January 20-22, 2006

On Saturday, January 21, the International Commission of Inquiry will hear testimony from 2:00 to 6:00 PM on crimes connected with illegal detention, rendition, torture and murder. The testimony will demonstrate how the domestic detention of tens of thousands of immigrants, the detentions at Guantanamo, in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the secret prisons of the CIA are all part of single plan to undermine the basic civil rights of all Americans. These detentions and the torture that accompanies them will be shown to be in violation of US and international law. The responsibility for the crimes will be traced to President Bush and others at the highest levels of government.

Witnesses will include: Former General Janice Karpinski; former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray; Barbara Olshansky, Center of Constitutional Rights; and Steven Miles, Professor of Bioethics at University of Minnesota.

The Session will be held at Riverside Church. The Commission is endorsed by Not In Our Name, Center for Constitutional Rights, NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee and other organizations.

More information.

NJCRDC and other groups are planning a demonstration across the street from the Passaic County Jail at Main and Grand Streets in Paterson, NJ to press our demands that the immigrant detainees now unconstitutionally held there be released at once, not transferred to other facilities.

Read the NJCRDC press release.

Bring a sign. Here are some ideas:

Read the news stories at the right starting with December 29th.

Read the NJCRDC statement and press release.

Urgent alert!! December 18th.

Urge your Senator and Congressman not to become a war criminal!

On Friday, House and Senate negotiator approved the Graham-Levin amendment to the Defense appropriations bill that will violate the Geneva conventions, violate the War Crimes Act of the United States, and undermine the basic democratic rights of everyone in the country. When this bill is voted on by the House and Senate in the next few days, every Representative and Senator who votes for it will become a war criminal, complicit in the violations of international and US laws.

The Geneva Conventions protect all who are seized as prisoners of war and guarantee them at least the same rights as those facing court martial. The administration has trampled on the rights of those at Guantanamo Bay, imprisoning them without charge or trial and torturing many of them, in the process violating US laws that make violations of the Conventions a crime. But the Graham-Levin amendment, now included in the Defense appropriations bill, would give the endorsement of Congress to these heinous crimes.

Here is what the Center for Constitutional Rights says about this bill:

McCain forbids torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading interrogation. Graham-Levin, on the other hand, authorizes the use of evidence obtained through these methods in military tribunals, "if probative," i.e., if it is useful or relevant to the proceedings. Since virtually all information is "probative," this provision opens the door wide to the torture that McCain supposedly shuts. In addition, while we have one public document, the Army Field Manual, that forbids torture, the Administration has just introduced a secret "Addendum" to the manual that essentially sanctions torture. Further, Graham-Levin prevents any victim of torture at Guant�namo from filing a lawsuit against those responsible. The message that Graham-Levin therefore sends is that regardless of what Congress says in McCain, there will be no public airing of torture when and if it happens, no sanctions for engaging in torture, and no compensation for victims of torture. For centuries, torture has been the most reviled thing that one person can do to another. This law will deny to victims of those acts the right they have held for centuries, to go to court and sue. Most disturbing, Graham-Levin will eliminate the historic right of habeas corpus for anyone held at Guant�namo. Federal courts will be stripped of habeas jurisdiction for the first time in well over a century. By undertaking a major change in the jurisdiction of federal courts, by way of eliminating a right, the origins of which go back to the Magna Carta in 1215, Graham-Levin constitutes a beachhead in what we fear to be a campaign to undermine fundamental rights in the United States and around the world. The New York Times called the Graham-Levin amendment "a malignant measure" in a critical editorial today, and warned that it "would do grievous harm to the rule that the government cannot just lock you up without showing cause to a court. This fundamental principle of democratic justice must not be watered down so the Bush administration does not have to answer for the illegal detentions of hundreds of men at Guant�namo Bay and other prison camps." The Center for Constitutional Rights stands with all the leading civil and human rights organizations to condemn the Graham-Levin amendment.

The Defense appropriation bill, National Defense Authorization Act, S. 1042, which now contains the Graham Levin amendment, is a threat to the rights of everyone.

As the NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee has stated:

"The Graham-Levin amendment thus puts into the hands of the President of the United States the ultimate dictatorial weapon of any police state-the authority to detain anyone, to hold them for life, and to torture them without limit. This power undermines every right, for who will speak freely or assemble to protest, knowing that at a word from the President they can be condemned without charge or trial to a life of torture? "

Don't let this bill become law! Urge your Senators and Representatives to vote NO on the Defense appropriations bill.

Read the NJCRDC statement for more details.

• NJCRDC meets with Monmouth Officials, visits Detainees.
• Hunger Strike at Passaic County Jail.
• Office of Inspector General Audits Detention Facilities.
• Massive hunger strike by immigrant detainees at Guantanamo.

Read this Passaic County Jail report

New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee would like to invite your group to a picnic and informal meeting of New Jersey and New York immigrant rights and civil rights groups. The picnic will be August 7, 1 PM at Buccleuch Park in New Brunswick.

At this informal discussion, we want to discuss at least two things, but the discussion is open to all topics that anyone wishes to raise. First, we want to see if there are common projects that we all can collectively work on in the coming year. Second, we want to begin a dialog about what are our common goals.

Despite the sweeping attacks on immigrants and on the civil rights of all of us, the movement fighting against these attacks remains quite weak. Since our forces remain so small, it is important that, where we can, we pool our resources so as to be more effective. We think it likely that we can work on some projects collectively, magnifying our impact both in the immigrant community and with the general public.

Equally important, since the assault began with 9/11, the movement has retreated from its former broad vision of solution for the tens of millions of American who are not citizens. If we are to ever get out of a purely defensive posture, we need to start talking again about our goals. Do we again fight for a general amnesty? Or, like the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, do we fight for equal rights for all? Or do we choose for some other broad goal? How do we link the interests of immigrants and citizens?

Clearly, this question will not be resolved with a single meeting, but we believe the dialog about it must begin in our region.

We look forward to seeing you.

Eric Lerner for NJCRDC

More news and photos soon

Incidents at Passaic County Jail

Emergency Response System Up and Running!!