Asetoyer, an activist of the Comanche tribe, working in South Dakota. The 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Oliphant v. Suquamish bans tribal courts from prosecuting non-Indian U.S. citizens but according to the Justice Department, one in three indigenous women are raped and 86 percent of the perpetrators are non-indigenous men.
Presently, the only international protection available to indigenous peoples is a non-legally binding U.N. declaration on their human rights, passed in 2007. The next big push will be getting countries to actually implement its provisions. “There are a couple of decades of work that need to be done by governments but these rights act as a reminder to them,” said Tom Goldtooth, a leading indigenous environmentalist in Mississippi. Bolivia is working the declaration into its national law but countries like United States, Canada and New Zealand have not signed on, expressing reservations about its implications on land rights and claims of self determination.
The most immediate danger, experts warn, is the danger of extinction faced by the “indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation.” In the past, limited contact with outsiders has led to outbreaks of whooping cough, small pox and influenza. While governments continue to deny their existence, the report describes these “uncontacted tribes” as being on the brink of “genocide” due to oil production, timber extraction, drug trafficking and tourism in the Amazonian rainforests. Plagued by epidemics, the Matsiguenka people living in the south of Peruvian Amazon, had to break their isolation to find help, according Beatriz Huertas, an anthropologist based in Lima who has been working on the problem for two decades. While recognizing these groups to be in imminent dangers of extinction, the U.N. has failed to provide them with any real protection.
“This agency has not adopted an effective mechanism needed to guarantee the physical and cultural integrity of the most vulnerable,” said Huertas. Despite the gloomy report on their overall condition, the indigenous leaders are asserting their international voice. One small victory came in December at the climate change talks in Copenhagen where they succeeded in getting the U.N. declaration incorporated into the text on preventing deforestation. This was the first time that any multilateral environmental agreement had made a reference to the indigenous declaration. “We had a very difficult time to get this because several governments like the U.S. did not like it,” said Tauli-Corpuz. The deforestation text, however, will only be finalized at the next climate meeting in Mexico. Goldtooth said, “the language is still not strong enough but we’re staying positive.”
--truthdig--
When an architect named Norman Pfeiffer designed the Evo DeConcini Federal Courthouse in Tucson, Ariz., he claimed to have been inspired by its natural surroundings. “From afar,” Pfeiffer told Architecture Week, “the desert tells little of what it knows. ... But upon closer scrutiny it reveals its true self.”
The 413,000-square-foot, $67.3 million monolith that Pfeiffer erected blends easily with the pale desert landscape flanking downtown Tucson. The earth-toned structure appears so bland a casual passer-by might not even take a second glance. Only a few observers have ventured inside to witness the spectacle that takes place on the third floor.
The show begins each day at 1 p.m., when about 75 undocumented immigrants just captured along the U.S.-Mexico border are marched into the room in leg irons and manacles and compelled all at once to plead guilty to entering the country illegally. Although the proceeding has the trappings of a trial, the defendants never challenge the charges against them, and are clearly discouraged from doing so. They know their fate is preordained: deportation to a border town, separation from their families and occasionally a few months in a privatized prison.
The daily trials are mandated by a program called Operation Streamline. When Streamline was announced by President George W. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security in 2005, Border Patrol officials argued that trying undocumented immigrants and keeping records of their illegal entries would deter them from coming back over the border. But over the two years since its 2008 inception, the program has failed to achieve any of its stated goals; only the shrinking job market has prevented impoverished Latin American migrants from venturing across the border in search of work.
Since Streamline arrived in Arizona in 2008 it has morphed into a pipeline transferring millions in federal funds into the state’s anemic economy. Almost everyone involved in the program is lining their pockets with taxpayer money, from a controversial private prison company to a rapidly growing pool of courthouse criminal defense attorneys to the grim federal marshals who herd migrants in and out of the courtroom. Thanks to Streamline, the number of public defenders has nearly doubled in Tucson, the Border Patrol has bolstered its ranks with new agents and the local prison industry is booming. The program represents the entrenchment of a parallel nonproductive economy promoting abuse behind the guise of law enforcement and crime deterrence.
