In this Issue:

Police Mistake Sent Her to Jail: Article by Michael Bell
In the H4PJ Online Action Center
Our Human Rights Hypocrisy
Monday Night with Mike: Monday, March 26; 5-7 p.m.; Gloria’s
Evangelical Body Stays Course on Warming: Conservatives Oppose Stance
What we Believe: H4PJ Statement on the Environment

Police Mistake Sent Her to Jail
Article by H4PJ Contributor Michael Bell

Most Americans take their freedom and civil and human rights for granted. They have no idea how easily any or all of them can be violated with impunity by local and federal governments. Christi Hernandez, is one such victim who discovered this the hard way. The Dallas Morning News published a story on March 5, 2007 about how Ms. Hernandez was arrested by

McKinney, Texas police at her job at the Allen, Texas High School cafeteria. She was accused of selling cocaine to an undercover detective. Even though Ms. Hernandez told police she was innocent, they hauled her off to the Collin County, Texas jail where she sat and cried inconsolably for six hours. The woman McKinney police were looking for spells her name differently, lives in a different town, and has a different license plate number. However, that's not what ultimately led to Ms. Hernandez' release from jail. Police dropped the charges after she rolled up her sleeve for a detective and he didn't see the tattoo that he remembered on the woman who sold him the drugs.

As a consequence of the arrest, Ms. Hernandez was fired from her job four days later - on her 35th birthday. In addition, she had to post $2,500 bail and hire an attorney - all because of a mistake by the McKinney Police department. According to the news story, no officials have been reprimanded and no formal apology has been given to Ms. Hernandez.

There is also the incredible story of Canadian citizen Maher Arar (source: Wikipedia). While heading home to Canada from a holiday with relatives in Tunisia, he was detained at Kennedy International airport in 2002 by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials where he spent two weeks enduring hours of interrogation while chained. Afterwards, using a U.S. government procedure called extraordinary rendition, Mr. Arar was sent, shackled and bound, in a private jet to Jordan and then Syria, instead of being extradited to his home country Canada. Mr. Arar was interrogated and tortured (including having his palms whipped with metal cables). He was eventually released a year later. The Canadian government lodged an official complaint with the U.S. government regarding Mr. Arar's deportation. Mr. Arar has been completely cleared by the Canadian government of any wrongdoing, yet the United States has not apologized and, in fact, keeps Mr. Arar's name on the official "no-fly" list to prevent him from boarding any planes in or to the United States.

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H4PJ Online Action Center
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Michael Bell is a contributing writer to Hope for Peace & Justice. All of his articles and commentaries will soon be available online on the upcoming Hope for Peace & Justice Blog.

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Our Human Rights Hypocrisy
by Rosa Brooks
Originally Published by the Los Angeles Times

On Tuesday — to ritualized hoots of derision from around the globe — the U.S. Department of State released its 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The annual reports detail "the status of internationally recognized human rights" in virtually every country in the world — except, of course, the U.S. itself.

At first glance, this year's reports contain few surprises. The State Department laments the genocide in Darfur, notes that Russia has experienced a "further erosion of government accountability" and reminds us that Cuba denies its citizens "the fundamental right to change their government peacefully." The reports also document rights abuses in China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea — in fact, pretty much all over the place. Even tiny Monaco is rebuked for denying its citizens "the right to change their government or denounce the royal family."

Although the State Department announces the annual reports with fanfare, the rest of the world rarely responds with enthusiasm. This year is no exception. China, a perennial target, declared that "the United States has lorded it over other countries by condemning other countries' human rights practices while ignoring its own problems." Other foreign commentators also complained about U.S. hypocrisy. After Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Haditha and other highly publicized human rights controversies, they wondered, where does the U.S. get off casting stones at others?

There's nothing inherently sinister about the State Department's failure to include a chapter on U.S. human rights abuses in the reports. Originally intended for internal government consumption, the reports were designed to help Congress determine which lucky nations would receive foreign aid. (Back in the day, Congress had a quaint tradition of insisting that the U.S. not provide security assistance to foreign governments responsible for "gross violations" of human rights.) Because — by definition — the U.S. doesn't provide foreign aid to itself, there was traditionally no reason for the reports to detail U.S. human rights lapses.

But over the years, the country reports have evolved far beyond their original purpose, becoming a high-visibility part of U.S. public diplomacy. As a result, they're inevitably scrutinized with care, both for what they say and what they don't say.

