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Defending Human Rights

Local is Global – Defenders of water rights and justice in your municipalities, your cities, your parliaments

By: Nikhil Aziz | March 23, 2009

By Nikhil Aziz.
Nikhil is reporting from the World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey.

One of the events organized by civil society during the corporate-driven World Water Forum in Istanbul was "International Day" on March 19^th. Various members of the anti-privatization sector of the global water justice movement organized this in collaboration with Turkish civil society representatives. For example, Our Water Commons, the Trans National Institute, Food & Water Watch, and regional networks like Red Vida (Latin America) and the African Water Network.
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Defending Human Rights

Update from Gaza

By: Dory Dinoto | March 12, 2009

With thanks in part to $80,000 dollars in generous donations made to Grassroots International in response to the Gaza Crisis, our partners in Palestine have begun the process of rebuilding their communities.
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Defending Human Rights

Updates from Women’s Delegation to Gaza – Alice Walker Speaks Out

By: Carol Schachet | March 9, 2009

For a Grassroots International staff member and Board member, this International Women's Day offered a real glimpse at global solidarity. The two women, along with 58 other activists, writers and thinkers stepped across the rarely penetrable border into Gaza. Delegates hope to meet with their counterparts, including a number of Grassroots International partners, visit to the urban gardens of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), and meet with the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), whose building was severely damaged during the Israeli attack.
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Defending Human Rights

International Women’s Delegation Granted Entry to Gaza

By: Carol Schachet | March 8, 2009

The information below is adapted from a press release by Code Pink.

GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP - A 60-member aid delegation was allowed entry into war-torn Gaza today through the Egyptian border crossing today. Two Grassroots International staff and board members (in the middle of the photo above) are part of the delegation, which includes Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker.
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Defending Human Rights

The Developing World is Too Big to Fail

By: Carol Schachet | March 6, 2009

As the economic crisis spreads deeper and wider, so too do calls for various bailouts. The federal government has provided billions of dollars to rescue banks, car producers, insurance companies and other industries. Why not, then, bail out developing countries as well? So asks Kevin Gallagher of our colleague the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts university in an article from the Guardian. After all, if being "too big to fail" is the litmus test, then surely the Global South passes. He writes, "If the world's developing countries aren't part of a comprehensive global response to the crisis we will all be worse off.
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Defending Human Rights

Via Campesina calls for Peasant Rights

By: Saulo Araujo | March 2, 2009

On February 23, Grassroots International partner, the Via Campesina met with representatives of the United Nations in New York City to discuss ways to address the chronic problems faced by peasant communities around the globe.

The growing violation of resources rights of peasants by development policies - especially mega-projects whose main goal is to speed up the extraction and export of resources for corporate profits - is an issue that demands immediate attention.
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Defending Human Rights

Take Action: Community Activists in Chiapas Face Harassment and Intimidation

By: Carol Schachet | February 25, 2009

Human rights and community leaders in Mexico continue to experience threats including death threats. They ask for help from global activists to protect their lives and their community work.

Current threats follow previous repression, including the unjust prosecution of local organizers of the Civil Resistance against the high cost of energy in the southern state of Campeche.Last December, in response to an emergency action, letters of solidarity with Sara Lopez and Joaquin Aguilar brought authorities in Campeche to the negotiating table.

Your support is still needed.
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Defending Human Rights

Take Action: Community Activists in Chiapas Face Harassment and Intimidation

By: Carol Schachet | February 25, 2009

Human rights and community leaders in Mexico continue to experience threats – including death threats. They ask for help from global activists to protect their lives and their community work.

Current threats follow previous repression, including the unjust prosecution of local organizers of the Civil Resistance against the high cost of energy in the southern state of Campeche.Last December, in response to an emergency action, letters of solidarity with Sara Lopez and Joaquin Aguilar brought authorities in Campeche to the negotiating table.

Your support is still needed.
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Defending Human Rights

Progressive Israeli Reflections

By: Carol Schachet | February 9, 2009

Former deputy speaker of Israel's Knesset and current president of the New Israel Fund Naomi Chazan described her perspectives on the Gaza war and the state of Israeli politics and the peace process in a recent article published in The Nation. "Reflections of a Troubled Israeli" courageously puts forth the vision of a woman who refuses to give up on a more progressive and just Israel, the country she loves; or a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
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Defending Human Rights

Gaza Under Fire

By: Carol Schachet | January 29, 2009

For years, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC) has been turning food aid that feeds dependency on its head. Their Farm to Table program purchases food for hungry families from local Palestinian farmers to address critical humanitarian needs and provide local farmers with needed income. Like nearly all organizations working in Gaza, PARC's operations came to a swift halt on December 27, 2008, when Israeli Defense Forces began bombing the region. Their buildings were severely damaged, along with the rooftop and backyard gardens at the core of the urban farm program.
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Defending Human Rights

PARC Reports: People Killed, Life Shattered, and Land Occupied

By: Carol Schachet | January 29, 2009

Grassroots International's partner, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC) has long played a crucial role in defending the Palestinian people's human right to land, water and food. One of their goals is to contribute to the achievment of sustainable and integrated rural development in Palestine, and they have been a key actor in building a secular and democratic civil society. Since 1983, they have worked tirelessly with rural and refugee (from the war of 1948) farmers.

