We're famous! Well, not quite, but our chapter's testimony to support anti-death penalty legislation in Connecticut is listed on the Conn. legislative website. Check it out online and below! (Google "Testimony in Support of HB-6425 and SB-1035" and "Trinity College," it's a PDF.) Finally, see our Facebook page for photos from when some members attended one of the issue's Public Hearings.
Below is the testimony, which we brainstormed together back in March based on what we learned from our workshop with Pat Comerford of CNADP (www.cnadp.org) and from the Public Hearing:
March 4, 2011
To Whom It May Concern:
We, the members of the Amnesty International: Trinity College Chapter, support the efforts currently passing through the Connecticut State legislature to abolish the death penalty in the State of Connecticut.
Among several convincing moral and pragmatic reasons to support this legislation, our chapter opposes the state’s current policy on the grounds of proven racial and socioeconomic bias in countless past death penalty cases. Rarely is it the most heinous criminals who are put on death row. In fact, the State of Connecticut is right alongside Texas as the state in the nation with the worst statistical racial bias. Furthermore, 95% of those accused of crimes punishable by the death penalty cannot afford an attorney.
Pro-death penalty arguments that claim to support victims’ families are simply inaccurate. Many victims’ families are not only personally opposed to the death penalty, but do not gain “closure” from the criminal’s execution. In many cases, the execution exacerbates their grieving process. Even more so, cases such as that of Troy Davis—on death penalty in the State of Georgia since 1991—demonstrate how often death penalty policy attempts to execute criminals with legitimate proof of innocence.
Please take a look at the hard facts and reconsider death penalty policy in the State of Connecticut by supporting this new legislation.
Sincerely,
Sarah Kacevich
President: Amnesty International, Trinity College Chapter
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
"Faces of Witness" Art Show Photos
Check out photos from Elaine Deney's Faces Of Witness art show and talk at Trinity's International House on April 8th, 2011. You can see them on her facebook page- just "like" Faces of Witness and find our album.
SPRING SEMESTER UPDATE! from Marissa
It's been ages since we updated! Here's what we have been up to in a very busy, successful Spring semester. Best of luck to next Fall's officers: Stephanie Clemente (president), Diana Ryan (VP- Advocacy), Mia Schulman (VP- PR/Outreach), Nikita Singhal (secretary). I (Sarah) will be abroad in Buenos Aires for Fall semester.
Thanks to Marissa Block '14 for this update...
This Spring semester, we got quite busy!Our monthly Monday night movie screenings down in The Underground during Spring semester included “Democracy in Dakkar,” with Temple of Hip Hop, which explores hip hop activism in Senegal; “The Agronomist” about an American journalist assassinated in Haiti; “Heart of Darfur” with Darfur Coalition; “American Violet” with ACLU, in which a woman is wrongful accused of being a drug dealer.
In conjunction with the Trinity’s Annual International Hip Hop Festival, we set up tabling outside of one of the open mic events and we were fortunate enough to meet some really cool people. We were able to relate some of Amnesty International’s Priority Cases to the festival’s theme of the healing power of hip-hop by sharing these individuals’ cases with festival attendees. We also took part in some more traditional tabling in Mather by educating people about the revolution in Egypt, a prime case of human rights issues. The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have snowballed into what reporters are calling the “Arab Spring,” as more and more uprisings appear in Libya, Bahrain, and most recently Syria.
Back in early March Amnesty sponsored an event dealing with human rights study abroad experiences. Four students discussed their abroad experiences in South Africa, Trinidad, and Buenos Aires. Not only did these students take courses, but they also had the opportunity to participate in internships that were very closely related to human rights.
Another student involved event included a literature event held at The Mill entitled “What’s Your Story: Memory and Testimony Through Human Rights Narrative.” A handful of students and professors discussed their experiences with human rights through narratives. The event held connections between both the English department and Human Rights department. A special thanks to The Mill for hosting the event and to the students and professors who participated!
Amnesty members were also fortunate enough to partake in two workshops this semester. The first was a workshop about the death penalty given by the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. The speaker, who had once been for the death penalty, was incredibly informative in giving reasons why such a punishment should be abolished. The second workshop dealt with Gender ID and Expression and was given by CT Equality. This workshop had originally been given at EROS before Amnesty was able to bring CT Equality back for a second time. The group is lobbying to gain equality in gender expression and gender identity across the state of Connecticut. Some Amnesty members even called the local legislator of the Hartford area district to show their support for passing the bill.