Immigrant rights advocates appeared to have scored a decisive victory against Streamline when the 9th Circuit federal court of appeals ruled last Dec. 2 that trying defendants en masse violated established rules on legal procedure. “We act within a system maintained by rules of procedure,” Senior Circuit Judge John T. Noonan, a Republican appointed by President Ronald Reagan, concluded in his opinion. “We cannot dispense with the rules without setting a precedent subversive of the structure.”
The Obama administration and the Border Patrol, however, have sought to comply with the court’s ruling without having to scrap Streamline. They have ordered magistrates to hear each plea one by one when a group of migrants is brought into the court, turning already grinding hour-and-a-half proceedings into three-hour-long ordeals. “It’s not unprecedented. It can be done,” insisted Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney in Arizona who was chief of staff to Department of Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano when she was Arizona governor.
I witnessed Streamline last Nov. 30, just days before the court’s decision blocked the government from compelling migrants to plead en masse. Isabel Garcia, a public defender and fiery national immigrant rights icon, invited me to report the proceeding. Last summer, Garcia led a demonstration to the courthouse gates, directing the community’s indignation against what she described as unconstitutional factory justice. Local right-wing radio hosts and anti-immigrant activists have clamored for the city to oust her from her job as public defender. So far, Garcia’s antagonists have failed in their crusade.
The Nov. 30 trial began as soon as the migrants were marched into the room and seated wherever they could fit, from the jury box to the audience gallery. All of the migrants were young and brown-skinned, with combed black hair, wearing the same clothes they wore during their perilous trek across the Sonoran Desert but without the belts and shoelaces they were forced to surrender to prevent suicide attempts. A few men struggled to keep their pants from falling down as they ambled into their seats. The eerie clang of chains reverberated around the courtroom like the sound of wind chimes; the migrants were bound in manacles and leg irons, even the 11 young women who occupied the front row.
The judge summoned three migrants to the front of the room. They stood before the bench with expressionless looks and oversized, secondhand clothes hanging off their bone-thin frames. The judge quickly dismissed them from the proceeding, explaining that the court was unable to find anyone who could translate his English into Chatino, the indigenous dialect the three men spoke. The men remained frozen with blank stares, oblivious to the judge’s remarks. Finally, a marshal stepped forward to lead the three out of the room and into a holding cell.
Next, a group of about a dozen migrants with prior illegal-border-crossing convictions were summoned to the bench. The judge promptly sentenced each man to prison terms ranging from 30 to 150 days. Those who had incurred legal infractions during previous stays, no matter how minor, were given more time. After being sentenced to serve 150 days, one of the defendants piped up. “I’m just concerned about where I’ll serve my time in jail,” he declared plaintively in unaccented English. “I wonder if I could serve my time in Washington [state]. My daughters are there and so is my girlfriend and we’ve been living together for several years.”
“No way is the judge going to do that,” Garcia grumbled to me.
The judge replied that while he would issue a “recommendation” for the defendant to serve his time in Washington, the Bureau of Prisons had the final say on where he would serve his prison term. “See!” Garcia said, seething.
If the man’s request to serve his jail term near his family was not met—and it clearly would not be—he could expect to do time at the nearby Eloy Detention Center, operated by a controversial private prison firm called Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Nine immigrants have died under mysterious circumstances under CCA’s watch at Eloy. The dead include an ailing 62-year-old Ghanian man imprisoned in 2006 for a misdemeanor he had committed in 1979 and a 36-year-old man from Ecuador who was refused treatment for testicular cancer even as he writhed in pain on the floor of his cell. In 2006, another detainee, a 27-year-old immigrant from Colombia who initially refused treatment for headaches and dizziness died weeks later of a seizure when Eloy medical staff members ignored him for an hour after he collapsed. Reporters and lawyers seeking information on the deaths have been stonewalled by CCA and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE); the death of the Ecuadorean, Felix Frankin Torres-Rodriguez, was never reported by CCA.
