Free Liliany Obando! August hearing shows no grounds for her arrest

The following article by James Jordan is from Fight Back! News:

Alliance for Global Justice volunteer, Raquel Mogollón, was in attendance at the trial of political prisoner Liliany Obando Aug. 4 in Bogotá, Colombia. Based on her eyewitness report, the hearing revealed manipulation of evidence behind the charges being brought against Obando.

Battleground Arizona

The following article, Battleground Arizona: Students Take the Streets for Immigrant Rights and Against Racism: Undocumented students arrested in McCain’s office, held for deportation, by James Jordan, is being reposted here from Fight Back! News:

Tucson, AZ – Arizona has seen an explosion of Chicano and Mexicano led student resistance to racist laws and in defense of the right to a quality education. Nowhere is this more evident than in the city of Tucson, which is singled out for attack by racist elements of state government. The struggle has attracted attention across the nation. Since the state House and Senate adopted the anti-immigrant and anti-Latino law, SB1070, thousands of students have walked out of school in protest and there has been a wave of youth-led direct actions.

Eyewitness Arizona: Report from the Frontlines

The following article concerning Arizona’s SB 1070 by James Jordan is from Fight Back! News, and was published today with the following editor’s note: “Editors note: SB 1070 was signed into law, Friday April 23. Protests are under way in Arizona.”

Tucson, AZ – “They have every right to be here. This is about civil rights. And the youth are leading the way.” Those were the words of Pima County Board of Supervisors Chair Richard Elias as we talked across the street from where over 100 students had gathered to protest Arizona’s SB1070 – the harshest, most anti-immigrant legislation in the country.

The bill would turn Arizona into an apartheid state, requiring people to carry proof of citizenship on their person at all times – reminiscent of the hated passbook laws in segregated South Africa. While the law doesn’t explicitly state that requirement, it gives local and state police the authority to detain and investigate anyone they suspect of being an undocumented immigrant. In other words, any Latino-looking person who is speaking Spanish can be arrested if they are not carrying identification on their person. The bill includes a number of other repressive components, including provisions to sue governmental agencies for not enforcing immigration laws aggressively enough, requiring citizenship checks for all government services, making it illegal to solicit day labor or to hire day laborers and outlawing churches and government entities from offering sanctuary or instructing local police to not enforce immigration laws.

ICE agents carry out military-style raids in Arizona

The following article by James Jordan is from Fight Back! News:

Tucson, AZ – “Tucson today is the moral equivalent of Birmingham, Alabama in 1961,” said Mike Wilson, border rights activist and Tohono ‘O’odham tribal member, at a rally at the Federal Building here, April 15. The rally was held in response series of raids that took place the same day in Phoenix, Tucson, Rio Rico and Nogales, and in the Mexican city of Nogales, Sonora. The raids targeted people traveling on shuttle services, but whole neighborhoods were affected, with traffic brought to a virtual standstill while agents occupied urban areas in the biggest such operation in the seven-year history of Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE).

Colombian activist Liliany Obando’s trial postponed again

The following article by Angela Denio is from Fight Back! News:

The jailing and repeated postponement of trials of Liliany “Lily” Obando tells the story of a powerful woman. She is dealing firsthand with the extreme repression facing many Colombians who oppose the government. In Colombia there are over 7000 political prisoners. Colombian trade unionist Liliany Obando was arrested in the summer of 2008. Her arrest came during a string of attacks by the Uribe government targeting leaders of Colombia’s growing struggles for social change.

Obando is a typical Colombian. She has taken up the challenge to fight for the rights of the people – the ones who don’t matter to the rich in charge in Colombia and their puppeteers here in the U.S. government. Through her work with FENSUAGRO, a Colombian union, Obando championed the rights and welfare of Colombian farmers and rural wage laborers. Her work was transparent and legal under Colombian law, but Liliany Obando now sits in prison.

