Iranian-Canadian blogger missing for two months

A really interesting blog I found : Editor: Myself. Apparently, its author has been missing for several months now in Iran. From mydd:

Blogger Hossein Derakhshan missing in Iran

by Jerome Armstrong, Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 02:46:37 PM EST

Hossein Derakhshan is an Iranian-Canadian blogger that's widely considered the most well-known Iranian blogger. He's lived abroad, blogging in Canada, but recently went back to Iran on a visit. At some point shortly after his arrival in Iran, it is now being blogged, that he was arrested and jailed. The last post on his blog is from over two months ago. He's apparently been in jail for weeks, but the story just broke on a persian blog, which many have taken as a confirmation, and brought onto english on this blog:

My understanding is that Hossein's family has been under pressure from the authorities not to talk about Hossein's arrest and not to get a lawyer for him. So, it is understandable that they are not talking to the media. But we at least can assure both the Persian and global blogosphere, who were previously in doubts about Hossein's arrest, that he's really arrested.

Hossein has gone through various changes in his politics and he has rubbed many activists the wrong way, including myself. (I personally don't approve his politics and we have had couple of fierce arguments and fights in the past few months.) However, we should not have double standards when we deal with human rights. Any human being should be entitled to freedom of expression and should have access to an attorney while in jail. I hope human rights advocates start campaigning for Hossein Derakhshan.

Update: I personally talked to his sister, too. She is very worried about Hossein. We should be careful with the way we spread the news not to have a negative effect. Absolutely no neocon propaganda shit.

Hossein has been at the forefront of the huge Iranian-Persian blogosphere, advocating for the use of the internet as a means for social and political reform in Iran, but he's also made a lot of enemies on both sides, for his non-conformist viewpoints. The Globe & Mail has a fascinating read on the blogger that gives a much-needed background; and The Ottawa Citizen, from last year.

Obama's cousin-in-law Rabbi Capers Funnye battles to open the gates of Judaism

Obama's cousin-in-law Rabbi Capers Funnye battles to open the gates of Judaism
By Julie Gruenbaum Fax, November 28, 2008, The Jewish Journal

Rabbi Capers C. Funnye Jr. is a kippah-wearing black rabbi who leads a multiethnic congregation in Chicago.

But if you happen to run into him, don't let your curiosity come across the wrong way.

Speaking last week in Los Angeles to an interdenominational group of rabbis who perform conversions, Funnye (pronounced fuh-NAY) described one of many unsettling encounters he's had in his 30-plus years as a Jew.

While visiting Florida about 10 years ago, Funnye attended morning prayers, donning his prayer shawl and tefillin. At the end of prayers, a man approached him.

"Are you Jewish?"

Funnye, with good-natured sarcasm, responded:

"Jewish? Nooooo. I was just walking by, and I saw this stuff just sitting there outside, and I wanted to see how it worked."

Funnye, 56, has dedicated his life to chiseling away at the conventional, but increasingly inaccurate, conception of who is a Jew. Whether by reaching out to Chicago's rabbis to allow him to serve on the board of rabbis or traveling to Nigeria to help the Ibo tribes explore their Jewish reawakening, Funnye is laying the groundwork for a time when the wider Jewish community can without questioning accommodate Jews of all ethnicities.

"I have to have one pair of glasses for all Jews and not see that because Jews are of a different ethnicity, that makes a difference in my approach to them," Funnye said. "I am working for the day that Jews are simply Jews."

That message resonated with the 35 rabbis gathered at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino for a daylong seminar of the Sandra Caplan Community Bet Din of Southern California, sponsored jointly with the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.

The Sandra Caplan Bet Din is a cooperative effort by Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform rabbis to make the conversion process unified, warm and spiritually and psychologically meaningful.

Since it opened in 2002, the bet din has converted 122 people.

