Students participate in Midwest meeting of Amnesty International

Five University of Wisconsin-Superior students participated in the annual meeting of Amnesty International Midwest in Kansas City, over the weekend.

Policy issues, actions, panels and workshops included such topics as abolition of the death penalty, uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, and the battle for worker rights in the Midwest.

The students also participated in a vigil and rally for a death row prisoner in which questions about his case remain unresolved, such as prosecutorial misconduct, police coercion, racial bias, and inadequate legal representation. The vigil and rally was followed by Plenary I, a panel on the death penalty. The panel included two AI Death Penalty Abolition Campaigners, a former death row prisoner, a Kansas State senator and a representative for Murder Victim’s Families for Reconciliation.

Plenary Session II offered a panel on the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Speakers included representatives for the Syrian Youth Rising Generation Movement, the AI Country Specialist for Libyia, and an author of “Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role in the Fate of the World.”

In Plenary III the students and faculty advisers participated in the debate and voting on human rights resolutions.

Plenary IV was a panel on the Battle for Workers’ Rights, Uprisings in the Midwest. Panelists included the AI USA director of organizing, executive director of American Rights at Work, American Friends Service Committee, and director of the Institute for Labor Studies, University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Workshops were held on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the AI Write-a-Thon; the Torture Debate; Death Penalty Abolition; Media; the Art of Campaigning, the Invisibles; Individuals at Risk, Guantanamo; Crisis Prevention Campaigning; Midwest Coal Plants, Advocacy for Immigrants’ Rights; Lobbying Your Elected Official for Change; and the video Sri Lanka Killing Fields.

UWS students who participated were Rebecca Anderson, Jacob Lindberg, Gatien Siu Siu, Yer Vang, and Hyunjung Kim. The faculty advisers are Dr. Haji Dokhanchi, professor of Political Science, and Dr. Hal Bertilson, professor of Psychology.

Contact Hal Bertilson, co-adviser, Amnesty International student club at hbertils@uwsuper

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