Paramilitary U: New Death Threats on Colombia’s Campuses

The AUC is Colombia's largest paramilitary death squad

The following commentary by James Jordan is from Fight Back! News:

In early November I received a copy of a death threat made against student activists at the University of the Atlantic in Barranquilla, Colombia. The threat was sent out in the name of the “United Self-Defense Forces (AUC)-Rearmed”. The AUC is the largest paramilitary organization in Colombia, though it supposedly demobilized due to government efforts. However, a number of organizations, from Arco Iris Corporation to Human Rights Watch, have reported that para-militarism is actually on the increase, often in the form of new or reconstituted organizations.

Homeland Security Harasses Haiti Activists

James Jordan speaking in Haiti. (Fight Back! News)

The following article by Tom Burke is from Fight Back! News:

The U.S. government is stepping up its surveillance and harassment of U.S. activists in an attempt to intimidate them and dampen their spirits for the change we believe in. International solidarity activist James Jordan was returning from a two week trip to Haiti, on Jan. 7, five days prior to the terrible earthquake disaster. When his flight touched down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, flight attendants called out for “James Patrick Jordan” and asked him to come to the front of the airplane. Homeland Security came on board the airplane to escort him off.

Earthquake in Haiti: U.S. Strengthens Military Control

Demonstrator holding a placard calling for the return of Aristide

The following is from Fight Back! News:

Haitian government officials say that up to 500,000 are dead, crushed beneath their homes, schools and workplaces during a mighty earthquake Jan. 12. Most were killed when poorly constructed buildings collapsed on them. Television news in the U.S. showed rows of children’s bodies lying lifeless, bloodied and bruised. It is a horrible tragedy that will be largely reported as a natural disaster. There is nothing natural about it.

Visit To Colombian Political Prisoner Liliany Obando

The following commentary by James Jordan is from Fight Back! News:

Bogotá, Colombia – Liliany Obando is powerful. She is one thousands of Colombian political prisoners. For a year now, I have known Liliany through letters. We finally met face-to-face on three occasions, during a delegation sponsored by the U.S.-based Campaign for Labor Rights and the Colombia Action Network. I represented the International Network in Solidarity with Colombia’s Political Prisoners.  

I’m a fairly tall man, and Liliany is relatively small. But upon first meeting her, I was engulfed by one of her bear hugs – hugs that show a heart and courage many times larger than her size. Liliany is in jail, accused of ‘rebellion.’ Yet even behind bars, she is organizing; collecting the testimonies of other political prisoners and advocating for a humanitarian exchange of prisoners between the Colombian government and guerrillas as a first step toward a just peace.  

Women in Colombia’s prisons, a view from the inside

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following essay from the Colombian trade unionist and political prisoner, Liliany Obando. The introduction was prepared by the Colombia Action Network.

Liliany Obando at a FENSUAGRO rally | photo from http://www.freeliliany.net

The essay below was written by Colombian trade unionist, video documentary producer, and political prisoner Liliany Obando. Liliany wrote her “Reflections” with Mother’s Day in mind. Like many organizers for social justice in Colombia, Liliany is imprisoned with little to no evidence. The US government is funding and advising Colombia’s judicial system, but it has only worsened with time. The US government also continues to fund and direct the Colombian Military and their paramilitary death squads. Under the US “Plan Colombia”, labor unionists are murdered every week, nearly 4 million Colombian peasants are displaced from their land, and 7000 political opponents of President Uribe are imprisoned. The CAN wants to thank James Jordan of the Campaign for Labor Rights for translating the original Spanish essay. We demand “Free Liliany Obando!”

REFLECTIONS ABOUT COLOMBIA’S POLICY CONCERNING CRIMINALS AND THE TREATMENT OF WOMEN PRISONERS
a glimpse from a woman on the inside…

By Liliany Obando, Political Prisoner

Although we women have struggled throughout history to reach better living conditions, dignified work, acknowledgement, and social and political inclusion, still we must suffer vestiges of a patriarchal and sexist society that does not recognize our role in society. It is a reality that things are getting worse for us women who find ourselves deprived of our liberty.