The People's Record

California Domestic Workers Demand Bill of Rights

Regarding “Jonathan Lash’s” false flag (pun intended) e-mail
May 7, 2013

On April 26th, the Hampshire College community received an email from its president, former president of the World Resources Institute Jonathan Lash, that announced his decision to flip the campus American flag upside-down and lower it to half mast.  The email articulated that this action was meant as “a two-fold statement: … a reclamation of mourning, and … an act of resistance against the symbolic violence of the American flag.”  He went on to make powerful assertions about the coercive ways in which the state mobilizes the flag in order to create a culture in which the state violence of the police and military is condoned, in which mourning over events such as the Boston bombing and 9/11 are channeled into a racist and bloodthirsty patriotism, and in which dissent and alternative reactions to tragedy are repressed and silenced.

Throughout the day, the email spread rapidly over social media and through word of mouth.  Dozens of people thanked President Lash for his words of solidarity with those oppressed by state violence.  Others marveled that such a statement would come from an administration with a “decades-long streak of complacence with neoliberalism”. A friend of mine who is of Arab descent was thrilled at the statement and sent President Lash a personal letter of thanks saying that she was “more proud than ever to be at Hampshire”.

Halfway through the day, this same friend received a response from the president.  It said that he had not written the email.  This was accompanied by a campus-wide response that read, “This afternoon someone falsely sent out a message under my name regarding the flag.  It was not written by me.  Hampshire welcomes discussion and dissent, but not by misrepresentation.”  Apparently, student(s) had written the original statement and hacked his account to send it under his name.

The majority of the criticism of the action accused the students responsible for assuming that all in the community shared their sentiments.  A subsequent email from the campus IT director asserted that the action had “blatantly trampled the community’s right to debate and arrive at a common position”.

Such a forum for administration-approved “discussion and dissent” was created a few weeks earlier when students facilitated an open dialogue about the campus flag.  Numerous international students, some of whose home countries have long histories of colonialist oppression at the hands of U.S. imperialism, expressed outrage and personal discomfort over the flag’s presence on campus.  In this discussion, the administration promised to at least partially acknowledge these concerns by putting up an earth flag on earth day and leaving it up permanently. The earth flag flew for one day and was removed.

The argument that all differing opinions concerning the American flag are valid and must be given institutional weight completely misunderstands mechanisms of oppression and destroys the prospect of solidarity.  It is the responsibility of the institution and  all those who benefit from U.S colonialism (via white privilege, class privilege, settler status…etc) to support those oppressed by this legacy of violence. The personal patriotism of some individuals should not obscure the real violence committed on the world and members of our community under the symbol of the flag.

Those arguing in favor of the American flag have significant power over those opposed.  They have the power of the state, the power of a long history of colonial genocide, and the power of the continued legacy of white supremacy.  They also have the power of the administration which continues flying the flag without the consent of the community.  Advocating for a “common position” in this regard would inevitably involve compromise on the part of the oppressed.  This is not solidarity.  This is the perpetuation of racist and colonialist dominance and oppression in the tradition of liberal “democracy”.

Sending the email was a powerful act of resistance used to expose the oppressive nature of institutional power at Hampshire.  The students responsible rejected the channels of resistance established for them by the administration and claimed the authority of the president in order to subvert that very authority.  By releasing a statement that spoke forcefully and directly against state violence, the students exposed the administration for being complicit with that violence by espousing an empty rhetoric of commitment to some vague notion of “diversity” and “social justice”.  The email challenged the administration and the campus to transcend the tradition of mere lip-service (http://www.hampshire.edu/shared_files/INSIDE_Spring_2013_5.2.1.pdf) and work instead toward a tradition of true solidarity with those oppressed by the state.

President Lash failed this challenge.  His response did not engage with the argument of the forged email whatsoever, and the American flag continues to proudly fly over the center of Hampshire’s campus.

Source

An open letter from Assata Shakur – posted 1998*
May 6, 2013 

My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an ex-political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984.

I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it “greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.

In 1978, my case was one of many cases bought before the United Nations Organization in a petition filed by the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, exposing the existence of political prisoners in the United States, their political persecution, and the cruel and inhuman treatment they receive in US prisons. According to the report:

The FBI and the New York Police Department in particular, charged and accused Assata Shakur of participating in attacks on law enforcement personnel and widely circulated such charges and accusations among police agencies and units. The FBI and the NYPD further charged her as being a leader of the Black Liberation Army which the government and its respective agencies described as an organization engaged in the shooting of police officers. This description of the Black Liberation Army and the accusation of Assata Shakur’s relationship to it was widely circulated by government agents among police agencies and units. As a result of these activities by the government, Ms. Shakur became a hunted person; posters in police precincts and banks described her as being involved in serious criminal activities; she was highlighted on the FBI’s most wanted list; and to police at all levels she became a ‘shoot-to-kill’ target.’

