Shine a light, Save a life

Less than 24 hours until Get on the Bus hits the streets of NYC. We're burning the midnight oil here in Somerville, MA. Tuesday night, 15 volunteers sorted and collated print materials. Danielle and Helen stayed until 10pm! Val worked overtime finalizing the bus passenger lists Wednesday. Patrick will be packing up the car with posters, event programs, and merch. I wonder if they're main lining caffine, like me?

It takes a huge effort of time and energy by a small group of volunteers to pull off an event of this size year after year. Did you know we plan for GOTB six months in advance, including selecting which cases to profile? This year, event planning was underway well before the wave of peaceful protests in North Africa and the Middle East and the subsequent news of repression of students in Iran and the torture of women in Egypt, among other human rights abuses reported.

In recent weeks, we also learned that Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) leaders Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu are currently being hunted by police. Both have been arbitrarily arrested on numerous occasions in the past following peaceful protests and have been detained for periods of up to 37 days. Let's be blunt -- they're being harrassed and intimidated by police.

Knowing the that the threat of arrest is always real and immediate, Jenni lives out of a suitcase and in safe houses, ready to move a moment's notice (starting at the 1:40 minute mark).

Video by [wide angle] via Amnesty International: Demonstrating Under Dictatorship

I was deeply moved by Jenni's speech at Amnesty International's Annual General Meeting in March. She's the type of leader who incites hope. It's individual stories of hope -- the human face of determination and survival -- that resonate most strongly with me.

Tom Stoppard -- who's probably my favorite playwrite of all time -- describes the work of Amnesty International in the UK Guardian:

What it does, he says, "is connect awareness to protest globally… And, of course, the very phrase 'a prisoner of conscience' is a very potent idea. Someone who's been locked up because of his conscience."

On this Friday and next, GOTB will embody the connection between awareness and protest. We'll draw attention to some of our human rights concerns, including prisoners of conscience like Dhondup Wangchen, filmmaker of the documentary Leaving Fear Behind and Filep Karma, a West Papuan activist. And we've tested the batteries to make sure we'll have working megaphones to amplify our voices so that diplomats and international leaders will know we are on their doorstep.

We need you to join us -- in person and virtually -- to make the greatest impact! Jam the fax lines. Flood inboxes with messages of hope. Pre-formatted letters are available for download on the GOTB website. Or just take a moment of action: shine a little bit of love and light on Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu by signing a letter online.

March Group 133 Meeting and International Women's Day

On Tuesday, Group 133 had a very eventful March meeting. The evening began with a vigil and petition-signing outside the Davis Square T stop, in honor of International Women's Day.

Thank you, Gualitiero, for organizing the vigil!

We also enjoyed a delicious home-cooked Sri Lankan meal, in "taste-bud solidarity"for our Get On The Bus 2011 Sri Lanka action. The meal was a wonderful (and vegan-friendly) treat.

Focus on: Tibet

We also discussed the case of Dhondup Wangchen, who will be the focus of a GOTB 2011 action. Dhondup Wangchen is a Tibetan filmmaker who was detained on March 26, 2008, shortly after completing his documentary Leaving Fear Behind. Police held him at Gongshan Hotel, an unofficial place of detention or "black jail," for part of his detention period.  Police tied him to a chair, beat and punched him in the head and frequently deprived him of food and sleep during interrogations. Dhondup Wangchen suffers from Hepatitis B, for which he has not received any medical treatment.

The documentary features ordinary Tibetans talking about the Beijing Olympics, the current situation in Tibet and the Dalai Lama. Wangchen was formally arrested in July 2008 under suspicion of "inciting separatism and stealing, secretly gathering, purchasing, and illegally providing intelligence for an organisation, institution, or personnel outside the country."

After a secret trial, he was sentenced on December 28, 2009 to six years at Xichuan Labor Camp in Qinghai Province. Amnesty International considers Dhondup Wangchen a prisoner of conscience.

For Get On The Bus 2011, Danielle and Megan - local high school students who have become actively involved in the GOTB action team - will be interviewing Lhamo Tso, Dhondup Wangchen's wife who lives in exile in India, via Skype. This interview will be shown during the speaker's panel portion of Get On The Bus 2011 in April.

Leaving Fear Behind
Google Video (Filming for Tibet)





Lhamo Tso: Behind the Sea
Vimeo (FreeTibet.org uploaded by Jon Lister)



Lhamo Tso: Behind the Sea from Jon Lister on Vimeo.

More information:

• Filming for Tibet
• Amnesty International: China must release Tibetan filmmaker
• Human Rights Watch: China: Ensure fair trial for Tibetan filmmaker
• Reporters without Borders: Dhondup Wangchen
• International Campaign for Tibet: Dhondup Wangchen faces trial
• FreeTibet.org: Free Dhondup Wangchen
• Students for a Free Tibet: Spotlight Film: Leaving Fear Behind

GOTB 2011 registration is open!

Registration is now open on the revamped Get On The Bus website, www.gotb.org! Val, a longtime supporter of GOTB recently redesigned and relaunched the GOTB website. The new site looks great, and we owe Val a great deal of thanks for her hard work.

If you're planning on attending GOTB and traveling with us, registration is now open (for individuals and groups). You can find the registration page at: http://www.gotb.org/register-online.html.

Meanwhile, the March GOTB planning meeting was this Tuesday, and with Get On The Bus for Human Rights just about a month away, the rest of the GOTB action committee has had their hands full with finalizing plans and logistics for the event. I've been inspired by all the time and effort all the GOTB coordinators have put into planning this event -- from the Action Coordinators, our bus coordinator, high school student coordinators, coordinators working on the route and permits, and everyone else -- the effort has been outstanding!

At next week's general Group 133 meeting, we'll be learning more about the case of Tibetan filmmaker and prisoner-of-conscience Dhondup Wangchen. The March Group 133 meeting will be on Tuesday, March 8 at 7p.m. at the Amnesty International Northeast Regional Office at 58 Day Street, Suite 409 in Davis Square, Somerville.

Get On The Bus 2011

Group 133 and other Get On The Bus supporters have begun planning for next year's Get On The Bus (for human rights) event!

Last night Group 133 members voted for four actions to be included in the April '11 event:

• Calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Dhondup Wangchen, a Tibetan filmmaker and prisoner of conscience and Group 133's special focus case.
• Calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Filep Karma, a West Papuan activist who was arrested by Indonesian authorities in 2004 for raising the outlawed Morning Star flag. Karma is the AI-USA Mid-Atlantic region's special focus case.
  
• Calling on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to establish an independent international investigation into war crimes committed by both the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tigers during the Sri Lankan civil war.
• Urge the government of Chad to protect refugees from Darfur and internally displaced persons from Chad, particularly women and girls.

Of course, these may change or be tweaked as the event draws closer. We're really excited this year because our friends in the Washington DC and Mid-Atlantic region will be holding their own Get On The Bus solidarity actions in the Capital.

Watch here for more information about Get On The Bus '11, the cases mentioned above and other details about the event. For more information visit the Get On The Bus web site at www.gotb.org or the Group 133 web site at www.amnesty133.org.