Finally, one of our biggest events of the year was the Faces of Witness art show opening. Elaine Denny, an Amnesty International worker, came to share her portraits and experiences of her work in El Salvador. Through her relationships with El Salvador locals, Denny was able to create a portrait of the individuals using words that told the stories of their hardships of social struggle and human rights. From far away the portraits look like a pencil drawing, yet up close the words become evident, which makes the portraits that much more amazing. Check out www.facesofwitness.org to view the artwork! The interactive dialogue helped students relate to the experiences of the El Salvadorian interviewees. At the end, students were even asked to right their own thoughts, reactions, and messages to the El Salvadorian people, which Denny will eventually use to create a response piece of artwork with the words.
In the last couple weeks of the school year Amnesty is joining efforts in Frog Hollow Clean Up Day, with various other community service oriented organizations on campus. The day will be almost like a mini Do It Day, which Trinity hosts in the fall. Lastly, Amnesty will also was present at the Samba Festival. We hired a woman to do henna tattoos and painted faces.
Thanks to Marissa Block '14 for this update...
This Spring semester, we got quite busy!Our monthly Monday night movie screenings down in The Underground during Spring semester included “Democracy in Dakkar,” with Temple of Hip Hop, which explores hip hop activism in Senegal; “The Agronomist” about an American journalist assassinated in Haiti; “Heart of Darfur” with Darfur Coalition; “American Violet” with ACLU, in which a woman is wrongful accused of being a drug dealer.
In conjunction with the Trinity’s Annual International Hip Hop Festival, we set up tabling outside of one of the open mic events and we were fortunate enough to meet some really cool people. We were able to relate some of Amnesty International’s Priority Cases to the festival’s theme of the healing power of hip-hop by sharing these individuals’ cases with festival attendees. We also took part in some more traditional tabling in Mather by educating people about the revolution in Egypt, a prime case of human rights issues. The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have snowballed into what reporters are calling the “Arab Spring,” as more and more uprisings appear in Libya, Bahrain, and most recently Syria.
Back in early March Amnesty sponsored an event dealing with human rights study abroad experiences. Four students discussed their abroad experiences in South Africa, Trinidad, and Buenos Aires. Not only did these students take courses, but they also had the opportunity to participate in internships that were very closely related to human rights.
Another student involved event included a literature event held at The Mill entitled “What’s Your Story: Memory and Testimony Through Human Rights Narrative.” A handful of students and professors discussed their experiences with human rights through narratives. The event held connections between both the English department and Human Rights department. A special thanks to The Mill for hosting the event and to the students and professors who participated!
Amnesty members were also fortunate enough to partake in two workshops this semester. The first was a workshop about the death penalty given by the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. The speaker, who had once been for the death penalty, was incredibly informative in giving reasons why such a punishment should be abolished. The second workshop dealt with Gender ID and Expression and was given by CT Equality. This workshop had originally been given at EROS before Amnesty was able to bring CT Equality back for a second time. The group is lobbying to gain equality in gender expression and gender identity across the state of Connecticut. Some Amnesty members even called the local legislator of the Hartford area district to show their support for passing the bill.
Finally, one of our biggest events of the year was the Faces of Witness art show opening. Elaine Denny, an Amnesty International worker, came to share her portraits and experiences of her work in El Salvador. Through her relationships with El Salvador locals, Denny was able to create a portrait of the individuals using words that told the stories of their hardships of social struggle and human rights. From far away the portraits look like a pencil drawing, yet up close the words become evident, which makes the portraits that much more amazing. Check out www.facesofwitness.org to view the artwork! The interactive dialogue helped students relate to the experiences of the El Salvadorian interviewees. At the end, students were even asked to right their own thoughts, reactions, and messages to the El Salvadorian people, which Denny will eventually use to create a response piece of artwork with the words.
In the last couple weeks of the school year Amnesty is joining efforts in Frog Hollow Clean Up Day, with various other community service oriented organizations on campus. The day will be almost like a mini Do It Day, which Trinity hosts in the fall. Lastly, Amnesty will also was present at the Samba Festival. We hired a woman to do henna tattoos and painted faces.
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