I was falsely accused in six different “criminal cases” and in all six of these cases I was eventually acquitted or the charges were dismissed. The fact that I was acquitted or that the charges were dismissed, did not mean that I received justice in the courts, that was certainly not the case. It only meant that the “evidence” presented against me was so flimsy and false that my innocence became evident. This political persecution was part and parcel of the government’s policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.

On May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a “faulty tail light.” Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we were stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State trooper Harper then came to the car, opened the door and began to question us. Because we were black, and riding in a car with Vermont license plates, he claimed he became “suspicious.” He then drew his gun, pointed it at us, and told us to put our hands up in the air, in front of us, where he could see them. I complied and in a split second, there was a sound that came from outside the car, there was a sudden movement, and I was shot once with my arms held up in the air, and then once again from the back. Zayd Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner Foerster was killed, and even though trooper Harper admitted that he shot and killed Zayd Malik Shakur, under the New Jersey felony murder law, I was charged with killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who was my closest friend and comrade, and charged in the death of trooper Forester. Never in my life have I felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect me, and to help me to get to a safe place, and it was clear that he had lost his life, trying to protect both me and Sundiata. Although he was also unarmed, and the gun that killed trooper Foerster was found under Zayd’s leg, Sundiata Acoli, who was captured later, was also charged with both deaths. Neither Sundiata Acoli nor I ever received a fair trial We were both convicted in the news media way before our trials. No news media was ever permitted to interview us, although the New Jersey police and the FBI fed stories to the press on a daily basis. In 1977, I was convicted by an all- white jury and sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. In 1979, fearing that I would be murdered in prison, and knowing that I would never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison, aided by committed comrades who understood the depths of the injustices in my case, and who were also extremely fearful for my life.

The U.S. Senate’s 1976 Church Commission report on intelligence operations inside the USA, revealed that “The FBI has attempted covertly to influence the public’s perception of persons and organizations by disseminating derogatory information to the press, either anonymously or through “friendly” news contacts.” This same policy is evidently still very much in effect today.

On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State called a press conference to announce that New Jersey State Police had written a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to intervene on their behalf and to aid in having me extradited back to New Jersey prisons. The New Jersey State Police refused to make their letter public. Knowing that they had probably totally distort the facts, and attempted to get the Pope to do the devils work in the name of religion, I decided to write the Pope to inform him about the reality of’ “justice” for black people in the State of New Jersey and in the United States. (See attached Letter to the Pope).

In January of 1998, during the pope’s visit to Cuba, I agreed to do an interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza around my letter to the Pope, about my experiences in New Jersey court system, and about the changes I saw in the United States and it’s treatment of Black people in the last 25 years. I agreed to do this interview because I saw this secret letter to the Pope as a vicious, vulgar, publicity maneuver on the part of the New Jersey State Police, and as a cynical attempt to manipulate Pope John Paul II. I have lived in Cuba for many years, and was completely out of touch with the sensationalist, dishonest, nature of the establishment media today. It is worse today than it was 30 years ago. After years of being victimized by the “establishment” media it was naive of me to hope that I might finally get the opportunity to tell “my side of the story.” Instead of an interview with me, what took place was a “staged media event” in three parts, full of distortions, inaccuracies and outright lies. NBC purposely misrepresented the facts. Not only did NBC spend thousands of dollars promoting this “exclusive interview series” on NBC, they also spent a great deal of money advertising this “exclusive interview” on black radio stations and also placed notices in local newspapers.

Like most poor and oppressed people in the United States, I do not have a voice. Black people, poor people in the U.S. have no real freedom of speech, no real freedom of expression and very little freedom of the press. The black press and the progressive media has historically played an essential role in the struggle for social justice. We need to continue and to expand that tradition. We need to create media outlets that help to educate our people and our children, and not annihilate their minds. I am only one woman. I own no TV stations, or Radio Stations or Newspapers. But I feel that people need to be educated as to what is going on, and to understand the connection between the news media and the instruments of repression in Amerika. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will to tell the truth. But I sincerely ask, those of you in the Black media, those of you in the progressive media, those of you who believe in truth freedom, To publish this statement and to let people know what is happening. We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.

