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For Immediate Release
November, 24 2019, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Heather Day, Community Alliance for Global Justice: 206-724-2243 heather@cagj.org
Kristen Beifus, UFCW 21: 206-992-7913 kbeifus@ufcw21.org
On 20th Anniversary of Battle in Seattle, Activists Honor History and Today's Movements
This Saturday November 30th marks twenty years since the historic grassroots uprising that shut down the World Trade Organization ministerial meetings in Seattle. On November 30th 1999, over 50,000 people took to the streets, some marching, and many engaging in peaceful civil disobedience to call attention to the WTO's failed policies that impact the everyday lives of working people, pollute our environment and undermine farmers around the world.
Seattle, WA
This Saturday November 30th marks twenty years since the historic grassroots uprising that shut down the World Trade Organization ministerial meetings in Seattle. On November 30th 1999, over 50,000 people took to the streets, some marching, and many engaging in peaceful civil disobedience to call attention to the WTO's failed policies that impact the everyday lives of working people, pollute our environment and undermine farmers around the world. Through coordinated action, activists successfully blocked the opening sessions of the ministerial on November 30, and a few days later the WTO talks collapsed. Now, two decades later to the day, organizers from 1999 and leaders of today's movements are gathering to honor this history and trace the lineage to today's struggles for justice. The event is free and co-organized by Community Alliance for Global Justice, United Food & Commercial Workers Local 21, and Town Hall Seattle.
Media is invited--for press access, interviews and exclusive coverage, call Media Contacts.
When: Saturday, November 30th, 2019, 10am-4pm (doors open at 9)
What: Another World is Possible! WTO+20 How a People's Uprising Shut-Down the World Trade Organization in '99 & Why it Matters for Today's Movements for Justice
Location: Town Hall Seattle, 1119 8th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
Event details: cagj.org/wto20/cagj-nov-30/
The WTO+20 gathering will recognize the role of direct action in achieving social change across time. One hundred years ago, in 1919, over 65,000 workers from over 100 unions withheld their labor during the Seattle General Strike. Initially an employer attempted to divide skilled and unskilled shipyard workers, igniting the strike, which demonstrated the power of working people united for a common cause.
"A hundred years later teachers, coal miners, auto, grocery, healthcare and many other workers still know that one of the most powerful ways we can advocate for change in the workplace that benefits our communities is by disrupting the status quo," explained Faye Guenther, President of UFCW 21. Participating in the People's Shut Down of the WTO twenty years ago, we felt the power of putting our bodies on the line alongside our community to stop the advancement of inequity. This is why UFCW 21 is honored to sponsor this WTO+20 celebration, intersectional sharing, and strategic opportunity to raise up direct action throughout our diverse movements."
"When we look back at why we were protesting the WTO in 1999, we see that we were right to shut it down on November 30th: neoliberalism and unfettered capitalism continue to have devastating consequences for Mother Earth and her people around the world," explains Heather Day, Director of Community Alliance for Global Justice, a grassroots food justice organization she co-founded with other organizers of the 1999 protests. "To repair the planet, it is more urgent than ever that we find inspiration in the victories of 1999: when people join together and take direct action, we are powerful," says Day.
A morning panel will kick-off the event, featuring Deborah James, coordinator of Our World Is Not for Sale Network; Nancy Haque of Basic Rights Oregon; Lisa Fithian, author of Shut it Down: Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance; and Edgar Franks, farmworker organizer with Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ) who will share stories of what took place in 1999. The panel will then turn to Paul Cheoketen Wagner, Founder of Protectors of the Salish Sea, Ramon Torres, farmworker organizer with FUJ, and other guests about how direct action is utilized by today's movements to achieve victories. In the afternoon, participants can attend a training on Escalating Resistance and Mass Rebellion with Lisa Fithian, or choose between three movement-building workshops: Seattle's Green New Deal with Matt Remle (Lakota), co-founder of Mazaska Talks, and Alec Connon, 350Seattle; Campaign to permanently shut down the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, with Ashley Del Villar and Fletcher Christie from La Resistencia; and A new global economic constitution written by Amazon? What's happening in the WTO and what can we do about it, with Deborah James. Art and music will be featured throughout the day, including screen-printing and theater with David Solnit, Direct Action Network organizer in '99 and North American Arts Organizer, 350.org, and music with Correo Aereo and Jim Page.