Funnye embodies in one person's journey all that these rabbis are working toward and struggling with: the need to break down false barriers in how "Jew" is defined; the challenge to wholeheartedly integrate those who convert; and the questions of self-definition that inevitably come up for born Jews, who are so often less knowledgeable and spiritually committed than apparent "foreigners" who choose to be Jewish.

"How we relate to the Jew-by-choice, the unchurched, the seekers, tells me more about myself than anything else," said Rabbi Harold Schulweis, rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom, who followed Funnye's keynote with a response. "When I look into the eyes of a Jew-by-choice, I see myself reflected."

In the past several decades, the topic of conversion has pitted liberal rabbis against their Orthodox counterparts, who don't recognize non-Orthodox conversions as legitimate. The issue is especially heated in Israel, where the Orthodox rabbinate holds legal status in civil affairs, such as marriage, divorce and burial.

But the rabbis at the seminar also expressed frustration at their own liberal members who refer to peers as "converts," even years after they've become Jewish.

Funnye himself converted three times. The first two times were with communities of black Jews -- also called Israelites or Black Hebrews.

Funnye's spiritual search began when his African Methodist Episcopalian minister advised him to think about going into the service of God. Christian tenets -- and especially the demands on its leaders -- didn't sit well with him. He explored Islam and evangelical Christianity while a student at Howard University, then a few years later, while working at Arthur Anderson consulting, he ran into a group of African Americans who wore kippahs. He began studying with them and attending their Chicago synagogue and converted to Judaism with that congregation in 1972, immersing in a pool.

It was a few years later that he attended a synagogue in Harlem, where he saw a fuller expression of Judaism and ritual, and the leader there encouraged him to become a religious leader for black Jews. In 1979 he re-immersed in a lake, since conversion requires immersion in a natural body of water or a mikvah, ritual bath. In 1985, after studying for four years, he was ordained by the New York-based Israelite Board of Rabbis. During that time, he also received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Spertus Institute for Jewish Studies in Chicago.

And it was that year that he also decided he wanted a full, halachic conversion, one that would meet most mainstream Jewish legal standards. He put together a bet din of two Orthodox rabbis and two Conservative rabbis, including his mentor, Rabbi Morris Fishman. Funnye, his wife, Mary, and their four children -- who were already in Conservative day school at the time -- immersed in a mikvah.

Throughout his journey in the Jewish community, Funnye has recognized the need to make his community part of the fabric of the larger Jewish community.

Funnye is the rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom B'nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, which serves a multiethnic population. Founded in 1918 and now with 220 members, the synagogue moved from Chicago's South Side to Marquette Park six years ago. Marquette Park is infamous as a center of activity for the American Nazi Party and site of a Martin Luther King Jr. march that ended after just a few blocks because bricks and bottles were being thrown.

Funnye has been at Beth Shalom since 1984, when he started as assistant rabbi. In 1991, he succeeded Rabbi Abihu Ben Reuben, who had led the congregation from 1947. While respecting Reuben's traditions and teachings, Funnye sought to give Judaism fuller expression in the services and rituals and to make the conversion process more oriented toward halachah, Jewish law.

At Funnye's congregation, Shabbat is an all-day event. Congregants come Friday night and then return Saturday for morning prayers, mostly in Hebrew, a reading of the entire Torah portion and an interactive sermon. A gospel-style choir brings congregants to their feet, and after a Kiddush lunch, about 70 percent of attendees stay for afternoon services and informal Torah study, followed by Havdalah.

Most of his congregants keep kosher, avoiding shellfish and pork, and buying kosher meat. Most of his members can't afford the high tuition of the day school but attend the congregation's Hebrew school.

Two of Funnye's sisters have also converted to Judaism, and his late mother regularly made sure her minister invited her son-the-rabbi to speak at church. Even his in-laws, religious evangelicals, are open to what they see as a way to draw closer to God. His two married children have both married Jews-by-choice. He and his wife have one granddaughter and six grandsons.