Free all Political Prisoners, I send you Love and Revolutionary Greetings From Cuba, One of the Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.

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thepeoplesrecord:

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The People’s Record Content Moderators
April 30, 2013

We’re trying to expand the number of mods posting content on Tumblr (and also on FB & Twitter, although those mods prolly won’t be topically specific) & I’d like some feedback on how best to organize that process?

Should we have mods accountable for covering certain topics? I don’t want to cram anyone in a corner and so many things overlap: racism, Black politics, and mass incarceration all are areas of interest to us, for instance, and all have unique content specific only to that topic but also overlap in many ways. Could anyone suggest a short list of topics broad enough to cover? Or would it be better if we didn’t specify content and just had more mods posting on everything? We’d like to be as inclusive as possible.

Here’s a start:

• The economy
• International social movements
• The environment
• War & empire
• Leftist philosophies, tactics, histories & quotes (covering Anarchist & Marxist politics – or should those be uniquely specified)
• All the politics related to identity with appropriate mods:

1. Womanist
2. Anti-racism
3. Gender/LGBTQ
4. Anti-colonialism
5. What are we potentially lacking here? Are these offensively general?
   

I’ll post the official request for mods tomorrow or Thursday but I’m just trying to figure out how to best organize it and how we can least-offensively cover these topics even more extensively and how many mods we should be looking to add. Basically, I’m looking for suggestions that can help me hone our direction before we try and stumble our way through this process.

Additionally, we’re always looking for original content submissions & other ideas to expand this media project. We’ve suggested topically based columns in the past, but interest in participating was lacking (understandably, its a lot of work). Keep in mind, we’re interested in spreading information related to resistant politics.

We can be reached with such ideas at: thepeoplesrec@gmail.com

i think you need to be more specific when it comes to the categories you’re looking to include to you blog and how you’re going to seek people out to fill these roles 

for example if you want more womanist content and then more specifically a womanist mod, how are you going to define a womanist? is it going to be anybody who identifies themselves as a womanist? which opens up the can of worms for white people who appropriate the word and non-black women of color who identify as womanists but don’t check their anti-blackness in terms of identifying with the word, since “womanist” as an identity and pedagogy comes out of black feminist thought and from the writings of black women. 

same with issues related to people on the trans and non-binary spectrum. if you can’t find someone along that spectrum to moderate material then are you going to have a cis person submitting that content? because if so you run the risk of speaking over the people who hold those identities and getting information wrong in the interest of starting a discussion about it. like with the photo post of third genders around the world which people from those cultures called out as being incorrect. 

i also think because the mods you’re looking for are from marginalized identities you need to draft a statement of anti-oppression that readers can hold you and mods accountable to. saying that you’re anti-racist and anti-this are meaningless lists if you can’t actually articulate how these labels are manifested in the running of this blog. to assure people that you’re not just going to commit all kinds of fuckery, be able to say “we are an anti-racist blog, and this means X,Y, and Z” and be able to spell it out for people. give people a way to hold you accountable beyond the ability to write asks which don’t always get answered.

i’m writing this because i enjoy the people’s record, to an extent, and i would hate to see elements that are part of my identity and lived experience bastardized in the name of “inclusion”. intentions around “inclusion” doesn’t mean that people purporting that hold themselves accountable let alone include people with any sort of grace or without airs and pretenses. 

This is exactly the sort of feedback I was hoping to receive  so thank you very much! Seriously, thank you.

Although the desire to deconstruct third genders was well-intended, that post has been my biggest & most colossal mistake since we started the blog. And it is a great example of why we’d like to have mods who belong to, and are part of the communities that we’d like to include space for & it’s one of the many reasons why we need more voices contributing to The People’s Record. Unfortunately, it has been one of our most reblogged posts.

Send us an email if you’d be interested in participating - we’d consider ourselves lucky to have your perspective on-board and I’m sure you could be a big help in drafting a statement like the one you suggested. 

And to address those who have written us or reblogged this to say things like ‘I’d love to but I’m not qualified’, let my frequent and repeated blunders be a clear signal that we have never been completely formed & ready for the responsibility that comes with access to a large audience of readers. In most ways, those of you saying that are likely more qualified than I ever have been. Additionally, Tumblr is the best place to get checked & learn. Because (thankfully) people WILL check you on Tumblr, any & every time you do something problematic. If we’re dedicated to improvement, respect & transparency, the whole community can learn from our mistakes. 

I think this project can really grow & improve from the addition of more voices, more original content and more perspectives participating. 