"Twenty years after the Seattle protests, the impacts of the WTO has proved its critics right: trade has increased but wages and incomes are flat, inequality is surging, and developing countries - except those that have benefited from trading with China - have not been able to close the gap with rich countries. WTO boosters who are worried about the crisis in the system would do well to realize that the real crisis is the millions of people suffering from harmful WTO policies on agriculture, medicines, the environment, and labor rights among others," says Deborah James, who continues to track the WTO. "Rather than tinkering at the edges of the dispute mechanism, or negotiating rules to give the future economy away to Big Tech for free, we need to address the fundamental problems with the failed rules of the WTO and implement a Global Green New Deal."
Many events are being organized locally and nationally for the WTO Shut Down Anniversary. On Saturday, December 7th, Washington Fair Trade Coalition will host a rally and march starting at 10am at Occidental Park, featuring street theater and music; followed by an afternoon of workshops at Town Hall with a keynote from Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch. In Houston, TX, Indymedia is organizing an anniversary gathering and gallery exhibit showcasing 20 years of historical independent media archives.
Media is encouraged to attend the Town Hall event on November 30th to hear directly from social movement activists on the ground then and today.
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Human rights defenders on Friday condemned a federal appellate panel's decision upholding former U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's withdrawal of pretrial plea agreements for three men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Austin, who served under former President Joe Biden, "indisputably had legal authority to withdraw from the agreements; the plain and unambiguous text of the pretrial agreements shows that no performance of promises had begun," the D.C. Court of Appeals panel ruled in a 2-1 decision.
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However, attorneys for the defendants called the legally dubious military commission regime established at the Guantánamo Bay prison—notorious for detainee torture and indefinite detention—during the George W. Bush administration "obviously corrupt and rigged." During the 2000s, several military prosecutors resigned from the commissions in protest over what some of them called a rigged system designed to ensure there were no acquittals.
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The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)—which has long represented Guantánamo detainees—called Friday's decision "a betrayal of justice."
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There are still 15 men currently imprisoned in Guantánamo, which is located on Cuban land leased to the U.S. in perpetuity by a dictatorship overthrown in 1959. Multiple detainees have been cleared for release, one of them for 15 years.
Some legal experts doubted whether the U.S. government would ever be able to try, let alone convict, the 9/11 suspects. Military judges and prosecutors have cited defendants' torture in declining to proceed with cases against them. Many men and boys were tortured at CIA "black sites," Guantánamo, and military prisons including Abu Ghraib. At least dozens of detainees died.
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REPORTER: Families are upset because warnings didn't go out in time. What do you say to those families?
TRUMP: Well I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances. This was a one in 1,000 years. Only a bad person would ask a question like that. Only an evil… pic.twitter.com/IwYS6JJOCF
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The largest Muslim civil rights group in the United States on Thursday called for a censure vote over Rep. Randy Fine's latest Islamophobic attacks on progressive Muslim lawmakers—and noting that the Democratic Party's tepid response to Islamophobia has fostered an environment where politicians from both sides of the aisle seem comfortable expressing anti-Muslim bigotry.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued an action alert, urging voters to pressure their Democratic representatives in the House to support a censure vote against Fine (R-Fla.), who responded Tuesday night to Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D-Minn.) criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Islamophobic remarks that have become commonplace for the first-term congressman.
"I'm sure it is difficult to see us welcome the killer of so many of your fellow Muslim terrorists," said Fine after Omar said it was "shameful" for Congress and the Trump administration to welcome Netanyahu's third visit to Washington, D.C. this year.
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Omar has not expressed support for Hamas and unequivocally condemned the group's attack on Israel in October 2023.
Fine also called Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and New York City mayoral candidate and state Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-36) "Muslim terrorists" last week.
CAIR said in a letter to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) that it welcomed a statement released by Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) a day after Fine posted the attack against Omar on the social media platform X. In their statement, the Democratic leaders called Fine's comments "unhinged, racist, and Islamophobic" as well as "bigoted and disgusting," and demanded an apology—but made no mention of formally condemning him through a House censure vote.
