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Rich Stahler-Sholk, Eastern Michigan University, Michigan
rsholk@gmail.com
734-660-1647
Steven Osuna, California State University, Long Beach, California
Steven.osuna@csulb.edu
213-247-6821
Suyapa Portillo, Pitzer College, California
Suyapa_portillo@pitzer.edu
323-637-7812
132 academics and researchers, specialists in Latin American Studies and Latino/a Studies, signed on to a letter in support of the 27 students who are currently facing charges for student activism at the Autonomous University of Honduras-UNAH campuses. Three of those students have been convicted and await sentencing for non-violent protest. Academics are asking for University to drop charges against all students, especially 3 of the students already convicted: Moises David Caceres Velasquez, Sergio Luis Ulloa Rivera, and Cesario Alejandro Felix Padilla.
132 academics and researchers, specialists in Latin American Studies and Latino/a Studies, signed on to a letter in support of the 27 students who are currently facing charges for student activism at the Autonomous University of Honduras-UNAH campuses. Three of those students have been convicted and await sentencing for non-violent protest. Academics are asking for University to drop charges against all students, especially 3 of the students already convicted: Moises David Caceres Velasquez, Sergio Luis Ulloa Rivera, and Cesario Alejandro Felix Padilla.
Students have been protesting the UNAH authorities since last year, 2016, seeking a voice on their campus reforms, which should include free and open student elections. Students seek to build a participatory and democratic system of shared governance to oversee changes to their curriculum and grading practices, as well as student elections, improvements to their major curriculums as well transparency in local campus reforms. Their non violent form of protest has involved marches and building take-overs, unarmed, for which they have been tear gassed, persecuted, held in constant surveillance, and have had direct intimidation from military units, such as the Cobra Unit, military police, anti-riot police and private security systems linked to the state, who have physically assaulted students.
The UNAH is the largest University in Honduras boasting 80,000 students, with regional satellite campuses throughout the nation and serving mostly working poor students, but open to students of all economic brackets. It is a public and an autonomous institution of higher learning, which claims to have shared-governance and lead itself without state or military intervention.
The full letter follows:
TO: Lic. Julieta Castellanos
Rector of the Autonomous University of Honduras, UNAH
Blvd. Suyapa, Ciudad Universitaria, Tegucigalpa, MDC, Honduras
We, the undersigned faculty members urge you and the administration of UNAH to drop the charges against student protestors: Moises David Caceres Velasquez, Sergio Luis Ulloa Rivera y Cesario Alejandro Felix Padilla, who were engaged in non-violent civil disobedience to call attention to needed reforms that include student voice and participation on campuses across the nation.
We call for solidarity with students on a hunger strike, among their demands the following: to end criminalization and judicial processes against students and to conduct legitimate and fair student elections in the UNAH. We also understand that students are dissatisfied with the university leadership and are seeking a recall of the administration because of their failure to dialogue and for their top-down politics of criminalizing their own student body. Recently, the father of Andres Gomez was killed after attending his son's judicial hearing. We call for a full investigation and prosecution of those culpable for this murder.
Students are not our enemies, they are our future. The rising politics of terror facing student protestors in Honduras, where militarization of the various UNAH campuses throughout the nation is becoming a standard response by administration under your leadership, harkens back to the 1980s violence. Students are receiving death threats, persecution and surveillance for standing up for their rights. Your very own intellectual work on the 1980s argues against militarization because it is not an avenue for progress. We would add that militarization and criminalization of our youth are not fruitful to building participatory democracy.
As educators we see the value of protest in helping students develop their own identity and voice and helping them develop into productive members of our society that seeks to build a participatory democracy, an aim for which Hondurans have been working since the 1980s.
Students' rights to protest should be a protected form of expression, a rite of passage, a form of building an active citizenship and a voice around national and even world affairs. In and out of the classrooms, we must encourage students to be critical and dialogical members of society and not just passive receptacles of knowledge.
We hope that a fruitful dialogue can take place among you, University authorities and students, so that an effective, constructive and collaborative University reform, which includes student voices, may be achieved.
We urge you to drop the charges against the 27 students, including those named above, to dialogue and reach an agreement that can open up the classrooms, where all students feel reflected.
