CONTACT: DRUM Executive Director, Monami Maulik. Email: monami@drumnyc.org. Direct phone:347.385.9113

One Plaza, New York City, NY  

The most recent set of documents revealed by the Associated Press on Friday, March 23^rd uncovers that the scope of the NYPD’s Intelligence Divisions surveillance program far exceeded what was previously known in regards to the local New York Muslim community. The now well-documented program also ensnared dozens of other local community organizations that have simply questioned or publicly opposed government policies over the past decade. It was also revealed that the programs geographic scope went far past Muslim student organizations across the Eastern seaboard, going as far away as public demonstrations down in New Orleans. 

These new revelations continue to heighten and significantly broaden the very serious questions that have yet to be answered by the NYPD and elected officials surrounding this program.  

As New York City Council Member Jumaane D. Williams states, “I have serious questions as to the motivations of the NYPD’s surveillance program, especially with this new information. With each piece of breaking news, the overall picture of civil rights abuse becomes more disturbing. I look forward to pushing ahead with legislation to create an Inspector General’s office to oversee the NYPD and to urging the federal government to establish an independent federal monitor.”

“These new set of documents confirm our suspicions that the NYPD’s spying programs extend far beyond Muslim communities, and include social justice and community organizations. It also isn’t surprising that the NYPD is watching the very same groups that criticize the NYPD and working for police accountability. All of this still begs the question, who is watching the NYPD?”, says Fahd Ahmed, Esq., Legal and Policy Director of DRUM-Desis Rising Up & Moving. 

Representatives from infiltrated organizations will be holding a press conference this Wednesday at 11:30a.m. EST to join the ever-growing momentum calling for NYPD transparency and accountability.

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Organizing Groups: DRUM – Desis Rising Up & Moving, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, War Resisters League, The International Action Center, Al Awda NY, The Ruckus Society, The Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, Justice Committee, Peoples’ Justice for Community Control and Police Accountability, CAAAV, The New York May 1st Coalition, Domestic Workers United, and Critical Resistance.   

Endorsers: National Lawyers Guild NYC Chapter, NLG-NYC Muslim Defense Committee, Majlis ash-Shura (Islamic Leadership Council) of Metropolitan New York, Communities United for Police Reform (CPR), Picture the Homeless, CUNY CLEAR, VAMOS Unidos, Center for Constitutional Rights, SAALT, Streetwise and Safe, Arab American Action Network, Pakistan Solidarity Network, Council on American Islamic Relations-NY (CAIR-NY), AALDEF, South Asian Solidarity Initiative, Southwest Workers Union, Pakistan USA Freedom Forum, Muslim American Society (MAS), Audre Lorde Project (ALP), Urban Justice Center, Filipino Advocates for Justice, Dignity Campaign for Real Immigration Reform, Muslim Legal Fund of America, Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), Damayan, Masjid as-Salam, Defending Dissent Foundation, National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms (NCPCF), Turning Point for Women and Families, International Socialist Organization, FIERCE, Judson Memorial Church, Anti-Repression Committee of the Occupy Wall Street Activist Legal Working Group, Association of Muslim American Lawyers (AMAL), Occupy Faith NYC, Trinity Lutheran Church, Project Salam, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Jews Against Islamophobia, New York Taskforce on Political Prisoners, BAYAN USA, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, American Muslim Voice, Adhikaar, New York City Labor Against War, Labor for Palestine, Ahlul-Bayt Student Association, Socialist Action, Solidarity, Women in Islam Inc., NYC Jericho Movement, Blacks in Law Enforcement of America, Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development (MWIRD), Independent Viewpoints, Freedom Socialist Party, St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery (Episcopal), Brooklyn For Peace, Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment- GABRIELA USA, Muslim Consultative Network (MCN), Committee to Stop FBI Repression, Middle East Crisis Committee, Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), International League of Peoples Struggles LOC, Child Welfare Organizing Project, Raha: Iranian Feminist Collective, OWS Immigrant Worker Justice working group, New York Committee to Stop FBI Repression, Where Is My Vote-NY, Jordan Flaherty, Professor Chip Pitts (Stanford Law School & Oxford University), Shamshad Ahmad, Professor Vijay Prashad (Trinity College), Aysha Ghani, Professor Rene Francisco Poitevin (New York University), Professor Alfonso Gonzales (CUNY Lehman College), Masie Chin, NYC Green Party