When ICE conducted an internal investigation of CCA’s Eloy center in 2006, it found that the facility had “failed on multiple levels to perform basic supervision and provide for the safety and welfare of ICE detainees.” But thanks to Streamline, CCA’s nonunion prison operation continues to bring work to the town of Eloy.
In September, Money magazine ranked the home of Eloy Detention Center, Pinal County, as the county with the fastest rate of job growth in the country. “Over the past several years, we have welcomed three more CCA facilities in Eloy,” boasted Eloy City Manager Joseph Blanton. “CCA has brought nearly 1,500 new jobs to Eloy through these facilities.”
As CCA expands in Pinal County, so does the bill to American taxpayers. According to David Gonzalez, the U.S. marshal for Arizona, taxpayers pay from $9 million to $11 million a month to incarcerate immigrants at Eloy alone. To preserve the flow, CCA has cultivated high-level political connections on both sides of the aisle. Among its board of directors is former Democratic Sen. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, a friend of Department of Homeland Security Director Napolitano and the former boss of U.S. Attorney Burke, who worked as a counsel at DeConcini’s law firm. (The courthouse where Streamline takes place is named for DeConcini’s father, Evo, who once was Arizona’s attorney general.) CCA’s lobbyists have become familiar faces in Congress and in statehouses across the country; the company spent $770,000 last year to ply lawmakers.
Lawyer Land
As a new group of second-time border crossers appeared before the judge, one man was questioned about a conviction from 1997 for driving under the influence, a crime that could result in a longer sentence. Speaking through the public defender assigned to the group, the defendant pleaded for mercy. “His wife is a U.S. citizen,” the lawyer informed the judge. “He simply wanted to support his family by picking apples in Washington so he spent hundreds of dollars to take a bus from Acapulco to Nogales. He promises he will never come back to the United States.”
The heartfelt plea seemed to do little good. The judge slapped the man with a 150-day sentence and an admonition. “Don’t come back to the U.S. because it is not worth it,” the judge said in a firm but forced tone. “It’s not worth living in fear all the time. There are a lot of countries around the world that have good economies. You might want to consider immigrating to those countries instead.”
The judge, a bespectacled, dour fellow named Thomas Ferraro, sounded sincere issuing his ludicrous advice. Although he had been appointed head of a virtual kangaroo court for a day each week, Ferraro did not rush through the trial as other magistrates were known to do. He was doing his best to hear the concerns of the defendants, even if there was nothing he could do for them. Garcia whispered to me, “Ferraro feels guilty because it’s a total sham, so he’s putting his personal touch on it. He’s one of the nice ones.”
Finally, Ferraro directed his attention to the 50 or so remaining defendants who were first-time offenders. “Do you give up your rights and plead guilty to the crime of illegal entry?” he asked them.
From the gallery and jury box, a baritone chorus rose up: “Si!” None of the female defendants in the front row uttered a sound, however.
“Do each of you understand the essential elements of your guilty plea?” Ferraro asked.
“Si!” the defendants bellowed again.
Before sentencing the migrants to deportation, Ferraro took one last opportunity to scold them. “This is no way to live your life,” he declared. “Most of you are very young and can go back to Mexico and make a living for yourselves and your family. It will be much easier, believe me, and you won’t be separated from your families.”
While the migrants listened impassively on headphones to a translated version of Ferraro’s lecture, 14 criminal defense attorneys peppered throughout the audience gallery busied themselves jotting notes and playing with their BlackBerries. Though a couple of these lawyers with whom I spoke outside the courtroom seemed passionate in their opposition to Streamline, the vast majority were among the most predatory in town. Their participation in Streamline was motivated by the $110 an hour they earned without exerting a scintilla of effort. They operated as deportation conductors, not advocates. According to Heather Williams, the supervisor of the Tucson Federal Public Defenders Office, the federal government shells out between $6,000 and $12,000 each day to pay the private attorneys who represent Streamline defendants.
