Ending the Crime of Torture:Testimony of Two Torture Survivors

Speakers: Sami Baloch Badini from Balochistan, Pakistan and Janel Martial Siewe Kwegue

Date: Friday, June 3, 2016 @ 7:30 p.m.
Place: Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, 503 Rock Creek Church Rd. NW, Washington, DC, 20010.

Sami Baloch Badini from Balochistan, Pakistan, and Janel Martial Siewe Kwegue from Cameroon, are members of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC) and will speak about their experience as torture survivors. The mission of TASSC, the only organization founded by and for torture survivors, is to end the practice of torture wherever it occurs and to empower survivors, their families and communities wherever they are. Please join us for this very important program.

For more info on TASSC’s 19th Annual Torture Survivors’ Week from June 22-26th, including the day-long vigil on June 25th at Lafayette Park across from the White House,  please see: www.tassc.org.

For more info contact Dorothy Day Catholic Worker: 202-882-9649 or 202-360-6416.

Targeting Muslims at Home and Abroad

Speaker:  Dr. Maha Hilal 
 
Date: Friday,  May 13, 2016 @ 7:30 p.m. 

Place: Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, 503 Rock Creek Church Rd. NW, Washington, D.C. 20010

Islamophobia is on the rise! In response to recent attacks in Paris, San Bernadino and Brussels, Muslims are being targeted and demonized at home and abroad. In the U.S., Republican presidential candidates want to restrict the entry of Muslims, increase security and surveillance where Muslims reside, and authorize torture. Abroad, the U.S. has waged an unrelenting war against Muslims, through bombings, occupation and the use of killer drones, as well as the unjust detention of Muslim men at Guantanamo. 

 

Dr. Maha Hilal is the Executive Director of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, an organization dedicated to addressing civil and human rights abuses related to preemptive prosecutions and thoughts crimes in the War on Terror. She is also an Islamophobia consultant for the Team Baluchi Defense Team of the Office of the Chief of Defense, where she supports research on disparities in the legal system that Muslims face. She is presently an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University. Maha earned her doctorate last May from the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University in Washington, D.C. She received her Master’s Degree in Counseling and her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has worked at a number of human rights organizations, including the Center for Victims of Torture and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Last November she was part of a Witness Against Torture delegation to Guantanamo to call for the closing of the detention center. See the following excellent article about Guantanamo that Maha recently wrote:

http://muslimmatters.org/2016/02/25/the-stories-we-tell-guantanamo-bay-in-normative-american-history-and-the-present/

Please join us for this important event!

For more information contact Dorothy Day Catholic Worker: 202-360-6416