An attack or war against Iran would be a disaster and a crime.  Just as United For Peace and Justice worked to stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we strongly oppose any attack on Iran, and are calling on all to take action.  It took several years to build majority opposition to those earlier wars. We must quickly express that majority sentiment that already exists against the possibility of any new wars, calling for justice at home and abroad instead!  We need a foreign policy based on diplomacy and negotiations, not crippling economic sanctions and dangerous military strikes. So far the Obama administration has held less than an hour’s actual talks with an Iranian diplomat – diplomacy means engaging, negotiating, talking – and talking some more. It is time to urge family, friends, and people of good will – everyone who cares about people in Iran, in Israel, or here in the United States – to do all they can to stop military action before it starts.

We Urge:

• The U.S. Government to state its intention to resolve the conflict with Iran through diplomacy and negotiations, and not the use of force.
• The U.S. Government to exercise the full range of its diplomatic, economic and political influence to prevent the nuclear-armed state of Israel from attacking Iran.
• An immediate cessation of economic sanctions and threats of war against Iran, assassination of its citizens, and other “covert” actions by the United States, Israel, and their allies that serve to increase the danger of war.
• The U.S. Government to support a Regional Accord establishing a Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone in the Middle East as called for in United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, article 14, in order to end this cycle of coercion, fear and war.

Iran does not have a nuclear bomb. The U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously confirm this and say that Iran has not made the decision to build a nuclear weapon. Yet Iran has three neighbors that possess nuclear arsenals — India, Israel, and Pakistan. All developed their arsenals covertly outside the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), yet none of these countries faces threats of war or sanctions for doing so.  Iran, in contrast, has remained a party to the NPT and continues to allow IAEA monitoring of its nuclear facilities.

Israel is not willing to give up its nuclear monopoly in the region. Its leaders would rather go to war to keep their nuclear weapons than cooperate with its neighbors to ensure that there are no weapons of mass destruction in the region.  But nuclear weapons pose a grave danger to global security, and this is especially true in the strategic, over-armed, and oil rich Middle East. A U.S.-backed Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone would help reduce the threat of war in the region and help set the world on path to nuclear abolition.

If the United States truly wants to deter other countries from developing nuclear weapons, it must lead by example by implementing its own obligations under the non-proliferation treaty.  It must stop threatening non-nuclear states, divest itself of its vast stockpile of nuclear weapons, and actively support commencement of negotiations for a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East – a commitment enshrined in the United Nations Security Council resolution that ended the first Gulf War in 1991.

Many believe that the escalating rhetoric could accelerate the likelihood of a war against Iran either by accident or an attack by politicians believing they have no choice boxed in by their own words.  An attack or war would be a catastrophe for the millions of Iranian people who will experience their own version of shock and awe, and would face the threat of radiation poisoning from Iran’s legal nuclear power facilities. It would be disastrous for Israelis who would face retaliation attacks, and for millions more in the region caught in the crossfire. A war would also be a catastrophe for our own country, now in the midst of an economic crisis, and for the world as oil markets would spin out of control. The U.S. economic crisis has already been worsened by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a war with Iran would bring more of the same. The 1 percent may expect to benefit from another war and from $5/gallon gasoline, but the 99 percent stand only to lose.

UFPJ stands in solidarity with the Iranian people as they suffer from U.S. imposed sanctions and struggle to change their own country. Those sanctions, which President Obama admitted have been “virtually grinding the Iranian economy to a halt,” are exacerbating environmental, health, and economic crises for the Iranian people. In Iran, progressive labor and other popular democratic forces struggling for change have declared unequivocally that they do not want sanctions, outside intervention in their politics or war against their country. The first casualties of any such aggression are the lives and aspirations of the Iranian people themselves, while as in all wars the most repressive elements of the government would benefit most.

We must keep building a powerful peoples movement for justice and work to insure that preventing an attack or new war with Iran remains high on our justice agenda. We need those dollars in our communities. We need that money for jobs and to take care of Iraq and Afghan war veterans. We need that money to keep people in their homes and schools open. We need that money to rebuild what we have destroyed in Iraq.

Please join us and stand against sanctions, against war, and in solidarity with the Iranian people whose lives and dreams would be smashed by both. Call for a new decade of global justice and let’s start by building healthy communities at home!

