Activism

Joel Guerrero Freed; What Comes Next?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Numbers only provide a snapshot, a sense of the size of the story. In February, soon after the new U.S. President announced a desire to deport three million illegal immigrants in his first year in office, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) started to conduct what it called “targeted enforcement operations” across the nation.

Sources report that in a five-day operation in February, some 680 individuals were detained under ICE’s new mandate. In March, another 729 were arrested in actions across the country. The total numbers are not yet known. The number deported has not been publicized.
Read More

Justice Delayed: ‘This is my existence … I’m Shawkan’

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A journalist’s job is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

* * * *
Perhaps it is an indication of progress that the latest adjournment in the ongoing trial of Mahmoud Abu Zeid, the Egyptian photojournalist who goes by the name “Shawkan,” was announced in court today for a date that is less than a month in the future: Saturday, May 20. Most of the postponements in the trial have been a month or longer.

Perhaps it means nothing at all. The court was presented with a “report on the forensic medicine of” Shawkan but Shawkan was reported to not be present:

 
Eleven days. For a human rights trial noteworthy for its glacial pace, perhaps the fact of a briefer delay until the morning that Shawkan can have his case heard means something, but this trial rebuffs all attempts to interpret its tiny shifts and huge delays.

Today is Shawkan’s 1365th day in prison.

Shawkan’s ongoing story, with its staggered month-by-month steps, is one of the denial of basic human rights by a nation allied with Western governments, but it also has been a story of many citizens stepping up and making certain that Shawkan’s story is heard. Both stories are worth knowing.

Shawkan is one of approximately twenty-five journalists jailed in Egypt, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

For those unaware of Shawkan’s story, I recently wrote the following background article:
Read More

Will Justin Trudeau Speak Out for Raif Badawi?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Raif Badawi remains in prison. Raif Badawi still awaits 950 lashes with a whip. Raif Badawi remains in danger …

* * * *
In an open letter published May 3, Amnesty International Canada asks Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to “renew and intensify efforts to encourage Saudi Arabian authorities to free prisoner of conscience Raif Badawi.” The letter’s authors, Alex Neve and Béatrice Vaugrante, emphasize that the organization is asking that the Canadian government “and you personally” (meaning Prime Minister Trudeau) work for Badawi’s release. The letter was directed to Trudeau as a part of World Press Freedom Day, which was marked with events around the globe on May 3.

Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, and the couple’s three young children moved to Canada in 2014 as refugees and have permanent resident status in that nation. The city in which they now live, Sherbrooke, Quebec, awarded Badawi an honorary citizenship in 2015. Thus, the letter writers remind Trudeau, “Canada is well positioned to urge Saudi officials to release Mr. Badawi on humanitarian grounds so that he can reunite with his family.”

“In fact,” Amnesty International Canada urges, “there is no other country with a stronger responsibility to champion Mr. Badawi’s case.”
Read More