The migrants were finally led out of the courtroom by two marshals, including one who, like some of the lawyers, spent the entire trial tooling around with his cell phone. As the 11 female defendants filed by, they looked toward Garcia and a public defender representing several of them, Yendi Castillo-Reina. One of the migrant women appeared to be no more than 4 foot 10, so small and thin she seemed to be weighed down by the shackles around her wrists, waist and ankles. The women complained to Garcia and Castillo-Reina that they had not had any water in hours.
“They’ve had water. There’s a fountain right outside!” a beefy marshal bellowed.
Castillo-Reina handed me a stack of papers while she chatted with Garcia. It contained the files of the clients assigned to her that day. The file on the first page read: “Elsa Calderon-Diaz, an alien, was found by agents in the United States of America without proper documentation.” Beside the statement was a mug shot of a woman with short black hair and Mayan features—high cheekbones, full lips, thick, straight black hair—that looked especially stark in the black-and-white photocopy. She had come from a small town in Chiapas, the poorest state in Mexico and the home of the now-dormant Zapatista indigenous rebel group. The Border Patrol would decide where the woman went next.
Garcia explained that many of the migrants faced lateral repatriation, a relatively new Border Patrol practice that would take them by bus or a charter flight—chained during transit—to crime-ridden border cities like Ciudad Juarez and Presidio, hundreds of miles away along the Texas border, where they would be simply dumped, far from their families and often with nothing but the tattered clothes on their backs.
Though the repatriation program was briefly halted in 2003 after the Mexican government protested to the Inter-American Council on Human Rights, the Border Patrol swiftly restarted it, claiming the program would reduce migrant deaths in the desert. The cost to taxpayers has been staggering; each flight costs the government around $28,000. Meanwhile, the migrant death rate has exploded. According to the Arizona Daily Star’s database, the risk of death for illegal border crossers is 1.5 times higher now than five years ago and 17 times greater than in 1998.
“We’ve been saying for as long as I can remember that more enforcement will mean more deaths,” Kat Rodriguez, coordinating organizer for Derechos Humanos Arizona, told me. “All this death is the natural consequence of a failed policy.”
‘We’re All Parasites’
There was agitation in Castillo-Reina’s voice as she spoke to Garcia. “I struggle with this all the time,” I overheard her say. “I’m just conflicted.” It suddenly occurred to me that Garcia and Castillo-Reina were the only Latinas in the room not in chains.
As the courtroom emptied, I walked down a long, empty hallway toward the exit with Castillo-Reina. A mutual friend had told me that unlike Garcia, who helped galvanize the immigrant rights movement in 1997 after a teenage shepherd, Ezequiel Hernandez, was shot to death by U.S. Marines involved in a covert drug interdiction exercise on the border, Castillo-Reina avoided demonstrations and political activity. She had strong convictions but they were closely held.
I asked Castillo-Reina why Streamline has continued to expand even as it failed to demonstrate any practical value. “The only reason I can come up with is that they do this for the benefit of the local economy,” she said in a hushed voice. “Our office size has doubled since Streamline came here, the number of prosecutors is huge, there is an endless supply of criminal defense lawyers in this town; this courthouse is worth 20 million a month for the local economy. And the corporate welfare keeps pouring in. There’s no way in hell the government’s gonna give that up in an economic crisis.”
Castillo-Reina is the daughter of immigrants from Mexico City who moved to Wisconsin to become social workers. She told me that when growing up she got to know the Mexican migrants who flocked to her area during the winter to harvest the pine trees decorating living rooms across America on Christmas Eve. The severe conditions in the migrant camps galvanized her commitment to immigrant rights and eventually propelled her into law school. “I became a lawyer because I watched ‘School [House] Rock,’ ” she reflected. “I believed in the simple things that show taught me about the Constitution.”
But after running up against the draconian immigration system for so long, Castillo-Reina has concluded, “I have no hope. We’re watching an entire class of people get stripped of their constitutional rights, and because of the political climate and the economy, it’s somehow become OK.”