"I've told my children, 'If you don't marry someone who is Jewish, it is my prayer that they become Jewish. It doesn't matter to me what they look like. What matters to me is that they are Jewish, and their children are going to be Jewish, and that you instill in them and imbue in them the principals and values I have tried to instill and imbue in you,'" Funnye said, adding, "baruch Hashem (thank God) they've been listening to their old man."

He has many congregants who, like his family, have three generations or more at Beth Shalom. He also sees many spiritual seekers, among them white Jews. He is in the process of converting an extended Mexican family of anusim, Spanish Jews forced to convert to Christianity 500 years ago. The family was attracted to the synagogue because the worship space hidden in their family's Mexico City basement was also called Beth Shalom.

He teaches many seeking conversion and brings them before a bet din of Conservative rabbis -- one of the changes he made in an effort to up the quality of Jewish observance in his congregation. Potential converts must study for at least a year and attend services regularly.

"I often like to tell new people that when you start studying Judaism, every time you get a new book, every time you learn something new, it should feel like dipping a spoon into a bucket of fresh well water. If you ever had well water, it stimulates the whole being -- this is what Judaism does when we learn. It stimulates the being," Funnye said. "It's never stopped doing that for me. The more I learn, the richer it tastes; the better it tastes."

Funnye is vice president of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, a group of 20 rabbis who serve five congregations in New York, one in Philadelphia, one in Chicago and one in Barbados.

Many black Jews believe that the original Israelites were African -- they came out of Egypt in North Africa -- and they consider themselves not converts, but reverts, going back to their true origins.

There is tremendous diversity among groups calling themselves Black Hebrew, Israelites or Black Jews. While some black Jewish congregations hew to Jewish theology and practice, others retain a messianic angle, including Jesus in their theology. Some have Jewish aspects but are mingled with many other traditions.

Funnye's adoption of halachic standards for his congregation stems in part from his desire to connect his flock with the mainstream Jewish community, something he has worked on for years.

After getting his degrees at Spertus, he worked as a business manager there until 1991. He not only got to meet Jewish luminaries, such as Elie Wiesel, but built relationships with many rabbis and professors.

He has touched many parts of the African American and Chicago Jewish communities: He has taught at congregational schools, he lectures widely, has consulted with the Spertus Museum of Judaica and the Du Sable Museum of African American History and has served on the boards of Chicago's Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, Akiba Schechter Jewish Day School and the Chicago Board of Rabbis.

Funnye's near-unanimous acceptance onto the board in 1997 held historical significance. His predecessors in New York, who had attempted to join their board of rabbis in the 1940s and '50s, did not even get dignified with a rejection -- they were simply ignored.

He also reaches out to the larger African American community through coalitions with neighborhood churches and has hosted joint programs with Muslim groups, as well.

Now, Funnye is extending that acceptance across the Atlantic to Africa.

Funnye is the associate director and Chicago regional director of BeChol Lashon, Hebrew for "in every language," an initiative of the San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish and Community Research (IJCR), where he is a senior researcher. The program reaches out to Jews of color from all over the world, from the anusim communities of Latin America to African tribes rediscovering Jewish roots, like the Abuyudaya of Uganda. Funnye is coordinator for IJCR's Pan-African Jewish Alliance, which seeks to connect African American Jews with Jews in Africa. Funnye has been to Africa six times and works primarily with the Ibo of Nigeria.

Ongoing research by the Pan-African Jewish Alliance has found that there may be as many as 30,000 Nigerians reclaiming Jewish roots. An Ibo oral tradition holds that their ancestors were Hebrews who migrated from Israel to Africa 1,500 years ago. While many have no trace of Jewish heritage, others have held on to traditions. The Ibo circumcise their boys on the eighth day and gather their elders by sounding teruah and shevarim notes on the ram's horn. Their priests wear a white garment with blue stripes, fringed all around. As the Ibo begin to explore their Jewish roots and try to connect to the worldwide Jewish community, Funnye's congregation is raising funds to build a sister synagogue in Nigeria, and he is working to get the Ibo the educational materials and leadership they need.

