Puente Press Advisory
Contact: Guillermo Glenn 915 497-5177
Salvador Reza 602 446-9928
Sylvia Herrera 602) 575-8829
Human Rights Caravan to Washington D.C. Arrives in El Paso to meet with Border Workers Association
Presents Testimony - Before U.S. Government Officials on Human Rights Crisis in Arizona
Press Conference
Date: Monday March 8th
Location: Sidewalk – Front of Camino Real Hotel
101 South El Paso Street, El Paso TX 79901
Time: 12:00 Noon
A panel of U.S. Government experts is here in El Paso to gather information on Human Rights violations in preparation to the U.S. presentation before the United Nations in Geneva this November.
Members of the Caravan to D.C. will testify as to the continuous attacks on the Migrant, Indigenous, and Latino communities in Arizona.
On March 6, 2010 The Caravan departed Phoenix Arizona and embarked on the three week journey to ALERT communities along the way of the Human Rights Crisis that awaits the entire country if Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano continues with the criminalization of working families. On March 13 we will join Congressman Luis Gutierrez in Houston for a massive rally prior to the grand mobilization in Washington D.C. We will culminate our three week Caravan on March 21st 2010 massive march in Washington D.C.
Phoenix Arizona is the Hate and Racial Profiling, capital of the world today. We know what awaits the rest of the communities in the United States if criminalization of families and workers goes unchecked. Our message will be to alert and also call on churches, labor, indigenous nations and community organizations to join our demands to:
Eradicate ethnic cleansing and criminalization of migrant communities in the name of “secure communities.”
An end to family separation and government sponsored terror in our communities through local police cooperation with I.C.E.
The passage of comprehensive immigration reform legislation that provides human rights, legal status, labor protection and political equality to all migrants.
A restoration of Human Rights to all as specified in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Restoration to constitutional protections and due process for all people as specified in the UN Human Rights Declaration.
An end to I.C.E. local police collaboration through the controversial 287(g) program, the so called "Secure Communities" initiative, and other measures that spread racial profiling and civil rights abuses across the nation.
March 8, 2010
March 6, 2010
Racism in America: Katrina to the Borderlands
Onboard the westbound train:
Racism in America, from Hurricane Katrina to the US/Mexico border
By Brenda Norrell
Censored Newshttp://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Photos by Brenda Norrell: French Quarter, Amtrak in west Texas, US Border Patrol in Alpine, Texas.
NEW ORLEANS -- Walking down the irresistible Magazine and Decatur Streets, with the sun shining and yesterday's cold wind behind me, New Orleans reminds me now of a child who is given a lot of love. In the Garden District and the French Quarter, New Orleans is like a child with a freshly scrubbed face, sparkling and beautiful.
But there is another reality. The taxi driver says, "Yeah, they keep this area clean for the tourists, but there are other parts that they just bulldozed." In the news, there is more on the truth of what happened in New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina, police officers shot six unarmed blacks, killing two people, as they walked on Danziger Bridge. One police officer confessed to attempting to cover up the crimes with planted evidence, a gun.
The news is mixed, new housing, new homicides. This is New Orleans.
As the Amtrak pulls out of New Orleans, I look around for signs of Katrina. For miles, there are none. Gone are the piles of twisted metal and household appliances floating in the canals. Tar paper is no longer flapping on rooftops.
But in my mind, they are there, on the rooftops. The people will always be there, waving and calling for help, the help that did not come, morning after morning, after Katrina and the floodwaters. The Amtrak twists down by the Coliseum and the people are still there, in my mind, prisoners.
One neighborhood on this route does show the rip of hurricanes, a row of leaning power poles and torn up homes. But for the most part, New Orleans looks all better now.
"Oh, they cleaned it up by November," said another taxi driver in New Orleans of the year 2005 of Katrina. "There were refrigerators everywhere in the streets, full of rotten food. Gnats and flies was all that there was in the streets. It's all clean now, cleaner than ever."