I asked her why she even bothered to participate in Streamline. None of the defendants were able to mount any defense, so what was the point? She paused. Her face began to tremble with emotion. Then tears came pouring from her eyes. “We’re all parasites,” she exclaimed, trying to regain her composure. “But there’s something to bearing witness. If I don’t do this, the reality is somebody else will be in there getting $110 an hour who doesn’t care.”
By now, we were standing outside in the shadow of the towering DeConcini courthouse. Castillo-Reina’s tear-streaked face seemed out of place here. Her outpouring of emotion contrasted with the indifference I had just witnessed in the courtroom. Other than the migrants, who received their sentences with stoic acceptance, hardly anyone in the courtroom seemed to view Streamline as anything more a slight annoyance. For the judge and the marshals, it was another day at the office; for most of the lawyers, it was a chance to make an easy buck; for the prison industry, it has been a cash cow.
Only a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants could put Streamline out of business. But the Congress has been fixated on more consequential matters: While I was in Tucson, members of the House Committee on Homeland Security were engaged in emergency hearings about the Salahis, the notorious White House gate crashers.
When an architect named Norman Pfeiffer designed the Evo DeConcini Federal Courthouse in Tucson, Ariz., he claimed to have been inspired by its natural surroundings. “From afar,” Pfeiffer told Architecture Week, “the desert tells little of what it knows. ... But upon closer scrutiny it reveals its true self.”
The 413,000-square-foot, $67.3 million monolith that Pfeiffer erected blends easily with the pale desert landscape flanking downtown Tucson. The earth-toned structure appears so bland a casual passer-by might not even take a second glance. Only a few observers have ventured inside to witness the spectacle that takes place on the third floor.
The show begins each day at 1 p.m., when about 75 undocumented immigrants just captured along the U.S.-Mexico border are marched into the room in leg irons and manacles and compelled all at once to plead guilty to entering the country illegally. Although the proceeding has the trappings of a trial, the defendants never challenge the charges against them, and are clearly discouraged from doing so. They know their fate is preordained: deportation to a border town, separation from their families and occasionally a few months in a privatized prison.
The daily trials are mandated by a program called Operation Streamline. When Streamline was announced by President George W. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security in 2005, Border Patrol officials argued that trying undocumented immigrants and keeping records of their illegal entries would deter them from coming back over the border. But over the two years since its 2008 inception, the program has failed to achieve any of its stated goals; only the shrinking job market has prevented impoverished Latin American migrants from venturing across the border in search of work.
Since Streamline arrived in Arizona in 2008 it has morphed into a pipeline transferring millions in federal funds into the state’s anemic economy. Almost everyone involved in the program is lining their pockets with taxpayer money, from a controversial private prison company to a rapidly growing pool of courthouse criminal defense attorneys to the grim federal marshals who herd migrants in and out of the courtroom. Thanks to Streamline, the number of public defenders has nearly doubled in Tucson, the Border Patrol has bolstered its ranks with new agents and the local prison industry is booming. The program represents the entrenchment of a parallel nonproductive economy promoting abuse behind the guise of law enforcement and crime deterrence.
Immigrant rights advocates appeared to have scored a decisive victory against Streamline when the 9th Circuit federal court of appeals ruled last Dec. 2 that trying defendants en masse violated established rules on legal procedure. “We act within a system maintained by rules of procedure,” Senior Circuit Judge John T. Noonan, a Republican appointed by President Ronald Reagan, concluded in his opinion. “We cannot dispense with the rules without setting a precedent subversive of the structure.”
The Obama administration and the Border Patrol, however, have sought to comply with the court’s ruling without having to scrap Streamline. They have ordered magistrates to hear each plea one by one when a group of migrants is brought into the court, turning already grinding hour-and-a-half proceedings into three-hour-long ordeals. “It’s not unprecedented. It can be done,” insisted Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney in Arizona who was chief of staff to Department of Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano when she was Arizona governor.