Signers:

Alliance for Peace and Justice (MA)

Alliance of Community Trainers

Association of World Citizens

Backbone Campaign

Brandywine Peace Community (PA)

Bryn Mawr Peace Coalition (PA)

Cambridge United for Justice with Peace (MA)

Campaign for Peace and Democracy

Catalyst Project

Central Jersey Coalition Against Endless War

Citizens for a United Nations Peoples Assembly

Code Pink

Columbus Campaign for Arms Control

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

Community Alliance of Lane County (OR)

Concerned Families of Westchester (NY)

Delaware Pacem in Terris

Delaware Valley Veterans For America (PA)

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Flatbush for Peace (NY)

Global Exchange

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

Global People’s Assembly

Grandmothers Against the War (SF/Bay Area)

Greater New Haven Peace Council

Institute for Policy Studies, New Internationalism Project

Jeannette Rankin Peace Center (MT)

Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern (PA)

Logan Square Neighbors for Justice and Peace (IL)

Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives

Malu ‘Aina Center For Non-violent Education & Action (HI)

Massachusetts Peace Action

Mid-Missouri Peaceworks

Military Families Speak Out

Milton for Peace (MA)

National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance

Nevada Desert Experience

North Carolina Peace Action

North Country Peace Group (NY)

Northeast Connecticut Coalition for Peace and Justice

Oak Park Coalition for Truth and Justice (IL)

Office of the Americas

Peace Action

Peace Action Montgomery (Maryland)

Peace and Freedom Party (CA)

Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County (CA)

Progressive Democrats  of  America

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows

St. Louis Instead of War Coalition

Suffolk Peace Network (Long Island, NY)

Syracuse Peace Council (NY)

Topanga Peace Alliance (CA)

United for Justice with Peace (MA)

United for Peace and Justice

U.S. Peace Council

Veterans For Peace

Voices for Creative Nonviolence

War Resisters League

WarIsACrime.org

Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice of Northern Utah

Washington Peace Center (DC)

Western States Legal Foundation

Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation

Where is My Vote – NY

Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice

Witness Against Torture

Millions in Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Jordan… have offered an alternative vision of a new Middle East and North Africa free of domestic tyranny and foreign domination.

As the United Nations Generally Assembly convenes with the annual meeting of world leaders, the G8 countries will meet in NY with leaders of Arab States on 9/20 to discuss the future of the region.

Stand Up and Speak Out!
Against the Economic and Political Exploitation of the Region &
For the Self-Determination of Popular Democratic Struggles

JOIN US @ Freedom Square NYC
September 20th 4:00pm
UN Headquarters Dag Hammerskjold Plaza 47th & 1st Ave.

Endorsed by: January 25th Revolution Coalition, Raha: Iranian Feminist Collective, Syrian Americans for Democracy, Where Is My Vote-NY, Yemeni-American Coalition for Change

“Freedom Square”
The world has watched in awe and admiration as people’s movements across the Middle East and North Africa have demanded an end to tyranny and injustice. This spirit of resistance has swept across the region and will not cease until true representation, freedom, dignity and human rights prevail.
In September 2011, the United Nations General Assembly convenes with the annual meeting of world leaders. Lost in this discussion are the voices and interests of the people these politicians claim to represent. In fact, on September 20th, the leaders of the G8 — the world’s 8 richest and most powerful countries — will hold an unannounced meeting to discuss their plans for the Middle East and North Africa.
While this meeting is taking place, we will gather to bring the struggle for justice, democracy, human rights and accountability from Maydan-e Azadi, Maydan Tahrir, Pearl Square, Avenue Habib Bourguiba, Gaza, Hama and every other street and square in the Middle East & North Africa to the world’s annual meeting of politicians.
We stand united and call on the G8 to declare that they will heed the demand of the region’s movements for self-determination. The future of the region belongs to the people not the politicians. The politics of covert meetings, lack of accountability and undemocratic decisions that are neither lead by the people nor serve their interests must stop.

Now is the time for us to stand together to show our unity and solidarity for these movements and towards a just, democratic, and a people’s Middle East.

On June 20th 2011, Where is My Vote – NY released a video marking two years since the tragic killing of peaceful demonstrators in Iran.
The footage was shot in New York City in commemoration of the second anniversary of the post-election uprisings.