"Africa is ripe with hundreds, even thousands of people who claim a link to Judaism, and they're asking the question, 'Where is the gate that leads to Jewish peoplehood?'"

Funnye wants the answer to that question to resonate a little more loudly and clearly.

He understands that most American Jews still aren't used to Jews of color, but he is convinced that as more people around the world discover and explore either their ancient Jewish roots or their dormant Jewish spirit, the wider Jewish community will begin to take seriously the words of Isaiah: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations."

"I believe those biblical prophecies are going to have more people reaching out and searching and going on spiritual journeys, and, ultimately, Judaism is going to be a place they want to examine and investigate. I only hope and pray that the gates to our synagogues are open and welcoming."

At the seminar in Encino last week, Valley Beth Shalom's Schulweis cautioned that to move forward, rabbis must acknowledge the sometimes dominant strain in Jewish tradition that holds a deep suspicion of conversion.

But, he said, Jewish texts and history have an equally strong tradition of welcoming the proselyte, and it is that tradition the seminar explored and pushed forward.

The rabbis shared best practices, studied relevant texts and explored innovative ways of making all aspects of conversion deeply spiritual and uplifting, not just for the people converting but for everyone around them.

The Sandra Caplan Bet Din's meshing of divergent streams of Judaism -- a collaboration that took several years to negotiate -- augers well for the more expansive bridges Funnye and the Los Angeles rabbis are trying to build.

"The remarkable thing about Los Angeles is we have colleagues who like each other, respect each other and are willing to talk to each other," said Rabbi Stewart Vogel, president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, an interdenominational umbrella group. "When you can engage in dialogue, anything can happen. We can get past stereotypes and prejudices, and we can work together to create the Jewish community we want."

Mass graves in Afghanistan

Atrocities on top of atrocities. My cousin Len Rubenstein is the Director of PHR and I interned there so it's always interesting to see what they're up to - I got this from dailykos

McClatchy: U.S. Kept Silent About Afghan Mass Grave Removal

by Meteor Blades

Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 03:29:18 PM PST

Tom Lasseter at McClatchy is reporting an important story about how U.S. officials have failed to notice the digging up of a mass grave of perhaps 2000 prisoners of war in Afghanistan. The excavation removed evidence of a possible war crime. What U.S. officials knew, and whether they may have been involved in any way in covering up the removal of bodies from the grave, is unknown.

Seven years ago, a convoy of container trucks rumbled across northern Afghanistan loaded with the human cargo of suspected Taliban and al Qaida members who'd surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord and a key U.S. ally in ousting the Taliban regime.

When the trucks arrived at a prison in the town of Sheberghan, near Dostum's headquarters, they were filled with corpses. Most of the prisoners had suffocated, and others had been killed by bullets that Dostum's militiamen had fired into the metal containers.

Dostum's men hauled the bodies into the nearby desert and buried them in mass graves, according to Afghan human rights officials. By some estimates, 2,000 men were buried there.

Earlier this year, bulldozers and backhoes returned to the scene, reportedly exhumed the bones of many of the dead men and removed evidence of the atrocity to sites unknown. In the area where the mass graves once were, there now are gaping pits in the sands of the Dasht-e-Leili desert.

Farid Mutaqi, a senior investigator for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, told McClatchy: "You can see only a hole. In the area around it you can find a few bones or some clothes. The site is gone . . . as for evidence, there is nothing."

Speculation by McClatchy sources is that this mass grave was excavated with heavy equipment so that Dostum could avoid prosecution for war crimes.

And U.S. involvement? The Cheney-Bush administration has been silent about the digging up of the grave. When the killings of the prisoners occurred in 2002, administration officials denied they knew about until it appeared in media reports.