I ask him if the people were bullied by the police, military and Blackwater. "Oh yeah, but they were told to put those big guns away."
In the gumbo shop, the waitress said there is still plenty of damage here from Katrina. "There's still a lot of damage in the Ninth Ward."
My mind was on the earthquake in Haiti and the hurricane in New Orleans. Why was George W. Bush appointed by President Obama to lead, with Bill Clinton, the US relief effort for Haiti. After what happened during Katrina, why? And I'm wondering why the CIA contractor Evergreen has teamed up with Elbit Systems, who builds apartheid border walls in Palestine and Arizona, in Haiti. The duo said they were flying drones over orphanages in the remote mountains of Haiti. Just trying to do some good. Right. I'm also wondering how many of those donated dollars from the US ever made it to Haiti. One report says the US military received one-third of the donations intended for Haiti victims.
I'm also wondering about the militarization of Haiti and whether the tectonic plates can be damaged, as some scientists say, to the extent to cause an earthquake. I'm wondering whether the earthquakes and even the tsunamis could be the result of US military tests or even oil and gas drilling.
West Texas, Zen on the trainOn the train between New Orleans and Tucson, west Texas becomes Zen practice. Endless stretches of low lying shrubs flanked by forbidding desert mountains. On the first trip, to my untrained eye, there was nothing to look at, monotones of straw-colored grass and shrubs against treeless grey mountains. But after many times of passing now, the subtleties appear. Once I saw a wild javelina, a wild pig. On another trip I saw hawks and falcons, gliding, looking for prey. Now, on this trip, the eight hour stretch between San Antonio and El Paso, I see three deer, then a lone baby fawn without its mother.
In the Zen state, I can not stop my mind from imagining the migrant mothers walking with their children in these borderlands. I can not stop my mind from remembering the story of the volunteers who carried the remains of a migrant out because the authorities were too out of shape to hike in to retrieve the body. I remember the stories of the women raped and thrown of a cliff, the woman whose body was hung in the tree. I remember the little crosses and little shoes left behind, the backpacks that carried hope. Many of these migrants are Indigenous Peoples, walking out of desperation, Mayans from southern Mexico and Central America, others walking across continents, women walking across continents with their babies and young children.
When the cold rain begins, I say to myself, "I will not go to the desert tonight," wanting to shift away from the thoughts of those who are cold and wet out there. There are those dying of hypothermia out there; those with diabetes without food who go into shock or wander dazed and delirious.
What would anyone do if there was no choice, if there was no food, if there was no work and no means of survival.
Borderlands Predator
In Alpine, Texas, there is another predator, the US Border Patrol. The Border Patrol is carrying out their racial profiling. They are looking for brown people on the train. Brown people to bully. They ignore the blonds, the Europeans who may or may not have papers.
By official US policy, brown is the color of the skin they are looking for. The private prisons are banking on this. Those prisons were built by profiteers like CCA and GEO to incarcerate migrants, including women and children. The existing state and federal prisons were already filled with people of color, including large numbers of blacks and American Indians.
Just as happened during Hurricane Katrina, here in the borderland, it is the color of skin that makes one a target in the United States.
.
Reference:
Police officer confesses in Danziger Bridge shootings
March 5, 2010
Native Music Festival Albuquerque 2010
J. J. Otero
Rock The 9 Native Music Festival
(505) 249-1646
jj@rockthe9.org
http://www.rockthe9.org/
The 3rd Annual Rock The 9 Native Music Festival
Albuquerque, NM, March 2, 2010 - Rock The 9 Native Music Festival is an annual rock and roll music showcase to be held in Albuquerque, NM from April 22nd through April 24th, 2010. The festival features the music and comedy of many aspiring Native American musicians, bands, and comedians as well as some of its most distinguished visionaries.
