December, 14 2015, 02:00pm EDT
Open Letter Urges Presidential Candidates to Reject Bigotry
ACLU Letter on Change.org Has Over 12,000 Signatures So Far
NEW YORK
The American Civil Liberties Union issued an open letter to all presidential candidates calling on them to explicitly disavow any attempt to discriminate against people based on their religion or nationality.
"We challenge every candidate for the presidency of the United States to stand up against bigotry and division, to oppose the exclusion of individuals from the United States on the basis of religion or nationality, and to affirm a commitment to equality for Americans of all races and of all faiths," says the letter, which was posted on change.org for people to sign on.
The ACLU has taken several steps to fight efforts to block Syrian refugees from resettling in the United States. They include a lawsuit on behalf Exodus Refugee Immigration against Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to stop attempts to suspend resettlement of Syrian refugees in Indiana, as well as legal action in Texas on behalf of the International Rescue Committee to prevent Texas from illegally barring Syrian refugees from entering that state.
The new letter notes with dismay recent rhetoric against Muslims.
"Since the tragic attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, the world has watched some American politicians react with hatred, bigotry, and vile untruths," the letter says. "They have exploited the politics of nativism and fear, using the atrocities committed by a few individuals to cast blanket suspicion on whole nations and all Muslims. America must be better than this. We are a nation of immigrants founded on the principles of justice, equality, and democracy. Our commitment to these ideals has not always been perfect, and it is horrifying to hear politicians use past examples of national shame, such as the internment of Japanese Americans, to justify discrimination today."
The link and full text of the letter are below.
Stand against bigotry and exclusionary policies and commit to equality for all Americans.
To All Candidates Running for President:
Since the tragic attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, the world has watched some American politicians react with hatred, bigotry, and vile untruths. They have exploited the politics of nativism and fear, using the atrocities committed by a few individuals to cast blanket suspicion on whole nations and all Muslims.
America must be better than this.
We are a nation of immigrants founded on the principles of justice, equality, and democracy. Our commitment to these ideals has not always been perfect, and it is horrifying to hear politicians use past examples of national shame, such as the internment of Japanese Americans, to justify discrimination today. Our nation and political leaders should instead set an example for people around the world with resilience and hope. Equality and religious freedom are principles enshrined in our founding documents and reflected in our laws. They are not mere concepts to be discarded in difficult times.
Calls to ban Muslims from entering the United States and prohibit the resettlement of refugees fleeing the Islamic State in Syria undermine core American principles by fomenting hate, division, and discrimination. Such hateful rhetoric has given rise to a tide of racism, hatred, and violence against law-abiding American Muslims. It is deeply distressing that hate crimes against American Muslims -- and those who appear to be Muslim -- are up when all kinds of hate crimes are down. This terrible fact cannot be divorced from the dangerous rhetoric that has seeped into the mainstream in recent weeks.
American Muslims are our neighbors, friends, and colleagues. They are us.
Our political leaders not only set the tone for our nation. They also are the primary messengers to the rest of the world. When they call for compassion, dignity, and equality, the world listens. When they call for exclusion and defend bigotry, the world also listens. In a time of global uncertainty, American leaders must do the right thing by projecting the America we have always aspired to be.
We challenge every candidate for the presidency of the United States to stand up against bigotry and division, to oppose the exclusion of individuals from the United States on the basis of religion or nationality, and to affirm a commitment to equality for Americans of all races and of all faiths.
The future of America -- and the world -- is in your hands. Do the right thing. The whole world is watching.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Israel Bans Al Jazeera in 'Assault on Freedom of the Press'
"Rather than trying to silence reporting on its atrocities in Gaza, the Israeli government should stop committing them," said one observer.
May 05, 2024
The Jerusalem offices of Al Jazeera were raided Sunday after Israel's far-right Cabinet banned the Qatar-based satellite news network—the sole international media outlet providing 24/7 live coverage from Gaza—from operating in the country.