However, the fact that U.S. special forces and CIA operatives were working closely with Dostum in late 2001, when the killings took place, has fueled suspicions that the warlord got a free pass.

The U.S. Defense Department has said that it found no evidence of American involvement or presence during the 2001 incident. If there was an investigation, however, its findings have never been made public.

In May 2002, a Physicians for Human Rights team dug a test trench in the area and uncovered 15 bodies, three of which were found to have died of asphyxiation. In November that year, in a top-secret cable from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the number of people killed during prisoner was said to "approach 2,000."

In response to the McClatchy exposé, Frank Donaghue, CEO of Physicians for Human Rights, said:

Investigative reports by McClatchy newspapers, as well as PHR’s own findings, have revealed that large sections of the Dasht-e-Leili mass grave in Northern Afghanistan have been dug up and removed.

PHR discovered this grave site in 2001. Reportedly, this site may have contained the bodies of as many as 2,000 prisoners who surrendered to the forces of Afghan warlord, General Abdul Rasheed Dostum and US commandoes in November 2001.

For seven years PHR has been investigating allegations that these prisoners were suffocated in cargo containers and dumped in the desert.

Reportedly, this evidence of potential war crimes was removed during the past year by the forces of General Dostum.

Our efforts on this case have involved PHR’s International Forensic Program, which has documented human rights violations and mass atrocities around the world.

PHR investigators discovered this mass grave in 2002, as reported in a Newsweek magazine special report. Our forensic scientists conducted an initial assessment of the grave for the UN and performed preliminary autopsies of several bodies at the site.

Since 2001, PHR advocated for the site to be secured and for a full investigation to be conducted by the US, the United Nations, and the Government of Afghanistan.

Now, in the wake of these revelations of the destruction of the grave site, PHR is calling on Afghan President Karzai and the United Nations to ensure that any remaining evidence at the site be secured.

The additional revelations by McClatchy newspapers, as well as documents, which PHR received this year under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that the Bush Administration blocked internal investigations into this alleged war crime.

Congress must hold a full, public inquiry into what the Bush Administration knew about these events and what they did or did not do about it. It’s time for truth and accountability, and a restoration of the rule of law. Respect for human rights demands nothing less.

Indeed so. Respect for human rights and the rule of law do demand nothing less.

Dostum, who has denied reports over the past few days that he is seeking asylum in Turkey, has a long and nasty record that has failed to stop U.S. officials from working with him. That makes him worthy of investigation aside from the mass graves story. For instance, Time reported on December 9:

Last year Samimi received a phone call from General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a U.S. ally who was appointed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai as Army Chief of Staff, threatening to have her raped "by 100 men" if she continued investigating a rape case in which he was implicated. Dostum denies ever making such a threat and calls the rape allegation "propaganda." A witness to the phone call, military prosecutor General Habibullah Qasemi, was dismissed from his post soon after, despite carrying a sheaf of glowing recommendation letters penned by U.S. military supervisors.

Links to documents about Dasht-e-Leili that the Physicians for Human Rights acquired via the Freedom of Information Act are here and here.

PHR also has an Afghan resource site with information about the mass grave war crimes investigation here.

Show the World What Racial Justice Looks Like

CALL FOR POSTERS
Submissions are due by midnight, Monday, January 5, 2009

One submission will be selected for reproduction as a poster that will
be provided at no cost to community organizations, foundations, and
other allies. The artwork may also be reproduced on other Akonadi
public education materials, such as a commemorative card. All submis-
sions will be featured on the Akonadi Foundation website. The artist
selected will receive a $1,000 prize that includes $500 for the artist
and $500 as a donation to the Oakland community organization
designated by the artist.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Selection of artwork will be based on: creativity and originality, and
artistic and design quality, and potential to inspire and inform racial
justice movement building.