In its third year, this three night event is to be held for the first two nights, Thursday and Friday, at Albuquerque's newest roots music venue, Low Spirits Bar & Stage. For the final Saturday evening, the event will move to an acoustic dinner show format at The Blackbird Buvette and finish the musical night at the most revered Albuquerque venue for live music, the Launchpad.
On the music roster, we have 15 bands from all around the Southwest and the US and Canada including local New Mexico favorites, The Plateros, Saving Damsels, The Old Main, The Jir Project, Moeity, The Wake Singers, Gregg Analla, and Black Child Red. From out of state, we have Darren Geffre (South Dakota), Shakti Hayes (Canada), Chucki Begay and Mother Earth Blues Band (Arizona), DelHell County (Arizona), and MCiSAGE (California).
Saturday will be an extra special night featuring the reunion of one of Indian Country's greatest bands, Red Earth. Fueled with funk, metal, rock, reggae, jazz, cumbia, and samba, Red Earth will be doing a one hour set to close out Rock The 9 at The Launchpad.
In addition to the great musical lineup, we have the services of nationally known Native American comedians, Ernest David Tsosie, James Junes, and Tatanka Means to serve as the comedic relievers for the first two evenings.
For additional information on Rock The 9 Native Music Festival, contact J. J. Otero or visit http://fburls.com/59-6cRCiWHt/t/cid/600636/sid/120513834
ABOUT ROCK THE 9
Rock The 9 is J. J. Otero and several volunteers who had a desire to fill the festival space around the country with a venue for good rock and roll music performed by Native American musicians. J. J. Otero is Navajo and Hopi and is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for Saving Damsels.
Rock The 9 provides musical events promotion, organization, and booking.
March 4, 2010
UN Rapporteur: Pine Ridge Housing Worst in US
US spent $1 trillion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while ignoring abysmal housing on Pine Ridge and widespread homelessness in US
Brenda Norrell
Censored Newshttp://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Photo 1 and 2: Lakotas testify on housing at Pine Ridge. Courtesy UN Photo 2: Homeless by railroad tracks in Texas by Brenda Norrell
Overcrowding in housing on Pine Ridge Indian land in South Dakota was described as the worst viewed by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing Raquel Rolnik, during a tour of US housing. The lack of fresh food and the lack of public transportation was also included in the report on Pine Ridge.
.jpg)
"During the mission, the Special Rapporteur observed many families living in subsidized housing units in conditions of severe overcrowding. This was particularly the case amongst immigrant families in Los Angeles, and most strikingly on Pine Ridge Native American Reservation, where it was described as commonplace to have three to four families living in a three-bedroom house. The conditions in the houses on the Reservation were the worst seen by the Special Rapporteur during her mission, evidence of the urgent and severe need for additional subsidized housing units there," states the report.The Special Rapporteur visited Washington DC, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Pine Ridge Reservation, Los Angeles and Pacoima, California.
Rolnik is issuing a report and making recommendations in Geneva on Friday.
March 4, 2010
Contact: Phil Wider - 212.253.1710, ext 301, phil@nesri.orgNEW YORK - As part of the current session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday, March 5, Raquel Rolnik, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, will present the official report of her office’s recent U.S. mission. The report, entitled: “Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Including the Right to Development,” highlights the Special Rapporteur’s findings on the mission and her recommendations to the U.S. government.
In partnership with community groups, the U.S. mission was coordinated by the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. During her visit, which took place from October 22nd to November 8th, 2009, the Special Rapporteur visited six cities and focused on the foreclosure crisis, growing homelessness, and the severe lack of affordable housing, including the demolition of public housing and the under-funding of Section 8 based housing.
The Special Rapporteur’s final recommendations to the U.S. government include, but are not limited to, the following:
· Imposing a moratorium on the demolition and disposition of public housing until one-for-one replacement can be guaranteed;
· Including the Right to First Purchase for Section 8 buildings in the Preservation Bill;
· Extending the Protecting Tenants At Foreclosure Act beyond 2012;
· Developing alternatives to the criminalization of the homeless, e.g., where adequate shelter is not available, allowing homeless persons to shelter themselves in public areas;
· Ensuring that poor communities are not displaced as development takes place, with respect to the Choice Neighborhoods program; and
· Making empty and foreclosed properties available for sale to non-profit organizations and community land trusts.