Sincerely the undersigned,
Richard Stahler-Sholk, PhD Eastern Michigan University
Piya Chatterjee PhD Scripps College
Mario Pecheny PhD Universidad de Buenos Aires
Paul Espinosa PhD Arizona State University
Leisy Abrego PhD UCLA
Kency Cornejo PhD University of New Mexico
Pablo Gonzalez PhD University of California Berkeley
Michelle Watts PhD University of Southern Mississippi
Aaron Pollack PhD Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social (CIESAS)-Sureste
Richard Grossman PhD Northeastern Illinois University
Marc Zimerman PhD Emeritus, U. of Houston, U. of Illinois at Chicago
Maria Mendez PhD University of Minnesota
Rodolfo Rosales PhD Retired from University of Texas of San Antonio
Suyapa Portillo PhD Pitzer College
Alfonso Gonzales PhD University of California Riverside
Leece Lee Oliver PhD California State University Fresno
Kimberly Drake PhD Scripps College
Jorge Ramon Gonzalez Ponciano PhD Stanford University
Katy Pinto PhD California State University Dominguez Hills
Aurelia Lorena Murga PhD The University of Texas at El Paso
Estela Ballon PhD California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Javier Arbona PhD University of California, Davis
Katherine Hoyt PhD Alliance for Global Justice
Victoria Sanford PhD Lehman College, City University of New York
Samantha Fox PhD Binghamton University
Elena Shih PhD Brown University
Lilian Davila PhD University of California Merced
Joanna Perez PhD California State University Dominguez Hills
Claudia Arteaga PhD Scripps College
Rosalyn Negron PhD UMass Boston
X. Banales PhD California State University
Jih-Fei Cheng PhD Scripps College
Harry E. Vanden PhD University of South Florida
Laura J Enriquez PhD University of California at Berkeley
Eric Vazquez PhD Dickinson College
Holmfridur Gardarsdottir PhD Universidad de Islandia
Maria Socorro Tabuenca PhD-C The University of Texas at El Paso
Carla Gomes PhD-C Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Ariana Stickel PhD-C University of Arizona
Mara Aubel PhD University of Kansas
Molly Todd PhD Montana State University
Raquel I. Drovetta PhD CONICET-Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas
Ellie Walsh PhD GOVERNORS STATE UNIVERSITY
David Close PhD Memorial University of Newfoundland
Christopher Perreira PhD University of Kansas
Matthew J Countryman PhD University of Michigan
Edward Murphy PhD Michigan State University
Pite Rebekah PhD Lafayette College
Christopher Loperena MS University of San Francisco (USA)
Jose Rubio-Zepeda PhD University of Texas at Austin
Gloria Chacon PhD University of California San Diego
Sandra Haley PhD Brown University
Steven Osuna PhD California State University, Long Beach
Christine Wade PhD Washington College
Patricia Ornelas-Moya Otro California State University of Los Angeles
Griselda Martinez Otro California State University, Northridge
Dalesy Casasola PhD California State University Los Angeles
Joo Ok Kim MA University of Kansas
Bernabe Rodriguez PhD California State University Long Beach
Alicia Estrada PhD California State University, Northridge
Brenda Cruz MA California State University, Los Angeles
Olivia Jaffe-Pachuilo Otro San Diego State University
Tamara Favors PhD University of California Merced
Thelma Jimenez-Anglada PhD Lawrence University
Vernor Arguedas PhD Universidad de Costa Rica
K. Myers PhD C University of California, Mercer
Beezer de Martelly PhD University of California, Berkeley
Carmen Caamano PhD Universidad de Costa Rica
Rosemary L Lee Otro Retired
Emelyne Camacho Otro California State University Long Beach
Hector Fuentes MPA California State University, Northridge
Walter Abrego PhD Texas Tech University
Jorge Moraga MA California State University, Bakersfield
Rodolfo Rodriguez PhD University of California, Merced
Shannon Speed PhD UCLA
Adrienne Pine JD American University
Joseph Berra PhD University of California Los Angeles School of Law
Arely Zimmerman PhD Mills College
Ashley Lucas Otro University of Michigan
Christina Acosta PhD C University of California Merced
Amrah Salomon J. PhD C University of California, San Diego
Nalya Rodriguez PhD University of California Irvine
Guadalupe Bacio PhD Pomona College
Chris Zepeda-Millan MA University of California Berkeley
Fanny Garcia PhD Columbia University
Mita Banerjee MA Pitzer College
Esmeralda Garcia PhD University of California Irvine
Munia Bhaumik PhD Emory University
Salvador Vidal-Ortiz MA American University
Tricia Morgan PhD Pitzer College
Genevieve Carpio PhD UCLA
Sylvanna Falcon PhD University of California, Santa Cruz
Patricia Zavella PhD University of California
Beatriz Cruz Sotomayor Otro Universidad del Turabo
Alessandra Alvares PhD University of California Santa Cruz
Amalia Pallares PhD University of Illinois at Chicago
Mary Delgado Garcia PhD Scripps College
Ernesto Martinez Otro University of Oregon