I witnessed Streamline last Nov. 30, just days before the court’s decision blocked the government from compelling migrants to plead en masse. Isabel Garcia, a public defender and fiery national immigrant rights icon, invited me to report the proceeding. Last summer, Garcia led a demonstration to the courthouse gates, directing the community’s indignation against what she described as unconstitutional factory justice. Local right-wing radio hosts and anti-immigrant activists have clamored for the city to oust her from her job as public defender. So far, Garcia’s antagonists have failed in their crusade.
The Nov. 30 trial began as soon as the migrants were marched into the room and seated wherever they could fit, from the jury box to the audience gallery. All of the migrants were young and brown-skinned, with combed black hair, wearing the same clothes they wore during their perilous trek across the Sonoran Desert but without the belts and shoelaces they were forced to surrender to prevent suicide attempts. A few men struggled to keep their pants from falling down as they ambled into their seats. The eerie clang of chains reverberated around the courtroom like the sound of wind chimes; the migrants were bound in manacles and leg irons, even the 11 young women who occupied the front row.
The judge summoned three migrants to the front of the room. They stood before the bench with expressionless looks and oversized, secondhand clothes hanging off their bone-thin frames. The judge quickly dismissed them from the proceeding, explaining that the court was unable to find anyone who could translate his English into Chatino, the indigenous dialect the three men spoke. The men remained frozen with blank stares, oblivious to the judge’s remarks. Finally, a marshal stepped forward to lead the three out of the room and into a holding cell.
Next, a group of about a dozen migrants with prior illegal-border-crossing convictions were summoned to the bench. The judge promptly sentenced each man to prison terms ranging from 30 to 150 days. Those who had incurred legal infractions during previous stays, no matter how minor, were given more time. After being sentenced to serve 150 days, one of the defendants piped up. “I’m just concerned about where I’ll serve my time in jail,” he declared plaintively in unaccented English. “I wonder if I could serve my time in Washington [state]. My daughters are there and so is my girlfriend and we’ve been living together for several years.”
“No way is the judge going to do that,” Garcia grumbled to me.
The judge replied that while he would issue a “recommendation” for the defendant to serve his time in Washington, the Bureau of Prisons had the final say on where he would serve his prison term. “See!” Garcia said, seething.
If the man’s request to serve his jail term near his family was not met—and it clearly would not be—he could expect to do time at the nearby Eloy Detention Center, operated by a controversial private prison firm called Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Nine immigrants have died under mysterious circumstances under CCA’s watch at Eloy. The dead include an ailing 62-year-old Ghanian man imprisoned in 2006 for a misdemeanor he had committed in 1979 and a 36-year-old man from Ecuador who was refused treatment for testicular cancer even as he writhed in pain on the floor of his cell. In 2006, another detainee, a 27-year-old immigrant from Colombia who initially refused treatment for headaches and dizziness died weeks later of a seizure when Eloy medical staff members ignored him for an hour after he collapsed. Reporters and lawyers seeking information on the deaths have been stonewalled by CCA and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE); the death of the Ecuadorean, Felix Frankin Torres-Rodriguez, was never reported by CCA.
When ICE conducted an internal investigation of CCA’s Eloy center in 2006, it found that the facility had “failed on multiple levels to perform basic supervision and provide for the safety and welfare of ICE detainees.” But thanks to Streamline, CCA’s nonunion prison operation continues to bring work to the town of Eloy.
In September, Money magazine ranked the home of Eloy Detention Center, Pinal County, as the county with the fastest rate of job growth in the country. “Over the past several years, we have welcomed three more CCA facilities in Eloy,” boasted Eloy City Manager Joseph Blanton. “CCA has brought nearly 1,500 new jobs to Eloy through these facilities.”
As CCA expands in Pinal County, so does the bill to American taxpayers. According to David Gonzalez, the U.S. marshal for Arizona, taxpayers pay from $9 million to $11 million a month to incarcerate immigrants at Eloy alone. To preserve the flow, CCA has cultivated high-level political connections on both sides of the aisle. Among its board of directors is former Democratic Sen. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, a friend of Department of Homeland Security Director Napolitano and the former boss of U.S. Attorney Burke, who worked as a counsel at DeConcini’s law firm. (The courthouse where Streamline takes place is named for DeConcini’s father, Evo, who once was Arizona’s attorney general.) CCA’s lobbyists have become familiar faces in Congress and in statehouses across the country; the company spent $770,000 last year to ply lawmakers.