Selection will be made by
*Quinn Delaney, Akonadi Foundation founder and Board Chair
*Juan Fuentes, artist/former director of Mision Grafica
*Mateo Nube, Director, Movement Generation
*Mervyn Mercano, Training Director, Center for Media Justice

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Poster submissions must focus on racial justice movement building in
Oakland or the Bay Area. Submissions must include a visual image
accompanied by words conveying the theme. All artwork must be
original. Artists must have permission to use any copyrighted images
displayed in the artwork. The artist’s name should not appear on the
artwork for the purposes of judging. The final dimensions of the poster
will be 11 x 17 (please keep this in mind as you execute your design).
Artwork must be submitted as a jpeg attachments, high resolution (300
dpi), to info@akonadi.org or as hard copy photo ready art.

Artists must include a completed submission form. Download here.

Hardcopy art can be submitted to the foundation at:
Akonadi Foundation
ATTN: RACIAL JUSTICE POSTER PROJECT
436 14th Street, Suite 1417
Oakland, CA 94612

Akonadi Poster Project Official Rules

Download the flyer

Thousand Kites Phone Calls

I got this a while ago and didn't post it but it's a wonderful way to share some warmth and light with our brothers, sisters, and kinfolk behind bars.

Join the ninth annual CALLS FROM HOME radio broadcast for prisoners.

The United States has 2.4 million people behind bars. Thousand Kites wants you to lend your voice to a powerful grassroots radio broadcast that reaches into our nation's prison and lets those inside know they are not forgotten.



We are asking you to call our toll-free line 877-518-0606 and speak directly to those behind bars this holiday season. (An answering machine will record your message) Read a poem, sing a song, or just speak directly from you heart. Speak to someone you know or to everyone---make it uplifting.

So call right now at 877-518-0606. We will post each call on our website as it comes in! Check our website www.thousandkites.org to listen to your call and others!

CALLS FROM HOME will broadcast on over 200 radio stations across the country and be available for download from our website on December 13.

Call anytime (now through December 9) at 877-518-0606 and record your message.

Learn how you can help blog, distribute, broadcast, or support this event.

CALLS FROM HOME is a project of Thousand Kites/WMMT-FM/Appalshop and a national network of grassroots organizations working for criminal justice reform.

Actions Speak Louder

HELP STOP THE BUILDING OF A 1000 PERSON BED IMMIGRANT DETENTION CENTER IN FARMVILLE

http://anarchymo.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/help-stop-immigrant-detention-center-in-farmville/

From the site:

So, the Town of Farmville and a private company called Immigrant Centers of America are trying to build a 1,000 bed immigrant detention center in Farmville. ICA has zero experience with prisons or detention centers. Their previous experience is constructing Arby’s and BP Gas stations. This project has already received over 500,000 dollars from the State Tobacco Commission. This is not a done deal, the project can still, and will be stopped.

You can help stop it by sending an email to some of the folks involved, letting them know you think it is a bad idea. I’ve put a list of emails below, that includes people on town council, people from the VA Tobacco Comission, people from DHS, and people who run ICA.

They have pre-written letters and the email addresses of folks to send it to - super easy, can make an impact.. not a tough decision, folks.

GREECE LIGHTNING

This is truly incredible. Courtesy of the ever-wonderful David Stein.