"We appreciate the joint statement," wrote Robert McCaw, director of CAIR's government affairs department, and Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR Action, the group's advocacy arm. "However, we must be honest: Rep. Fine will never apologize, this is far from the first time he and other members of Congress have engaged in such dangerous anti-Muslim rhetoric, and our community has been deeply concerned by the House leadership's failure to consistently and strongly counter various other attacks."
That failure, Elkarra and McCaw suggested, has allowed anti-Muslim views to fester within both the Republican and Democratic parties—as evidenced by other recent comments by lawmakers.
CAIR pointed to Rep. Brian Mast's (R-Fla.) statement on the House floor in November 2023—in the first weeks of Israel's U.S.-backed assault on civilians in Gaza—that "there are very few Palestinian civilians." While Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) proposed censuring Mast, CAIR noted that House leaders—who continue to insist that Israel's killing of more than 57,000 Palestinians has been the result of attacks targeting Hamas and that Israel is acting in self defense—"never spoke up against Rep. Mast's remarks."
The letter also noted Rep. Brandon Gill's (R-Texas) "hateful" remarks about Mamdani in late June, after the progressive lawmaker stunned the political establishment by winning the Democratic mayoral primary. Gill criticized Mamdani for the common South Asian cultural practice of eating with his hands, saying that "civilized people in America don't eat like this"—expressing bigotry not only toward the mayoral candidate himself but also millions of people in the U.S. whose families are from parts of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.
Republican lawmakers are not alone in expressing Islamophobic, xenophobic bigotry, CAIR emphasized, pointing to Rep. Josh Gottheimer's (D-N.J.) reported comment in a closed-door Democratic caucus meeting in October 2023 that Muslim members of Congress were excluded from a vigil for victims of Hamas' attack on Israel and Israel's attacks on Gaza "because they're all guilty." Some lawmakers reported that Gottheimer's exact words were, "They should feel guilty."
Democratic leaders did not condemn Gottheimer's comments.
"When such sentiments go unchallenged by Democratic caucus leadership, they further normalize the dehumanization of Muslim Americans at a time of rising hate and violence," said Elkarra and McCaw, who noted that CAIR received 8,658 complaints of anti-Muslim attacks and bias last year—the highest number since it began tracking civil rights violations.
Although a censure vote in the Republican-controlled House would likely fail, wrote Elkarra and McCaw, "the introduction and advocacy for the resolution will send a message that House Democratic leadership takes bigotry seriously and that no member of Congress can smear and threaten Muslim and Palestinian members of Congress without facing consequences"—with the message hopefully getting not only to Fine but all federal lawmakers.
Zeteo journalist Prem Thakker reported that as of Thursday, five Democrats had signaled they would support a censure vote: Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.).
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Thakker emphasized that the stark difference between the response to Tlaib's and Fine's comments from both political parties "is not just about hypocrisy or consistency." He wrote:
On one hand, Tlaib was punished for warning of the mass suffering that would come to her people, and pleading for the government she is part of not to be complicit in it.
She wasn't listened to. And then 2 million of her people were displaced. More than 50,000 were murdered.
On the other hand, Fine has thus far been unpunished by the same people who castigated Tlaib, while he has vilified an entire religion and demonized his colleagues—all under the flag of cheering for that same genocidal violence that has afflicted the people Tlaib was trying to defend.
The unequal treatment is doubly so, given that one member's humanity is punished while another's inhumanity is tolerated, even celebrated.
In their letter, Elkarra and McCaw urged Democratic leaders to publicly affirm their support and solidarity with all Muslim members of Congress and ensure Capitol Police is providing them with sufficient security and to "commit to institutional measures to combat Islamophobia in Congress."
"This moment is a defining moral test for the Democratic Party in Congress," said CAIR. "No member should endure slander, incitement, or threats without a strong defense from their leadership. This moment will be remembered."
"American Muslims are watching," the group added. "So are millions who believe that justice and safety must be defended for all, not only for some. The choice before your caucus is whether to meet this moment with courage or allow hate to go unchallenged."
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