Lawyer Land
As a new group of second-time border crossers appeared before the judge, one man was questioned about a conviction from 1997 for driving under the influence, a crime that could result in a longer sentence. Speaking through the public defender assigned to the group, the defendant pleaded for mercy. “His wife is a U.S. citizen,” the lawyer informed the judge. “He simply wanted to support his family by picking apples in Washington so he spent hundreds of dollars to take a bus from Acapulco to Nogales. He promises he will never come back to the United States.”
The heartfelt plea seemed to do little good. The judge slapped the man with a 150-day sentence and an admonition. “Don’t come back to the U.S. because it is not worth it,” the judge said in a firm but forced tone. “It’s not worth living in fear all the time. There are a lot of countries around the world that have good economies. You might want to consider immigrating to those countries instead.”
The judge, a bespectacled, dour fellow named Thomas Ferraro, sounded sincere issuing his ludicrous advice. Although he had been appointed head of a virtual kangaroo court for a day each week, Ferraro did not rush through the trial as other magistrates were known to do. He was doing his best to hear the concerns of the defendants, even if there was nothing he could do for them. Garcia whispered to me, “Ferraro feels guilty because it’s a total sham, so he’s putting his personal touch on it. He’s one of the nice ones.”
Finally, Ferraro directed his attention to the 50 or so remaining defendants who were first-time offenders. “Do you give up your rights and plead guilty to the crime of illegal entry?” he asked them.
From the gallery and jury box, a baritone chorus rose up: “Si!” None of the female defendants in the front row uttered a sound, however.
“Do each of you understand the essential elements of your guilty plea?” Ferraro asked.
“Si!” the defendants bellowed again.
Before sentencing the migrants to deportation, Ferraro took one last opportunity to scold them. “This is no way to live your life,” he declared. “Most of you are very young and can go back to Mexico and make a living for yourselves and your family. It will be much easier, believe me, and you won’t be separated from your families.”
While the migrants listened impassively on headphones to a translated version of Ferraro’s lecture, 14 criminal defense attorneys peppered throughout the audience gallery busied themselves jotting notes and playing with their BlackBerries. Though a couple of these lawyers with whom I spoke outside the courtroom seemed passionate in their opposition to Streamline, the vast majority were among the most predatory in town. Their participation in Streamline was motivated by the $110 an hour they earned without exerting a scintilla of effort. They operated as deportation conductors, not advocates. According to Heather Williams, the supervisor of the Tucson Federal Public Defenders Office, the federal government shells out between $6,000 and $12,000 each day to pay the private attorneys who represent Streamline defendants.
The migrants were finally led out of the courtroom by two marshals, including one who, like some of the lawyers, spent the entire trial tooling around with his cell phone. As the 11 female defendants filed by, they looked toward Garcia and a public defender representing several of them, Yendi Castillo-Reina. One of the migrant women appeared to be no more than 4 foot 10, so small and thin she seemed to be weighed down by the shackles around her wrists, waist and ankles. The women complained to Garcia and Castillo-Reina that they had not had any water in hours.
“They’ve had water. There’s a fountain right outside!” a beefy marshal bellowed.
Castillo-Reina handed me a stack of papers while she chatted with Garcia. It contained the files of the clients assigned to her that day. The file on the first page read: “Elsa Calderon-Diaz, an alien, was found by agents in the United States of America without proper documentation.” Beside the statement was a mug shot of a woman with short black hair and Mayan features—high cheekbones, full lips, thick, straight black hair—that looked especially stark in the black-and-white photocopy. She had come from a small town in Chiapas, the poorest state in Mexico and the home of the now-dormant Zapatista indigenous rebel group. The Border Patrol would decide where the woman went next.
