MERIP
Media Resource List, June 12, 2006
AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS on
the following topics:
- Conditions at Guantanamo Bay detention center
-
Human rights activists urge CAT
shareholders to cease bulldozer sales to Israel, June 14
LISA HAJJAR
Lisa Hajjar teaches in
the Law and Society Program at the University of California-Santa
Barbara. She is the author of Courting Conflict: The Israeli
Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaz a (University
of California Press, 2005) and a member of the editorial committee
of Middle East Report . Hajjar has been interviewing
interrogators and lawyers for Guantanamo prisoners for a book
on American torture and the role of lawyers. She commented
today: "Many Guantanamo prisoners have resorted to hunger
strikes and suicide attempts as the only means available to
protest or 'escape' the dehumanizing conditions of the prison
camp, so it should be no surprise that three killed themselves
over the weekend. In 2003, the Department of Defense retitled
suicide attempts 'self-injurious behavior' to deflect criticism
of the treatment of prisoners and to cast these desperate
acts as sly threats to American security. Terming the three
suicides acts of 'asymmetrical war' is another Defense Department
deception. As lawyers who represent Guantanamo prisoners have
told me and many others have attested, their conditions are
inhumane and suicide is a predictable response to hopelessness."
NOURA
ERAKAT (US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation)
SYDNEY LEVY (Jewish Voice
for Peace)
The US Campaign to End
the Israeli Occupation explains the upcoming protests against
Caterpillar at the shareholder meeting in Chicago on June
14: "Cindy and Craig Corrie, the parents of Rachel Corrie,
a young American crushed to death by an Israeli soldier driving
a Caterpillar bulldozer while trying to protect a Palestinian
home from demolition will deliver more than 6,000 postcards
to Caterpillar CEO James Owens urging him to cease his company's
sales of weaponized bulldozers to Israel. The Corries will
attend the shareholder meeting as proxy voters on behalf of
Jewish and Christian institutional investors who have filed
a resolution asking for greater corporate accountability from
Caterpillar. The company is the most visible target of a divestment
campaign waged by Christian institutional investors, including
the Presbyterian Church USA, the World Council of Churches,
the Church of England and the Church of Scotland. As Caterpillar
shareholders meet in Chicago, discussion about Caterpillar's
violation of human rights by its sale of weaponized bulldozers
to the Israeli military will be discussed in Birmingham, Alabama
by thousands of delegates to the Presbyterian General Assembly."
Background
:
+
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, information about
the CAT campaign http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=157
+
Jewish Voice for Peace
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
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at (202) 223-3677, or merip.media@merip.org.
Media Resource Lists are an initiative of the MERIP Media
Outreach Program.
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East Research and Information Project (MERIP), 1500 Massachusetts
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