Amnesty International Gathers

Come Monday morning, eight students had a make-a-difference answer to “What’d you do this weekend?”

 

Along with 600 or so other young activists and supporters of human rights, senior Eva Batalla-Mann, head of Thacher’s Amnesty International chapter, and classmate Zoey Poll; juniors Leigh Thomas and Jin Ah Jung; sophomore Madeline Taylor, and freshmen Marissa Lopez, Sienna Currie, and Liam Carpenter-Urquhart, along with their faculty advisor, Cecilia Ortiz, attended the annual Amnesty International Western Regional Conference in Los Angeles, CA.

 

This year’s theme: Human Rights for All: One Movement, One World.

 

Among the presenters was Rais Bhuiyn, who was shot by a white supremacist after the events of 9/11 in Dallas, TX. Rais was the only survivor in this killing spree. Rais founded a campaign called World Without Hate, and fought to save his shooter from the death penalty. Also speaking on behalf of the critically influential efforts of AI were Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, the three hikers taken prisoner in Iran on July, 2009.

 

Other presenters:

•Padel Gyatso, an ordained Buddhist monk imprisoned and tortured for 33 years for refusing to  accuse other Tibetans of spying against the Chinese state—his ultimate release coming as a result of Italy's AI involvement.

•Cipriana Jurado, who has fought for over 20 years against the femicide taking place in Mexico presented a picture of how easy it is to kill or disappear a woman in Mexico.

•Frankie Carrillo, convicted at 16 for a crime that he did not commit and released 20 years later, when it was proven that the witnesses were coerced.

 

Workshops also filled the three days to overflowing: on abolishing the death penalty, on freedom and democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, on the state of affairs at Guantanamo and in immigration reform, on community engagement through write-a-thons, on the role of social media and technology in the fight for human rights. The Thacher students split up to attend those they decided were important, then convened at a round-table, conducted by Eva, to debrief the workshops and brainstorm on-campus projects to initiate in the months ahead.

 

Likely candidates: a write-a-thon to help support the children of deportees and one to support various prisoners of conscience, a fundraiser for postage to send letters to different countries, an anti-death penalty campaign, and the more frequent screening of films about human rights issues.

 

Back to the initial question of “What’d you do?” Cecilia Ortiz answered it with another of her own: If not us, who?

 

Comments from attendees:

 

Leigh: Before this conference I was very new to AI. This conference [let] me find the subjects I am passionate about and focus in on them. I was especially interested in the issue of torture and its worldwide impact. Almost every government, including the United States, uses some form of torture. I was also very moved by the passion that many of the other people at the conference have for human rights. Many had been tortured or arrested for fighting for their rights and their commitment is really inspiring. Finally, we [heard] many great speakers, including an Islamic man who was shot at by a white supremacist, then dedicated about a decade to save the man who had shot him from the death penalty. In the end he was unable to do so, but his efforts moved the white supremacist, who began to preach about the horrors hate and hate crime from jail.

Marissa: While on the conference I met a woman named Mona who was from my home, Denver, Colorado.  In meeting her, we talked about abolishing the death penalty in Colorado, something that we hope to accomplish by 2013.  I hope to see her again, maybe as soon as this summer while I am home.

Maddie: The conference gave me much more perspective on the world we live in and made me more aware of the many basic human rights that are abused every day, all over the world. I learned about oppresive governments and heard many accounts from people whose fundamental human rights had been violated. I am glad to have become more aware of these issues; I'm much more appreciative of [the basic rights] I enjoy.

 

Eva: The Amnesty conference was a great experience for all of the members of our Thacher chapter. It was exciting to meet other people passionate about human rights from all over the country, people with whom we are working towards a common goal. We also were able to put faces to various conflicts by meeting prisoners of conscience and hearing their stories. It was important to get out of our small context of what Amnesty International is and look at it and the issues from a much bigger perspective. In an environment that sometimes makes it hard to stay motivated about things happening too far away, the conference gave me hope and inspired me to keep working.

 

Zoey wrote about the weekend in her ToadBlog, including this: After three days of lectures, provocative panels (one in particular on torture juxtaposed a military interrogator and a torture victim), musical performances and documentaries, we joked that the "Thacher Bubble" had been popped. Often, it is easy to get stuck in the drama of a small community, but great organizations like AI, as well as Thacher's Current Events Club, Debate Society, and resources like the New York Times daily delivery to campus ensure that what we jokingly refer to as the Thacher Bubble remains an insignificant phenomenon.

Also in attendance were Thacher parents—and photographers—Perla Batalla and Julia Poll.