Garcia explained that many of the migrants faced lateral repatriation, a relatively new Border Patrol practice that would take them by bus or a charter flight—chained during transit—to crime-ridden border cities like Ciudad Juarez and Presidio, hundreds of miles away along the Texas border, where they would be simply dumped, far from their families and often with nothing but the tattered clothes on their backs.
Though the repatriation program was briefly halted in 2003 after the Mexican government protested to the Inter-American Council on Human Rights, the Border Patrol swiftly restarted it, claiming the program would reduce migrant deaths in the desert. The cost to taxpayers has been staggering; each flight costs the government around $28,000. Meanwhile, the migrant death rate has exploded. According to the Arizona Daily Star’s database, the risk of death for illegal border crossers is 1.5 times higher now than five years ago and 17 times greater than in 1998.
“We’ve been saying for as long as I can remember that more enforcement will mean more deaths,” Kat Rodriguez, coordinating organizer for Derechos Humanos Arizona, told me. “All this death is the natural consequence of a failed policy.”
‘We’re All Parasites’
There was agitation in Castillo-Reina’s voice as she spoke to Garcia. “I struggle with this all the time,” I overheard her say. “I’m just conflicted.” It suddenly occurred to me that Garcia and Castillo-Reina were the only Latinas in the room not in chains.
As the courtroom emptied, I walked down a long, empty hallway toward the exit with Castillo-Reina. A mutual friend had told me that unlike Garcia, who helped galvanize the immigrant rights movement in 1997 after a teenage shepherd, Ezequiel Hernandez, was shot to death by U.S. Marines involved in a covert drug interdiction exercise on the border, Castillo-Reina avoided demonstrations and political activity. She had strong convictions but they were closely held.
I asked Castillo-Reina why Streamline has continued to expand even as it failed to demonstrate any practical value. “The only reason I can come up with is that they do this for the benefit of the local economy,” she said in a hushed voice. “Our office size has doubled since Streamline came here, the number of prosecutors is huge, there is an endless supply of criminal defense lawyers in this town; this courthouse is worth 20 million a month for the local economy. And the corporate welfare keeps pouring in. There’s no way in hell the government’s gonna give that up in an economic crisis.”
Castillo-Reina is the daughter of immigrants from Mexico City who moved to Wisconsin to become social workers. She told me that when growing up she got to know the Mexican migrants who flocked to her area during the winter to harvest the pine trees decorating living rooms across America on Christmas Eve. The severe conditions in the migrant camps galvanized her commitment to immigrant rights and eventually propelled her into law school. “I became a lawyer because I watched ‘School [House] Rock,’ ” she reflected. “I believed in the simple things that show taught me about the Constitution.”
But after running up against the draconian immigration system for so long, Castillo-Reina has concluded, “I have no hope. We’re watching an entire class of people get stripped of their constitutional rights, and because of the political climate and the economy, it’s somehow become OK.”
I asked her why she even bothered to participate in Streamline. None of the defendants were able to mount any defense, so what was the point? She paused. Her face began to tremble with emotion. Then tears came pouring from her eyes. “We’re all parasites,” she exclaimed, trying to regain her composure. “But there’s something to bearing witness. If I don’t do this, the reality is somebody else will be in there getting $110 an hour who doesn’t care.”
By now, we were standing outside in the shadow of the towering DeConcini courthouse. Castillo-Reina’s tear-streaked face seemed out of place here. Her outpouring of emotion contrasted with the indifference I had just witnessed in the courtroom. Other than the migrants, who received their sentences with stoic acceptance, hardly anyone in the courtroom seemed to view Streamline as anything more a slight annoyance. For the judge and the marshals, it was another day at the office; for most of the lawyers, it was a chance to make an easy buck; for the prison industry, it has been a cash cow.
Only a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants could put Streamline out of business. But the Congress has been fixated on more consequential matters: While I was in Tucson, members of the House Committee on Homeland Security were engaged in emergency hearings about the Salahis, the notorious White House gate crashers.
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