Haiti Justice Blog

Half-Hour for Haiti: Call The White House Today to Urge Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians Now!

April 29, 2009

Half-Hour for Haiti: Call The White House Today to Urge Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians Now!

Update: Good news first. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced an aid package that includes paying Haiti’s World Bank debt service through the first half of this year. See the Jubilee USA Press Release for details. That covers Haiti’s remaining debt service on its multilateral loans, if Haiti reaches completion point for debt relief as scheduled. That may change this summer, and we will respond then, but for now pat yourself on the back if you have called, emailed or faxed to make this victory possible.

One More Day to Call Congress To Cancel Haiti’s Debt

February 24, 2009

Some good news from Rep. Maxine Waters’ Office: as of today, 64 members of Congress, including four Republicans, have signed Rep. Waters’ letter to World Bank President Robert Zoellick, urging immediate cancellation of Haiti’s debt. That’s a lot of progress in less than two weeks- thanks to everyone who called. But we need more. Rep. Waters has extended the deadline for signatures to noon Wednesday, February 25. So if your Representative hasn’t signed yet (list below), call today! For more information on Haiti’s unjust and unconscionable debt, click here.

Half-Hour for Haiti: Watch A Matt Damon Video

January 25, 2009

Thank you everyone who signed the Petition to Free Ronald Dauphin. The petition has over 400 signatures, double what it had when we posted the alert. But that is not enough to pry open his prison bars. So please sign the petition if you have not done so, let’s show that the Half Hour for Haiti community can get us up to 1000 signatures.

The Center for Justice and Accountability has announced that it is awarding our affiliate in Haiti, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, its 2009 Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award. The award will be presented at CJA’s 10^th Anniversary Event on March 17, in San Francisco. IJDH co-founder and board member Dr. Paul Farmer of Partners in Health will be the featured speaker.

Paul Farmer and Brian Concannon have an Op-Ed in today’s Boston Globe: Change Haiti Can Believe In.

This week’s action: Actor Matt Damon, Dr. Paul Farmer, State Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry, and IJDH Director Brian Concannon Jr. are participating in a panel discussion moderated by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston at 5PM ET on Tuesday, January 27. The panel will focus on improving U.S. Policy towards Haiti under the new leadership in Washington. The event sold out in two hours last week, but it will be webcast, both live and arc hived, from links on www.HaitiJustice.org and www.PIH.org. This week’s action is to spread the word about this exciting event to your networks, and to join us yourself.

For more information about the Half-Hour For Haiti program, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) or human rights in Haiti, see our website, www.HaitiJustice.org. To receive Half-Hour for Haiti Action Alerts (about 2 per month), send an email to HalfHour4Haiti@ijdh.org.

Half-Hour for Haiti: Free Ronald Dauphin for the New Year

January 14, 2008

We have a flash announcement for people who can get to Boston: IJDH Board Member Paul Farmer of Partners in Health, actor Matt Damon, IJDH Director Brian Concannon Jr., and State Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry are participating in a panel discussion moderated by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library on January 27. The panel will focus on improving U.S. Policy towards Haiti under the new leadership in Washington. Tickets are free, but limited, so order them now- click here to reserve a seat.

Half-Hour for Haiti: Invest in Hope and Justice for Haiti

December 10, 2008

 
2008 has been a year of great tragedy, but also great hope, for all of us at the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) and the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH). The bad news from Haiti kept coming, from April’s food crisis to August’s hurricanes and November’s school collapse. As usual, it was the poor who suffered the most, including our clients. But the good news kept coming too, as IJDH and BAI won several historic victories for Haiti’s poor, with your help. The highlights for us were delivering court-awarded damages to 94 victims of the Raboteau massacre, and receiving a binding order from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights requiring improvements in Haiti’s miserable prisons.

Update: The good news first: the Haitian government has appointed an Investigating Judge (Juge d’Instruction) to investigate the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. The judge started  holding hearings last week. Attorney Mario Joseph of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), representing Lovinsky’s family, participated in the hearings. He reports that the judge is off to a good start. Two people have been arrested in the case, both in connection with possessing Lovinsky’s cell phone.

Half Hour For Haiti: Temporary Protected Status for Haitians!

October 1, 2008

Update: Thanks to everyone who responded so generously to organizations featured in last week’s alert on hurricane response. We’ve heard reports of tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to those organizations from the Half Hour for Haiti Community. Thanks as well to everyone who has responded to the Raboteau Massacre Victims’ Challenge, which ends today. It looks like we will raise over $36,000, which is 83% of the victims’ goal of $43,000. We’ll be sure to put that money to good work fighting for justice for Haiti’s poor.

Half-Hour for Haiti: Hurricane Response- What Can We Do?

September 9, 2008

Update: Haiti has had an almost unfathomable string of bad news lately, with 4 tropical storms or hurricanes in the last three weeks: Fay, then Gustave, then Hannah then Ike. Estimates of the deaths caused by the storm have surpassed 1,000, and will continue to climb. More people will be killed in the coming months- from food shortages caused by the storms’ destruction of farms, from difficulty accessing healthcare because of destroyed roads, and from the general aggravation of poverty. At the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), we are not hurricane response experts, so we’ve included information below from organizations that are qualified to respond.

But it is important for all of us to remember that these storms are only part natural disaster. It is not natural that Haiti suffers more fatalities than the rest of the Caribbean combined whenever a storm hits it (see Another Unnatural Disaster, October 2004). The lethal combination of poverty, weak governance and foreign interference leaves Haiti without the ability to enforce laws on cutting down trees, install adequate drainage systems or effectively execute disaster planning and response. So although it is important to respond to the current catastrophe, it is even more important to work to implement the structures necessary to prevent the next catastrophe. These structures include elected legislative and executive branches that are responsible to the voters, not just the international community or people who live in hurricane-proof housing. They include a justice system that can enforce the laws fairly and effectively, and international aid and trade policies designed to help Haiti’s poor, not the world’s rich and powerful.

Half-Hour for Haiti: Celebrate Independence for Fr. Gerry!

July 2, 2008

We have some good news: Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste can finally declare independence from the Haitian criminal justice system: last month the Appeals Court of Port-au-Prince dismissed the remaining charges against him. Fr. Gerry endured a true legal Odyssey: the case against him lasted for 3 years and 8 months. He spent almost 8 months in prison, was arrested four times, appeared at numerous hearings, and he contracted, and received successful treatment for leukemia. All this time no evidence of criminal activity was ever presented against Fr. Gerry, not a single witness came forward against him.

Raboteau Massacre Victims Challenge You To Match Their Investment In Justice in Haiti

June 18, 2008

The victims of the Raboteau Massacre invested $43,000 in a just future for Haiti and now they are challenging you to match their investment. The 97 victims donated 10% of the $430,000 in court-awarded damages that they won last month to their lawyers at the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI).

Alfred Georges, a leader of the Association des Victimes de Raboteau noted, “we give this money so BAI and IJDH can keep fighting for others like they have fought for us." His colleague Robin Joseph adds "because many poor people in Haiti are victims of injustice, we want Mario and Brian to fight for them too. We challenge people in the United States to invest in justice like we have.”

Sign Petition for Haiti Debt Cancellation at G-8 Meeting

Dear Friend of Haiti,

The global food crisis has Haiti in its grip.

As soaring food prices cripple many impoverished countries, Haiti is still shelling out millions of dollars in debt repayments while its people starve. The finance ministers of the G8 countries - the world's richest nations - meet on June 13 and 14 in Japan to discuss the food crisis. By cancelling debts they could help alleviate the suffering of Haiti and other affected countries.