Finally, if you’ve sent something to us about participating in the project in the last six months, you should have received an email from me today saying that you’d receive ANOTHER email from me in the next few days. If you didn’t receive that email and you think that you’ve  been in communication with us (or just want to join the project), send an email to us (thepeoplesrec@gmail.com) and let me know. 
-Robert

(via peaceloveanarchyandweed)

This happens in the United States: modern day slaver/guilty judge sentenced to 28 years in prison for “selling” kids to private prisons in 2011

Accused of perpetrating a “profound evil,” former Pennsylvania judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for illegally accepting money from a juvenile-prison developer while he spent years incarcerating thousands of young people.

Prosecutors said Ciavarella sent juveniles to jail as part of a “kids for cash” scheme involving Robert Mericle, builder of the PA and Western PA Child Care juvenile detention centers. The ex-judge was convicted in February of 12 counts that included racketeering, money laundering, mail fraud and tax evasion.

In addition to his prison sentence, Ciavarella was ordered to pay nearly $1.2 million in restitution.

At his sentencing, Ciavarella acknowledged his illegal acceptance of money from Mericle. But he denied ever jailing a juvenile in exchange for money.

Once the case against Ciavarella surfaced, special investigative panels began reviewing cases he handled from 2003 to 2008. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that he denied about 5,000 juveniles, some as young as ten, their constitutional rights, leading to the vacating of their convictions.

Among the young people exploited by Ciavarella were 15-year-old Hillary Transue, who was sentenced to three months at a juvenile detention center for mocking an assistant principal on a MySpace page; and 13-year-old Shane Bly, who was sent to a boot camp for two weekends after being accused of trespassing in a vacant building.

Another judge, Michael T. Conahan, used his position to shut down the county-run juvenile detention center and redirect juvenile detainees to the private prisons. He pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

Source

Huff Post article from October 2011

April 25 - Update from Gitmo: The military reported on Wednesday that 92 of the detainees at Guantanamo are now considered hunger striking, 17 are being force-fed, & 2 are in the hospital. Get the latest at: www.GitmoJustice.com

More than 1200 people marched throughout downtown El Paso, Texas & in nearly 25 other cities across the US today fighting for immigrants’ rights & a comprehensive, humane immigration reform. 

I was at this march in El Paso & it was incredible to see how many children & older community members were there. These are the communities hit hardest by harsh immigration laws that tear families apart. 

Visit our Facebook page for more photos. Feel free to share your own photos from any #A10 actions on our wall, too!  

(Source: thepeoplesrecord.com)

Death in custody prompts complaints about Israeli negligence and questions about Palestinian leadership.
April 6, 2013

With three prison guards on his bedside, 64-year-old Maysara Abu Hamdeya died of cancer shackled to an Israeli hospital bed on Tuesday.

Abu Hamdeya’s health started to deteriorate in August last year, his lawyer, Rami al-Alami, said. He was suffering severe throat ache, accompanied by swelling in lymphatic and salivary glands.

“He went to the prison clinic and was given antibiotic medications without any tests,” Alami wrote in an affidavit upon visiting Abu Hamdeya on 12 March. One of five Palestinians to die in or shortly after being released from Israeli jails this year, Abu Hamdeya’s death revived fears for the lives of sick Palestinian prisoners and anger over a perceived Israeli policy of medical negligence.

After months of pushing with the prison clinic, Abu Hamdeya got an approval from the Israeli authorities to go to the hospital in October 2012, but the visit was delayed several times.

When he made it to Soroka hospital in December 2012, he was told that he was brought due to eye problems. Abu Hamdeya returned to prison without performing needed tests. Tests were only performed on January 10; by then Abu Hamdeya’s health had deteriorated further. He was suffering acute pain in his neck and all his body.

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According to an official Israeli statement, Abu Hamdeya was diagnosed with cancer in February. On March 12, Abu Hamdeya told his lawyer that he was not given any treatment. “He has only been given painkillers,” the affidavit says.

The Israeli autopsy of Abu Hamdeya confirmed that he died of cancer. In a statement, the Israeli health ministry said they found a malignant tumour in the throat, which spread to his chest, lungs, liver, spine and some of his ribs. Nevertheless, Palestinians performed a re-autopsy. More tests were needed to prove that the cancer had spread to Abu Hamdeya’s organs years - and not months ago, the Palestinian Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs said.

One of 25 diagnosed with cancer, Abu Hamdeya was among hundreds of sick prisoners, including 48 in Ramleh prison hospital. Their families and many Palestinians say Israel is killing them slowly through negligence.