This video condemns the egregious acts of violence inflicted upon ordinary people in Iran who continue to this day to demand their rights. This message is imperative given the bravery of twelve political prisoners on hunger strike in Iranian prisons today.WIMV - NY expresses solidarity with the Iranian people’s ongoing struggle and right to self-determination.

Presented by The Center for Public Scholarship
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 3:30-­5:30pm
The New School 66 West 12th Street, Room 404
Download the flyer.

Nobel Laureate and human rights attorney Shirin Ebadi will talk with students and New York-­based activists about her new memoir, The Golden Cage, and the challenges of supporting the struggle for human rights and justice in Iran.
This round-­table discussion will explore possibilities for overcoming ideological differences and what it means to be an activist in exile.

Free and open to the public. Seating is limited. RSVP to bitta@whereismyvoteny.org

Sponsored by Where Is My Vote␣NY, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, and students of Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts, and The New School for Social Research.

In honor of Nasrin Sotoudeh and all political prisoners in Iran

The Museum of Modern Art in New York is currently exhibiting Yoko Ono’s “living art.” One of the works is an instruction piece called Voice Piece for Soprano, made in 1961. This participatory artwork encourages visitors, in a subtle but attractive manner, to “Scream. 1. against the wind; 2. Against the wall; 3. Against the sky” in the museum’s atrium, so that their voice echoes throughout the many rooms. The result is often humorous: after initial hesitance, people scream and laugh together in a space where silence is usually essential. But even though we laughed and enjoyed ourselves, just like other visitors, and despite our love for this playful style of expression, it was impossible to interpret Ono’s interactive piece without remembering prisoners of conscience in contemporary Iran.

Some of us are international students who have been studying in the West for some years. Some of us were raised in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and joined the protests that followed the presidential elections of 2009. Some of us are the children of the exiled and immigrants of the past and are rooted in the Western world as well. Some of us aren’t Iranians, but share a universal belief that their freedom is bound to our freedom, so that we are compelled to show our solidarity.

Artists such as Ono helped create a more open concept of the limits of what can be considered art. Their generation and others showed that art knows no boundaries, that “anything goes,” and that its laws cannot be written in stone. But the phrase “anything goes” is specific to a context where actual freedom of expression is relatively normal, very much unlike Iran. “Anything goes,” with its loss of faith in ultimate narratives that desire to exclude the plurality of voices, is in Iran a much longed for celebration of freedom.

The Green Movement’s mass protests were characterized by moments of joy and sadness, hope and horror. It was as if a people had been released and yet could not free themselves. They ran and could not move. They screamed but could not speak. They wished for a better future, but despaired. Everyday distinctions such as private and public, inside and outside, believer and unbeliever, man and woman, faded away in a massive catharsis that was yearned for and anticipated for decades, sending reverberating voices for freedom into the world.

The brutal crackdown that followed still continues today. Besides punishing citizens for their actions in concert, the regime is attacking human rights lawyers such as Nasrin Sotoudeh, who is currently in an extremely dire need for help. Because of repeated hunger strikes, her current physical condition is very poor. Her (show) trial is scheduled to be held today, Nov. 15, 2010.

The people of Iran refuse to be what their government wants them to be. We stand before you with covered mouths because the people of Iran do not enjoy the right to scream. We scream because they screamed and chanted in the night. We are peacefully making victory signs because we do not accept violence. Instead, we sing our Voice Piece for Green Soprano. We fear the regime’s capability for violence, so we have either covered our face or have given up on the hope to see our friends and relatives in Iran in the near future. We wear green, not because we want to exclude dissenting voices or insist on a single ideology, but because we want to affirm that the Green Movement is myriad, one out of many.

Yoko Ono envisaged Voice Piece as a “protest song.” She hopes that individuals resist “situations in life that you have to scream against.” The MoMa also exhibited her Whisper Piece and Wish Piece. The voice of each one of us is but a whisper, but together our desire for freedom becomes a scream. When thousands of Iranians joined each other in Tehran for their marches in complete silence, their scream was transformed into a deafening whispering. What Ono calls the “vibration of wishing” is going to remain in Iran. Violence is nothing but the spastic reaction to its power. “It’s no longer something that just came into your head and went away.” Our wish, that our wish is victorious, that all Sotoudehs must be freed, is unremitting.

why and how of forming an independent and distributed
selforganization of the Iranian youth and students abroad

