Week of 9/1/08: Iraqi Refugees

This Tuesday (9/2) we will be discussing the plight of Iraqi refugees who have fled their country as a result of the 2003 Anglo-American invasion. The meeting will begin with a short film from Joshua van Praag about Iraqi refugees in Egypt (Barbara Harrell Bond, a leading academic in refugee studies and founder of the Refugee Studies Program at Oxford, helped supervise the production). We'll conclude the meeting with letters addressed to our senators and representatives.

I hope everyone enjoyed the game this weekend for those who went despite the blast furnace temperature. Have a relaxing Labor Day holiday and Go Dawgs!

Zach
zach.l.fox@gmail.com

Reminder: Letter writing meetings are 5:30pm Tuesdays in Sanford Hall 112.

Week of 8/25/08: China and the Olympics.

Welcome back to another year of Amnesty activities! This week, our first week back, will serve as a introductory meeting. We'll briefly discuss Amnesty's history and how we as a local branch operate, and then kick off the new school year with an action about China, the Olympics, and the Chinese government's broken promises to improve its human rights record. Discussion, as always, will be highly encouraged. Join us afterwords for coffee downtown...or maybe even Last Resort cake!

Reminder: Letter-writing meetings are, for now, Tuesday 5:30pm in Sanford Hall 112.

We hope to see many new faces and some old friends too!

Zach

Listerv

It has come to our attention that many people on our Listserv no longer attend UGA or wish to receive our weekly update. For our sanity (and our inboxes), if you wish to be removed from the Listserv please do so yourself. Follow this link and do it manually -- http://www.listserv.uga.edu/. It takes about 15 seconds :).

Thanks very much!

Zach

Information for the Fall

Hello one and all! Welcome back to Athens and another year of Amnesty activism. Here’s a rundown of information for the fall:

Letter-writing meetings are set for Tuesdays, Sanford Hall 112 at 5:30pm.

Planning meetings are set for Jittery Joes in SLC at 8:30pm Wednesdays, except for this coming week, when the meeting will be held on Thursday at 6:00pm. Stop by to suggest a new action or pitch an idea for an event.

Everyone is welcome to attend both meetings, and we encourage everyone to do so.

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Here is a tentative schedule of upcoming actions, events, meetings, etc. More details are forthcoming:

8/26/08: Introductory meeting about Amnesty and Amnesty at UGA followed by a letter concerning China and the Olympics

9/2/08: A week of events about sexual violence against women…including a meeting on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), an event on sexual violence and kidnappings of young women in Mexico, and a screening of Lumo, a movie about the extreme and very tragic sexual violence against women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

9/9/08: Our first meeting/event of the semester on Troy Davis, with Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (GFADP). Troy is a Georgia death row inmate who has a very strong case of innocence, but he now faces possible execution after exhausting all of his appeals earlier this year; plus a screening of the documentary At the Death House Door.

*Troy’s case will be our most important campaign and highest priority for the foreseeable future due to the nature of his case, our previous work on the death penalty, and the very “local” nature of his case.

9/16/08: An action on Darfur and the continuing crises there, specifically regarding the deployment of a full fledged UN Peacekeeping force to the Darfur region

9/23/08: An action on Iraqi refugees, who number in the millions, their plight, and the dangers of not addressing the needs of this very vulnerable population.

Also…join us for coffee, or cake, or maybe even dinner downtown after meetings this fall to socialize and hang out.

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You can keep up with our events through our List-Serv, but we also have a Google calendar, Facebook group, and our Blogspot site here (www.amnestyuga.blogspot.com) with up-to-date information.

We are hoping to have our old website (located at www.uga.edu/amnesty) replaced with a new site that is current and easier to navigate within the next two weeks – stay tuned for this!

We also still have new T-Shirts available for sale. They are really great shirts, and the design can be seen on our Facebook group. Send Zach Fox an email at zach.l.fox@gmail.com to request a shirt, or just stop by a meeting to get one!

Welcome to a new year of activism!

Thanks to all who are interested in being active with the University of Georgia chapter of Amnesty International. Amnesty International is the world's largest grassroots human rights advocacy group, and one of the oldest -- founded in 1961 in London in support of "prisoners of conscience.' This blog will serve as our website until we can get a new, up-to-date site early in the fall semester 2008. Please join our Facebook group and University ListServ, and subscribe our GoogleCalendar, to stay informed on upcoming meetings, events, and other happenings!

For more information on Amnesty International: www.amnestyusa.org