In commenting on the significance of the final report, Tiffany M. Gardner, Director of NESRI’s Human Right to Housing Program, stated: “The Special Rapporteur’s final report highlights the myriad of housing issues local and community groups have been trying to highlight to government officials for many years. Hopefully this international attention will inspire meaningful dialogue towards workable solutions between our government and those communities that are directly impacted by these issues.”
Since the visit, national advocacy around these issues has continued. For example, NESRI and community partners across the country are producing a documentary on the U.S. mission. A trailer of the documentary, which will be previewed tomorrow at the UN in Geneva, will highlight the site visits conducted by the Special Rapporteur during the mission and will underscore the work of local community groups in combating the housing crisis and building the national human right to housing movement.
Reflecting on the ongoing impact of the mission, Becky Dennison from Los Angeles Community Action Network explained: “Most organizations and members who planned and participated in the Special Rapporteur’s visit continue to work together to promote and demand the right to housing in Los Angeles. In December 2009, on International Human Rights Day, more than 250 residents that were truly reflective of multi-cultural Los Angeles took to the streets to bring light to domestic human rights violations.”
Notes to editors
The Special Rapporteur’s presentation to the UN Human Rights Council will take place within the window of 1 – 3 pm Geneva time (7 -9 am EST) on Friday, March 5, at the "Palais des Nations" (UN main building in Geneva), room XX. The session will be webcast live at http://www.un.org/webcast/unhrc/index.asp and archived about one hour after the end of the meetings.
View a link to Special Rapporteur’s official final report at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/13session/A.HRC.13.20.ADD.4_AEV.pdf
View a short video statement by the Special Rapporteur at the conclusion of her US mission in November 2009 at http://www.vimeo.com/9920589
A trailer of a documentary about the UN Special Rapporteur’s Mission to the US will be screened at a side event on March 5 entitled “The Housing Rights Situation in the US.” The event will take place at Palais des Nations, Room XXVII, at 4 pm Geneva time (10 am EST). Speaking will be Special Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik and Salih Booker, Executive Director, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE). The event is organized by the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and COHRE. The trailer will be available online tomorrow at http://www.nesri.org/
In addition to the trailer screening on March 5 in Geneva, the documentary will be screened in full-length during the week of April 12th at town hall meetings across the US. The town hall meetings, marking the release of the report, will be organized by local groups that participated in the mission and are members of the Campaign to Restore National Housing Rights. The documentary will also be provided to U.S. government officials. More information about the Campaign to Restore National Housing Rights and the April screenings will be available shortly at http://restorehousingrights.org/
Phil Wider
Communications Director
National Economic & Social Rights Initiative
90 John Street, Suite 308
New York, NY 10038
(212) 253.1710, extension 301
http://www.nesri.org/
Also see: The Olympics and Homelessness:
The Olympics: Celebrating or Denigrating Our Common Humanity?
By Chris Famighetti
Intern, NESRI Human Right to Housing Program
Taraneh Ghajar Jerven’s recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, “2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony: What about Vancouver’s homeless?” highlights the injustices perpetrated in the run-up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.(1) Jerven discusses the expensive development costs associated with the 2010 Olympic Games, where the original budget of $660 million was revised to over $5 billion.(2) The astronomical increase in costs for the Vancouver Olympics is especially egregious when considering that the city’s homeless population has doubled since 2003 – the same year that the city secured its Olympic bid. This rise in homelessness leaves one wondering: how can an international event that claims to celebrate peace, unity and global harmony so callously ignore the needs of the most vulnerable populations? What kind of priorities is the international community embracing in such an outright rejection of the human right to housing?
Read more:
http://restorehousingrights.org/?p=905
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)