It’s Israel’s fault, Abu Hamdeya’s son Hamza said. “The logical thing to do is to blame Israel,” he said.

However, Hamza said his family also has some complaints about the Palestinian government for not following up on his father’s case. “Where have they been all that time? Why didn’t they ask about Maysara?” he said. Hamza said his father was a general in the Palestinian Preventive Security force, so Palestinian officials had an extra duty to ask about him.

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Abu Hamdeya was imprisoned several times, first in 1969. He was exiled to Jordan in 1978 and returned to the Palestinian Territories in 1998. Since his last sentence in 2002, Abu Hamdeya was almost always banned from receiving family visits. Each of his four children barely saw him during the past 11 years.

With his illness and death in prison, Abu Hamdeya has become a symbol of the Palestinians’ suffering in Israeli jails. But his case is not merely something to sympathise with, his eldest son Tareq warned.

In the street, Abu Hamdeya’s death ignited anger in various places across the West Bank. A general strike halted life in the streets of East Jerusalem, Nablus and Hebron on Wednesday. The usual group of committed Palestinians took to the streets to demonstrate against Abu Hamdeya’s death in Hebron, Nablus, Tulkarem and Ramallah.

Two Palestinian teenagers were killed in clashes north of Tulkarem, both by live fire. After their funeral there were reports of Palestinian security units trying to stop protesters from reaching tension points.

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Abu Hamdeya’s funeral on Thursday was followed by the funerals of the other Palestinians killed in Tulkarem.

On the way to Hebron, masked Palestinians were asking store keepers in Bethlehem to shut down for mourning. A similar scene took place a day earlier in Ramallah.

In Gaza, Hamas declared Abu Hamdeya one of its martyrs. In a statement, the group said he was a top commander of its West Bank military wing.

But those who knew Abu Hamdeya said he was “old-school” Palestinian - for resistance and Palestine. At the end of the day, he was not wrapped in a yellow or a green flag: it was the black, white, red and green Palestinian flag that accompanied him to the grave.

Source

The Annual Farm Workers Justice March on César Chávez Day in El Paso, Texas

¡Viva César Chávez! 

¡Viva los campesinos y campesinas!

(Source: thepeoplesrecord.com)

“We have suffered unnumbered ills and crimes in the name of the Law of the Land. Our men, women and children have suffered not only the basic brutality of stoop labor, and the most obvious injustices of the system; they have also suffered the desperation of knowing that the system caters to the greed of callous men and not to our needs.

Now we will suffer for the purpose of ending the poverty, the misery, and the injustice, with the hope that our children will not be exploited as we have been. They have imposed hungers on us, and now we hunger for justice.” - César E. Chávez, civil rights activist, farm worker organizer & co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association (March 31, 1927 - April 23, 1993)

550 barrels of crude oil leak into Tyler County creeks
February 27, 2013

Tyler County Emergency Management Coordinator Dale Freeman says 20,000 gallons of oil have spilled into Otter Creek off County Road 2590.  Tyler County officials were alerted to the spill Saturday by residents who noticed the oil in Otter creek; the oil company did not report the leak themselves, but instead tried to cover it up & downplay the significance. 

Otter Creek feeds Russell Creek and Russell feeds the Neches River. 

The pipeline is owned by Sunoco Logistics and the company says the leak has been patched up and oil is no longer flowing through the pipeline. 

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality are helping with the clean up. Crews have been ordered to work around the clock until it is complete.

Source

This is consistent with environmental activists’ serious concerns that all pipelines leak - which is why we cannot allow Obama to approve Transcanada’s plan to build one of the largest hazards to American health in our history, with no benefit to the people who will become very sick for Transcanada’s profits. And that’s the power of ‘free market’ solutions for you; you get oil-tea.

In the name of God the Merciful

Greetings to all the Palestinian people and the freedom loving people of the world, those who take part in the battle for the freedom of the prisoners, all the prisoners, and first of all the heroic sick prisoners in the Ramlah Prison hospital. These heroes who have sacrificed their bodies and long years to Palestine and the Palestinian people deserve from us that we struggle for their liberation.

Today the Palestinian people proved to the occupation, despite the difficult conditions they go through, that the national cause and the prisoners’ issue are of high priority for every Palestinian. The economic situation and unemployment do not distract the Palestinian people from their prisoners, because they are people of bravery who took upon themselves to defend the Arab and Islamic nation and its holy sites. It saddens me so much that I am not with you to share with you this great battle for supporting the prisoners. But I decided to escalate my strike by avoiding drinking water in order to join this movement and the great battle that you wage on the ground.