"If you're watching this… then Al Jazeera has been banned in Israel," correspondent Imran Khan said in a pre-recorded report from occupied East Jerusalem preempting the Israeli Cabinet's unanimous vote to shutter the network.
The order—which does not affect Al Jazeera's ability to operate in Gaza or the illegally occupied Palestinian territories—is believed to be the first of its kind targeting a foreign media outlet operating in Israel. It comes after the Knesset, Israel's parliament, recently voted 71-10 in favor of a law empowering the Israeli communications minister to ban foreign news organizations from working in Israel and to confiscate their equipment.
"The time has come to eject Hamas' mouthpiece from our country," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address.
Ofir Gendelman, Netanyahu's Arab media spokesperson, said Sunday that the closure would be "implemented immediately."
Gendelman said that the network's "broadcast equipment will be confiscated, the channel's correspondents will be prevented from working, the channel will be removed from cable and satellite television companies, and Al Jazeera's websites will be blocked on the internet."
In a statement, Al Jazeera vowed to "pursue all available legal channels through international legal institutions in its quest to protect both its rights and journalists, as well as the public's right to information."
"Israel's ongoing suppression of the free press, seen as an effort to conceal its actions in the Gaza Strip, stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law," the network added. "Israel's direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation, and threats will not deter Al Jazeera."
The New York-based Foreign Press Association issued a statement slamming the move and saying it "should be a cause for concern for all supporters of a free press."
"With this decision, Israel joins a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station," the group said. "This is a dark day for the media. This is a dark day for democracy."
Human Rights Watch Israel and Palestine director Omar Shakir called the order "an assault on freedom of the press."
"Rather than trying to silence reporting on its atrocities in Gaza, the Israeli government should stop committing them," he added.
Al Jazeera is the only international news network providing nonstop on-the-ground coverage of Israel's war on Gaza, often being the first to report Israeli atrocities in what many experts worldwide say is a genocidal campaign in the besieged, starving strip.
Its correspondents and other media professionals work under constant risk to life and limb. More than 100 journalists, the vast majority of them Palestinians, have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7 in what the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and others say are often intentional targetings of not only media workers but also their families.
In December, Israeli forces killedAl Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa as he reported on the war in southern Gaza, an attack that also wounded Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh—whose wife, son, daughter, and grandson were killed in a separate Israeli strike.
Previous probes—like the investigation into Israeli troops' 2022 killing of renowned Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh—have confirmed that Israel has deliberately targeted journalists.
Last May, CPJ published Deadly Pattern, a report that found Israeli troops had killed at least 20 journalists over the past 22 years with utter impunity. While some of the slain journalists have been foreigners—including Italian Associated Press reporter Simone Camilli and British cameraman and filmmaker James Miller—the vast majority of victims have been Palestinian.
Israeli forces have also attacked newsrooms in every major assault on Gaza, including in May 2021 when the 11-story al-Jalaa Tower, which housed offices of Al Jazeera, The Associated Press, and other media outlets, was completely destroyed in an airstrike.
On Friday—World Press Freedom Day—Palestinian journalists covering the war on Gaza were awarded this year's UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize after being recommended by an international jury of media professionals.
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On Kent State Massacre Anniversary, Progressives Decry Repression of Student Protests
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," said one state lawmaker.
May 04, 2024
As U.S. Republicans push for the deployment of National Guard troops to quell nationwide student demonstrations against the Gaza genocide, progressive lawmakers marked the anniversary of the 1970 Kent State Massacre by condemning police repression of peaceful protesters and reaffirming the power of dissent.
"On the 54th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre, students across our country are being brutalized for standing up to endless war," Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said on social media. "Our country must learn to actually uphold the rights of free speech and assembly upon which it was founded."
Fellow "Squad" member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said that "54 years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students at Kent State."