Hunger strike ends as Greek government caves
> Thursday, November 20 2008 @ 11:36 PM CST
> Contributed by: WorkerFreedom
>
> After 18 days 7,000 prisoners in greece stop their hunger strike after the
> ministry of justice concedes to a series of their demands, promising to
> release half the country's prison population by April 2009.
>
> On Thursday the 20th of November more than 7,000 hunger strikers in greek
> prisons demanding a comprehensive 45-point program of prison reform have
> decided to stop their hunger strike, already on its 18th day, after the
> Ministry of Justice responded to their struggle and to the widening
> solidarity movement which in the last weeks has held several mass protest
> marches in the greek cities by declaring that by next April the number of
> prisoners in greek jails will be reduced to 6.815 from the present 12.315,
> thus effectively releasing half of the country's prison population.
>
>
>
> The Ministry's declaration in detail states that:
>
> 1) All persons convicted to a sentence up to five years for any offense
> including drug related crimes can tranform their sentence into a monetary
> penalty. This will not be allowed in the case the jury decides that the
> payment is not enough to deter the convict from commiting punishable acts
> in the future.
> 2) The minimum sum for tranforming one day of prison sentence to monetary
> penanlty is reduced from 10 euros to 3, with the provision of being
> reduced to 1 euro by decision of the jury.
> 3) All people who have served 1/5 of their prison sentence for 2 year
> sentences and 1/3 for sentences longer than 2 years are to be released,
> with no exceptions.
> 4) The minimum limit of served sentence is reduced to 3/5 for conditional
> release and for convicts for drug related crimes. Those condemned under
> conditions of law Ν. 3459/2006 (articles 23 και
> 23Α) are excepmpted.
> 5) The maximum limit of pre-trial impironment is reduced from 18 to 12
> months, with the excemption of crimes puniched by liife or 20year
> sentence.
> 6) The annual time of days-off prison is increased by one day. Tougher
> conditions for days-off are limited for those convicted for drug related
> crimes under Ν. 3459/2006.
> 7) Disciplinary penalties are to be integrated.
> 8) Integration after 4 years into national law of the European Council
> decision of drug trafficking (2004/757).
> 9) Expansion of implementation of conditional release of convicts
> suffering from AIDS, kidney failure, persistent TB, and tetraplegics.
> What the Ministry failed to answer with regard to the prisoners' demands
> include:
> 1) Monetary exchange of prison sentences longer than 5 years, especially
> for 6.700 prisoners presently convicted for non-criminal offenses.
> 2) Abolition of juvenile prisons
> 3) Abolition of accumulative disciplinary penalties
> 4) Abolition of 18 months pre-trial imprisonment for a large number of
> offenses.
> 5) Satisfactory expansion of days off, despite the fact that the
> application of present liberties has been tested as succesfull during the
> last 18 years.
> 6) Immediate improvement of relocation conditions of convicts
> 7) Holding a meeting between the minister of justice and the prisoners'
> committee
>
> Thus in a press release, the Prisoners' Commitee announced that:
>
> "The amendment submitted to the Parliament by the Ministry of Justice
> tackles but a few of our demands. The minister ought to materialize his
> promises for the immediate release of the suggested number of prisoners
> announced, and at the same time implement concrete measures regarding the
> totality of our demands. We the prisoners treat this amendment as a first
> step, a result of our struggle and of the solidarity shown by society. Yet
> it fails to covers us, it fails to solve our problems. With our struggle,
> we have first of all fought for our dignity. And this dignity we cannot
> offer as a present to no minister, to no screw. We shall tolerate no
> arbitrary acts, no vengeful relocation, no terrorizing disciplinary act.
> We are standing and we shall stay standing. We demand form the Parliament
> to move towards a complete abolition of the limit of 4/5 of served
> sentence, the abolition of accumulated time for disciplinary penalties,
> and the expansion of beneficial arrangements regardi
> ng days-off, and conditional releases for all categories of prisoners.
> Moreover, we demand the immediate legislation on the presently vague
> promises of the minister of justice regarding the improvement of prison
> conditions (abolition of juvenile prisons, foundation of therapeutic
> centers for drug dependents, implementation of social labour in exchange
> for prison sentence, upgrading of hospital care of prisoners,
> incorporation of european legislation favorable to the prisoners in the
> greek law etc.). Finally, we offer our thanks to the solidarity movement,
> to every component, party, medium, and militant who stood by us with all
> and any means of his or her choice, and we declare that our struggle
> against these human refuse dumps and for the victory of all our demands
> continues".
> Prisoners' Committee 20/11/08.