Grassroots currently funds PARC's innovative Urban Agriculture program in Gaza, which encourages food sovereignty and security by establishing networks of rooftop and backyard gardens.
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Defending Human Rights

Cease-fire Remains Tenuous

By: Carol Schachet | January 28, 2009

For the most part, Gaza has been quiet for the past 10 days. News coverage from the region has faded from headlines as direct conflict between Hamas and the Israeli military halted in the eve of President Barack Obama's inauguration and the subsequent transitions of power.
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Defending Human Rights

Zapotec Indigenous People in Mexico Demand Transparency from U.S. Scholar

By: Saulo Araujo | January 22, 2009

The Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO) - a longtime partner of Grassroots International based in Mexico - denounced a recently conducted study in the Zapotec region by U.S. geography scholar Peter Herlihy. Prof. Herlihy failed to mention that he received funding from the Foreign Military Studies Office of the U.S. Armed Forces. The failure to obtain full, free and prior informed consent is a violation of the rights of indigenous communities as codified in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the United Nations in 2007. In addition, UNOSJO fears that this in-depth geographical mapping of indigenous communities may be used in some harmful manner by the military.
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Defending Human Rights

City on Fire

By: Carol Schachet | January 16, 2009

All morning I have been talking to people in Gaza City while they were helplessly watching the United Nations headquarters and millions of dollars of much needed food and medicine go up in flames. The UN plays a critical role in Gaza as it is the primary vehicle for feeding more than 80% of Gaza's 1.5 million people who depend on food aid. A UN distribution coordinator in Gaza City explained to me that they had allocated scant reserves in three supply warehouses in Gaza City, Karni, and Rafah. All three have been incapacitated by Israeli attacks.
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Defending Human Rights

Israeli Human Rights Groups Press War Crimes Investigation

By: Carol Schachet | January 14, 2009

B'Tselem (the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) has joined eight other prominent Israeli Human Rights organizations in calling on their government to put an end to their actions in Gaza. B'Tselem is Hebrew for "in the image of" and used as a synonym for human dignity. Since 1989, they have worked tirelessly to educate the Israeli public and policymakers on the reality of human rights violations in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Today-as the death toll in Gaza has just passed 1,000-B'Tselem's voice is needed more than ever to bring an end to the violence.
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Defending Human Rights

Solidarity Letter and Call to Stop the War in Gaza

By: Carol Schachet | January 12, 2009

The end of 2008 showed a new wave of violence against humanity with the Israeli war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza strip. The attack by Israeli forces starting on the 27th of December- under the pretext of a war against Hamas - have already killed hundreds of Palestinians and injured thousands of peoples, many of them women and children.

The war in the Gaza strip is destroying houses, schools, hospitals and also Palestinian farmland. Palestinian people in the Gaza strip are currently facing a lack of medicine, water, accommodation and food. Meanwhile, Palestinian farmers are not able to produce their own food. The situation is getting more tragic day by day.
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Defending Human Rights
Please help – Our partners in Gaza are reaching out for support

By: Carol Schachet | January 10, 2009
You already know that the news looks grim:
- Both Israel and Hamas have rejected international calls for a cease fire and the violence has escalated
- Gaza's border with Egypt and Israel remains closed
- Humanitarian aid has halted due to attacks on UN and Red Cross/Red Crescent workers.
Direct updates and news make it out of Gaza only in short bursts, when there is sufficient power to feed cell phone batteries and computers. Grassroots International's locally based partner organizations within Gaza continue to send us word as they can about how they are responding to the crisis and facilitating relief and reconstruction. Because of their ongoing commitment to social justice and human rights in the region, their efforts stand the greatest chance of having a lasting impact.
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Defending Human Rights

Sweep Down the Walls

By: Carol Schachet | January 9, 2009

When I talk to people in Gaza these days, two things usually come up. The first, even in the midst of such a devastating war, is sincere gratitude for keeping in touch. The second is the question of why the world - especially the US whose taxpayers are financing the war - is silent. Although our actions have not yet been able to halt the attacks on Gaza, I can honestly tell our Palestinian friends that we are not silent.
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Defending Human Rights

Israel May Be in Violation of Arms Export Control Act

By: Carol Schachet | January 7, 2009

Again raising both legal and moral questions, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on January 6, 2009. Below are both his introduction to the letter and the text itself. Please write to thank Rep. Kucinich for his leadership on this issue.
From Dennis Kucinich:

In light of press reports that Israeli forces fired on a United Nations school where civilians were taking shelter, I sent notice today to Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, that Israel's actions in Gaza since December 27th, 2008 may constitute a violation of the requirements of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA).
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Defending Human Rights
Talking Points for Engaging the Media, Elected Officials, and Others on the Crisis in Gaza

By: Carol Schachet | January 6, 2009
- Numerous reports, including by Amnesty International, have cited Israel's November 4th raid into Gaza as effectively breaking the ceasefire.
- The Israeli 'disengagement' of 2005 DID NOT end the occupation of Gaza – and an occupying power is responsible for the welfare of people under its occupation. An occupation is determined by whether there is effective control – not simply the presence of illegal settlers and soldiers.
- Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed a ceasefire that included Gaza on November 26, 2006. However, Israel continued to conduct incursions into the West Bank and carry out “targeted assassinations,” some of which resulted in the murder of civilians.
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