"Students have a right to speak out, organize, and protest systemic wrongs," she added. "We can't silence those expressing dissent, no matter how uncomfortable their protests may be to those in power."
On May 4, 1970, 28 Ohio National Guard troops fired 67 live rounds into a crowd of unarmed Kent State students rallying against the expansion of the U.S.-led war in Vietnam into Cambodia. They murdered students Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder—all aged 19 or 20. Nine other students were wounded, including one who was permanently paralyzed.
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," New York state Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-50) said on Saturday.
Protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—which according to Palestinian and international officials has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 123,000 Gazans—have spread to dozens of campuses across the U.S. and around the world. Police have been called in to break up protest encampments at numerous schools. Hundreds of students, faculty, and journalists have been arrested, sometimes violently.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), police stood by this week as a pro-Israel mob attacked a campus protest encampment before officers arrested peaceful protesters and supporters.
As law enforcement officials have tried to justify the crackdown by claiming "outside agitators" are behind the protests, some observers noted historical parallels.
"Watching what is happening at UCLA," Virginia state Sen. Mamie Locke (D-2) said on social media. "Old enough to remember Kent State, Jackson State, South Carolina State, and the dog whistles of 'law and order,' 'outside agitators.' So reminiscent of 1968."
On February 8, 1968, police shot 31 students—most of them in the back—at a protest against Jim Crow segregation at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, murdering three young Black men: Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith.
Eleven days after Kent State, police opened fire on a crowd of Black students protesting the bombing of Cambodia at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, killing Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green and injuring 12 others.
"Our institutions must learn from these past mistakes to not use militarized responses against unarmed, peaceful student protesters by calling in the National Guard, bringing in state troopers, or deploying police in riot gear," Laurel Krause, the sister of slain Kent State protester Allison Krause, said in a statement marking the ignominious anniversary.
"We must not repeat the horrors of Kent State 54 years later," she added.
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UN Food Chief Says Northern Gaza Suffering 'Full-Blown Famine'
"And it's moving its way south," she warned.
May 04, 2024
United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Friday that Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip are experiencing "full-blown famine" after nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and invasion—and that deadly malnutrition is "moving its way south" through the embattled enclave.
While U.N. agencies have warned since March that famine was imminent in Gaza, McCain's remarks—which came during an interview with Kristen Welker that is scheduled to air on Sunday's edition of NBC News' "Meet the Press"—make her the most high-profile international official to date to publicly acknowledge a state of famine in parts of the Palestinian territory.
"It's horror," said McCain, who is American. "There is famine—full-blown famine—in the north, and it's moving its way south."
UN World Food Program @WFPChief: “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north of Gaza, and it’s moving its way south.”
pic.twitter.com/eyk0OeOEzr
— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) May 4, 2024
McCain's remarks come as hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on the brink of starvation. Dozens of Palestinians—the vast majority of them children and infants—have already died of malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza.
According to Palestinian and international officials, Israel's 211-day assault on Gaza—which many experts including Israelis call genocidal—has killed or maimed more than 123,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, including an estimated 11,000 people who are believed to be dead and buried beneath the ruins of the hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged homes and other buildings.
In addition to not allowing adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israeli forces have also repeatedly attacked both aid workers and desperate civilians trying to access the lifesaving provisions.
"What we are asking for and what we continually ask for is a cease-fire and the ability to have unfettered access, to get in safe through the various ports and gate crossings," McCain said during the interview.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesperson Osman Hamdan said there have been "some forward steps" toward a cease-fire agreement during negotiations in Egypt. Egyptian mediators proposed a six-week cessation of hostilities, the release of an unspecified number of Israeli and international hostages, and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
However, one Israeli official toldABC News on condition of anonymity Saturday that "Israel will under no circumstances agree to the end of the war as part of an agreement to release our abductees."
The negotiations come as Israeli forces prepare for an expected ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, where more than a million refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of the strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents. On Friday, the U.N.'s humanitarian agency
warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death."
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