Archive for the 'prisoners' Category

12
Jun

Daniel McGowen transferred, possible Grand Jury subpoena

By vegankid 0 Comments
Categories: prisoners

I received an update from Friends and Family of Daniel McGowan. Over the past month, Daniel has been moved from facility to facility, making it nearly impossible to stay in contact with him. I suggest you visit supportdaniel.org and sign up for their email updates… and be sure to make a donation. Here is the update:

It’s 10 pm on the east coast and a few hours ago we finally heard fromDaniel. He called from the Columbia County Jail in Portage, Wisconsin. Daniel was woken up at 4 am and on a plane en route from Oklahoma City to Chicago by 6 am. Daniel and his supporters presumed he was going to Marion, Illinois, but once he landed in Chicago, he was put in a van and driven to Madison, Wisconsin. From there he was driven to Portage. Along the way, Daniel asked if he was being transferred based on facing new charges, and the marshal flatly told him no. Daniel then asked if he was facing a Grand Jury subpoena. The marshal would not come right out and say yes, but he hinted at it and at one point said, “good guess.”

If Daniel is called before a grand jury, he will not testify and is concerned about being held in civil contempt and imprisoned at the
Columbia County Jail, where the time he serves will not count against his 7 year sentence.

At this point, neither Daniel nor his attorney have received a subpoena or any other paperwork to indicate that he will be appearing before a grand jury, but it’s what he is preparing for and what folks would be best served to see as a possibility.

Over the past month, Daniel has been in transfer. And while the time he has served thus far has been without incident and even though he received a good team review before being yanked from FCI Sandstone, he tells us that he has been put in Segregated Housing Units (”The Hole”) and treated differently for the duration of this transfer, all due to the application of the “Terrorism Enhancement.”

For now, it is important to keep Daniel connected to the communities he is a part of. Please write to him and let him know we’re out here for him*.

For now, Daniel’s address is:
Daniel McGowan
Columbia County Jail
403 Jackson Street
Portage, Wisconsin 53901

Daniel wanted us to emphasize how important your support has been thus far and how truly appreciative he is.

Family and Friends of Daniel McGowan
*For guidelines on writing to Daniel, go to
http://www.supportdaniel.org/news/#Anchor-49575
For more information, please visit
http://supportdaniel.org or
http://myspace.com/danielmcgowan

14
Mar

Free Lovinsky Pierre-Antione!

By vegankid 0 Comments
Categories: prisoners and take action

From Sokari:

Dear Friends

Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine has been missing since the night of the 12th August 2007. It is believed that his kidnapping was politically motivated and someone in the Haitian government and or the UN forces in Haiti led by Brazil must know what happened to him and where he is. This petition calls for information on his whereabouts and for his release.

I would appreciate it if you could follow the link and sign the petition.

Many thanks
Sokari

“Lovinsky was the co-founder of Fondsayon Kore Timoun Yo (Foundation for the Support of Children) for young street children in Port au Prince, FAM (Foyer pour Adolescentes Mères), a center for teenage mothers, and Map Viv (”I Live”), a program designed to give medical and psychological aid to the victims of the 1991coup. His present community-based human rights organization Fondayson Trant Septnm grew out of the work of those earlier efforts. He is part of the Lavalas movement and a member of the Lavalas Party, and was a potential candidate for the Haitian Senate.

Lovinsky lived in Washington DC during the turmoil and violence that followed the removal of President Aristide in 2004. During that time he continued his work as an advocate for Haiti’s poverty-stricken majority, including gathering support of a wide network of organizations and individuals in the US, meeting with members of Congress, speaking at human rights forums in Boston, Los Angeles and elsewhere in the US as well as in Brazil, Canada and Venezuela. A month after he returned to Haiti, Lovinsky was instrumental in bringing together a delegation that included journalists and others who hail from Guyana, Barbados and the United States to attend the May 2006 Inauguration of President Rene Preval.”

http://www.petitiononline.com/august/

28
Oct

tear down guantanamo bay. one pixel at a time

By vegankid 0 Comments
Categories: homeland security, latin america, prisoners and take action

Kevin over at BlogSchmog informed me (via twitter) of a creative petition drive from Amnesty International call TearItDown.org.

TearItDown.org

Rather than simply sign an online petition, the site will take away one of the 500,000 pixels of the image and assign it to you. I was the 82,823rd signer of the petition. Here is some more info from BlogSchmog:

The pixels belong to an image on the front page of the web site. The photo was staged—owing to the difficulty in obtaining any pictures from Gitmo, let alone ones capturing abuse—but the facts about the facility are real:

* There are approximately 355 people in custody.
* The approximate size of a cell is 52 square feet. Tall people could lie down in one direction but not another.
* Hundreds of people have been held for over 2000 days without charge or trial.
* 55% of detainees have not committed any hostile acts against the United States.
* 8% of detainees are characterized as Al Qaeda fighters.
* 66% of detainees were captured by Pakistani authorities, the result of a bounty campaign that paid for arrests.
* Ten people in Gitmo have been charged with a crime.
* There were 350 incidents of self-harm in Guantanamo Bay in 2003, including 120 “hanging gestures.”

The first detainees arrived on January 11, 2002.

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