Those who do not want to get accustomed to living in catastrophe, always seek ways to collectively orchestrate their hopes and efforts for reconstruction of the society. These ways, though often found arduously and sometimes doomed to fail, undoubtedly have no relation to dullness and inaction. The political life of our society in recent century bears witness to these collective efforts towards the creation of brighter horizons. The current political situation of Iran, inside its geographical territories as well as across the globe, breathes restlessly under the shell of a seemingly endless night. The recent waves of protest in Iran, despite all sacrifices, have not yet broken down the dam of repression, oppression and crackdown. The bloods have been washed off the streets but the struggle is by no means over. Now, the life of Iran’s protest movement has reached a stage that needs careful reflection of the past and creation of a new prospect for its existence and action in the future. The experience of this movement clearly demonstrates that organizing from below is an inevitable necessity in people’s struggle towards putting an end to the reproduction of cycles of domination.

The convergence of these concerns has led to the preparation of a series of meetings and dialogue sessions about the possibility and methods of “organizing from below”. These sessions have been arranged by students and young political activists who seek to set the foundation for the independent and distributed organization of the youth and students. The necessity of reflecting upon this prospect is rooted in the fact that our generation has never found the possibility to create its independent response to the established inhumane relations. The formation of such an organization through a “from below” process necessitates that sensitive issues be raised and discussed by members of various concerned groups. Therefore, it is crucial that many diverse young activists gather to discuss the pivotal topics and problems pertaining to the self‐organization of Iranian students and youth abroad.

To this end the current draft, that is prepared through a series of preliminary discussions over the months, calls for interested groups to gather and discuss a set of issues about formation of an independent, distributed, self‐organization of the youth and students abroad. We believe that alternative approaches that open new horizons can be achieved through the collective intellect and therefore require continuous dialogues. Hopefully this gathering will be the opening chapter of a novel experience in the political arena.

The discussion and dialogue in a three days gathering, organized to achieve this aim, will be around the following themes:
1. The necessity to form an independent, distributed, self‐organization of the Iranian youth and students abroad (The difficulties of the current political situation; requirements and prospects of transition)
2. Revisiting the experience of the activities of the youth networks abroad, particularly in the past year (Achievements, shortcomings and possibilities of a more widespread selforganization of these networks)
3. A glance at the international experiences regarding the organization of the youth and the students (With an emphasis on experiences of the self‐organized international groups)
4. Alternative models of independent self‐organization of the youth and students

Abroad (With an emphasis on organizing from below: how and why)

Format of the gathering
Our goal is to provide the possibility for the active participation of all in this meeting, in such a way that they get to know and talk to each other, trust one another and think together so that we can all eventually find a common horizon for collaboration. To this aim, the meeting will be held as panel discussions as well as open discussion sessions. The content of the panels is made of the articles that are to be submitted and presented by participants. The submission of the articles is not mandatory for participation in the meeting. Furthermore, some of the panels will bring together Iranian and international activists and thus will be held in English and/or German.

Article submission
All the interested youth and students are encouraged to submit their articles related to the above themes to the email address below this page, maximum until 15th September, 2010. The articles should be in “MS‐Word” format. The received articles will be all published in both digital and print formats and will become accessible to the public in the website of the meeting. Due to time constraints, only some articles will be selected for each panel to be presented by the author. The list of the articles and the participants of the panels will be announced until 20th September.

Registration
In order to facilitate the arrangements of the meeting, the interested youth and students are kindly requested to inform the organizers of their attendance by sending the registration form to the email address mentioned at the end of this page. In case of any consideration or limitation regarding the registration in advance, registration will be also possible at the site of the meeting. It should be noted that personal details of the participants are not mandatory for the registration or during the on site registration.

Facilities
During the gathering, the accommodation will be available free of charge inside the university sport halls or dorms, equipped with the sanitary facilities. The participants should bring their own sleeping bag. For information regarding the cheap public transportation to the location of the gathering, please contact your local youth network. In order to get in touch with your local network, you can contact the email address mentioned below.

Friday 1st‐ Sunday 3rd October, 2010

Freie Universität Berlin
Registration fee: 20 Euros, student‐card holders 10 Euros

The registration fee covers 3 days of the gathering and is just an aid to the expenses of the meetings

www.youthdialog.blogspot.com

youthdialog@gmail.com

A group of local youth and student networks and young activists abroad