On close examination, this year's reports are notable for several major omissions — and one intriguing inclusion.

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Monday Night with Mike
Monday, March 26; 5-7 p.m.; Gloria’s

Our next “Monday Night with Mike” will be March 26, at Gloria’s, 4140 Lemmon Ave.; Dallas, TX 75219. The event will begin at 5 p.m. and last until around 7 p.m. There will be a cash bar with happy hour pricing and, of course, Gloria’s famous black bean dip!

Monday Night with Mike is a free event, to which everyone is invited! This is a great way to meet other people who are passionate about peace and justice issues, and an excellent opportunity to introduce your friends to the work that we are doing. Rev. Michael Piazza, President of Hope for Peace & Justice, will speak about current issues and give an update on the tour promoting his new book, The Real antiChrist: How America Sold its Soul. The book will be available for purchase, and Rev. Piazza will be happy to sign them. Please join us for this special event. Invite your friends and family and then stay for dinner to brainstorm what you can do to work for peace and justice!

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Evangelical Body Stays Course on Warming
Conservatives Oppose Stance
Originally Published by the Washington Post

Rebuffing Christian radio commentator James C. Dobson, the board of directors of the National Association of Evangelicals reaffirmed its position that environmental protection, which it calls "creation care," is an important moral issue.

Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, and two dozen other conservative Christian leaders, including Gary L. Bauer, Tony Perkins and Paul M. Weyrich, sent the board a letter this month denouncing the association's vice president, the Rev. Richard Cizik, for urging attention to global warming.

The letter argued that evangelicals are divided on whether climate change is a real problem, and it said that "Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time," such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

If Cizik "cannot be trusted to articulate the views of American evangelicals on environmental issues, then we respectfully suggest that he be encouraged to resign his position with the NAE," the letter concluded.

The Rev. Leith Anderson, the association's president, said yesterday that the board did not respond to the letter during a two-day meeting that ended Friday in Minneapolis. But, he said, the board reaffirmed a 2004 position paper, "For the Health of the Nations," that outlined seven areas of civic responsibility for evangelicals, including creation care along with religious freedom, nurturing the family, sanctity of life, compassion for the poor, human rights and restraining violence.

On Friday, the association's board approved a 12-page statement on terrorism and torture. Anderson said that Cizik gave a report to the board on his work in Washington as vice president for governmental affairs and that there was no effort to reprimand him. "I think there was a lot of support from me, from the executive committee and from the board for Rich Cizik," Anderson said.

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What we Believe
H4PJ Statement on the Environment

The World Health Organization estimates that up to 160,000 people die each year due to the direct and indirect impacts of global warming. That is the same as experiencing the 2005 tsunami every year. If they all had died in a single hour would millions of Americans have risen up to demand that the United States change its attitude toward environmental issues? Or do we simply not care about children choking for lack of air, climate changes that result in the starvation of millions or the fact that much of our coastline may disappear in our lifetimes?
On National Public Radio, the Rev. Jim Ball, Executive Director of the Evangelical Environmental Network, said:

“The impact of global warming will get much worse as the century progresses. Millions could die. God’s other creatures will suffer as well. A report in Nature magazine suggests that up to 37 percent of God’s creatures could become extinct in this century due to climate change, their songs of praise to their creator snuffed out forever. On Wednesday, [February 16, 2005] much of the developed world takes an important first step to address global warming as the Kyoto Protocol, the international climate treaty, goes into effect. The United States, however, is not participating. While I believe President Bush cares about the plight of the poor, this is not reflected in his climate policy. As a country, and as the world’s No. 1 source of green house gases, America needs to do much more.”

In that same story, the British Environmental Secretary noted that developing nations were not among the 140 countries who signed the Protocol because it would require some to make choices between environmental protection and feeding the starving. What she was graceful enough not to note was that the richest nation on earth was almost the only developed country not to sign the treaty. After the Clinton administration had been a party to drafting the treaty, the Bush Administration refused to sign it. The whole world was stunned by the arrogance of the nation best able to afford to honor the protocols and the nation most responsible for many types of pollution. What does this say about the kind of people we are?

Hope for Peace & Justice calls upon the United States government to recognize that global warming is a series and legitimate crisis facing the world. H4PJ also calls for the signing of the Kyoto Protocol.

Join the H4PJ Green Team today and pledge to have a difference!

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