I send a warm greeting for all of you who stay in the protest tents everywhere, especially those who are on hunger strike. I send greetings to the participants at the Nazareth tent, first of them Father Atallah Hanna, and to all the people involved in the sit-ins and marches in support of the prisoners.

I send greetings to the heroes who gathered yesterday in front of the court and broke all standards, restrictions and concepts of the occupation (the division between Western Jerusalem and Eastern Jerusalem). They proved to the occupation that AlQuds is one, it is our city, and their pure feet wandered the alleys that were walked by our forefathers before this occupation came, kill them and expels the rest of them.

I greet you, I’m proud of you and I draw the power to resist and my morale from you and your struggle. Yesterday, when I saw you in front of the courthouse, I became free and my jailer became the prisoner. I noticed the humiliation on the guards’ faces when they saw you clinging to your land despite the Judaization.

By God, I kiss those feet that liberated yesterday part of the lands of our holy city and raised the Palestinian flag high. Kissing these pure feet is an honor for me. You are Blessed, Jerusalem, with your heroic sons, the protectors of the Holy Land, the Church of the Resurrection and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We will meet soon, God willing, O heroes of Palestine and the free people of the world.

I send my greetings to the free people of the world everywhere, especially in our sister Egypt, to the fans of Zamalek group and Al-Jazeera Sports commentator. I send my greetings and salute to every person. And to Shahed and Maleka.

Concerning my health, I was transferred on Thursday to some hospital, I do not remember its name, after suffering a sharp drop in blood pressure and heart beat where the pressure was 74/40 and pulse 35 beats per minute. I lost consciousness.

I continue my strike. Either Freedom or Martyrdom.

- Samer Issawi, the Palestinian hunger striker who has refused food for more than 200 days. He was sentenced to eight months in prison, but because of time served, he will be released on March 6.

Source

But his struggle still isn’t over. Free Samer & all political prisoners! 

An international call to action: Nearly 40 events will mark Pfc. B. Manning’s 1,000 day imprisoned without trial across the world - show your support for the WikiLeaks whistleblower & exposing war crimes this Saturday, February 23. 

U.S. Events

Tucson, AZ     Feb 23, 11am-5pm

Tempe, AZ     Feb 23, 5:30-6:30pm

Guerneville, CA     Feb 23, 12-1pm

Cahuenga (L.A.), CA     Feb 23, 9-11am

Los Angeles, CA     Feb 23, 5:30-6:30

Long Beach (L.A.), CA 
Feb 23 at 1pm until Feb 24 at 2pm

Montrose (L.A.), CA     Feb 23, 5:30-7pm

Studio City (L.A.), CA     Feb 22, 6:30-7:30pm

San Francisco, CA     Feb 23, 1-4pm

San Diego, CA     Feb 23, 7-9pm

Denver, CO     Feb 23, 12-3:30pm

Washington, DC     Feb 24, 6:30-9pm

Ft. Lauderdale, FL     Feb 23, 12-1:30pm

Pensacola, FL     Feb 23, 5:30-6:30pm

Tallahassee, FL     Feb 23, 12-1pm

Honolulu, HI     Feb 22, 4-5:30pm

Chicago, IL     Feb 23, 12-1:30pm

Ft. Leavenworth, KS     Feb 23, 1-3pm

Boston, MA     Feb 23, 1-2pm

Augusta, ME     Feb 23, 11:30am-12pm

Portland, ME     Feb 23, 12pm

Detroit, MI     Feb 23, 3-8pm

Minneapolis, MN     Feb 23, 9:30am-12pm

New York, NY     Feb 23, 2-4pm

Toledo, OH     Feb 23, 12pm

Corvallis, OR     ongoing

Philadelphia, PA     Feb 23, 2-4pm

Seattle, WA     Feb 23, 12-4pm

International Events

Melbourne, Australia     Feb 22, 2-4pm

Sydney, Australia     Feb 23, 11am-2pm

Vancouver, Canada     Feb 23, 1-5pm

London, England     Feb 23, 2pm

Yorkshire, England     Feb 23, 11am

Fairford, Gloucestershire      Feb 23, 9:30am-12pm

Cardiff, Wales     Feb 23, 10:30am-2:30pm

Berlin, Germany      Feb 23, 12:30-3pm

Rome, Italy      Feb 23, 4-5pm

Scotland     ongoing

Ireland     ongoing

Slovakia

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