Alvaro Huerta PhD California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Cristina Serna PhD Colgate University
Shannon Gleeson Otro Cornell University
Kim YuneHie PhD UC Berkeley
Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval MS UC Santa Barbara
Genevieve Negron-Gonzales, PhD, University of San Francisco
Enrique Ochoa, PhD California State University, Los Angeles
Karma R. Chavez PhD University of Texas at Austin
Victor Silverman PhD Pomona College
Maria Cristina Morales PhD-C University of Texas at El Paso
Gabriela Arguedas Otro Universidad de Costa Rica
Andrea Gonzalez Otro California State University Long Beach
Hao Huang PhD Scripps College
Marta Bustillo PhD Universidad de Puerto Rico
Adriana Garriga-Lopez PhD Kalamazoo College
Monica Moreno Figueroa PhD University of Cambridge
Joan Simalchik PhD University of Toronto Mississauga
Kemy Oyarzun PhD Universidad de Chile
Joel Mercado-Diaz PhD The University of Chicago
Stacey Schlau PhD West Chester University
Elizabeth Maier PhD Colegio de la Frontera Norte
Maria Amelia Viteri PhD USFQ
Jack Spence PhD University of Massachusetts Boston
Karina Oliva Alvarado PhD UCLA
Heather Vrana PhD University of Florida
Emilie Bergmann PhD University of California, Berkeley
Liv Sovik PhD Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Hillary Hiner PhD Universidad Diego Portales
Rosalind Bresnahan PhD California State University
Miguel Tinker Salas PhD Pomona College
Sonia Ticas PhD Linfield College
Dan Beeton Otro Center for Economic and Policy Research
"The Biden administration has acted recklessly in giving Israel a blank check to light the entire region on fire."
Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon early Tuesday with the open support of the United States, which endorsed what it called "limited operations to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure" despite warnings that a ground assault could spark a wider conflict and intensify the humanitarian disaster facing Lebanese civilians.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) described its ground invasion with the same terms it has used to characterize its bombing campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza, which—despite being called "targeted" at Hezbollah and Hamas—have frequently killed scores of civilians and obliterated schools, hospitals, shops, and residential buildings. Since mid-September, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed more than a thousand people and displaced roughly a million.
The IDF launched its ground invasion with the backing of the Biden administration. In a statement, the White House said that the invasion of Lebanon is "in line with Israel's right to defend its citizens and safely return civilians to their homes."
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council acknowledged the risk of "mission creep" only to effectively wave it away, saying that "we will keep discussing that with the Israelis."
Analysts likened Israel's movement of troops into Lebanon to its invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah earlier this year—an operation that was initially described as limited but ultimately left the area in ruins.
"Gaza was a testing ground for Israel to see what they could get away with and, it turns out, the answer is absolutely anything it wants," said historian and analyst Assal Rad. "It did not stop at Gaza or the West Bank and it may not stop at Lebanon, because war was [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's objective all along and his prize is Iran."
"Make no mistake: The Biden administration is providing cover for Israel as it invades a neighboring, sovereign nation."
The invasion comes after the Netanyahu government rejected a three-week cease-fire proposal put forth by the U.S., France, and other nations and intensified its bombing of Lebanon, hammering Beirut with airstrikes that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and many civilians. The attack that killed Nasrallah was reportedly carried out with 2,000-pound bombs supplied by the U.S.
Coverage of the invasion in the Western corporate media painted the U.S. as "increasingly powerless," with "limited" influence to forestall a massive ground assault on Lebanon. But the Biden administration has yet to seriously leverage American military aid to prevent a war that could envelop the entire region.
On the contrary, billions of dollars of aid and American weapons have continued to flow to Israel, enabling its war on Gaza and Lebanon. The Washington Postobserved that "the events of recent weeks appear to fit a pattern in which the administration urges against specific Israeli actions only to later backtrack so it can avoid imposing conditions on military aid."
The U.S. has also engaged in what's been described as "unprecedented" intelligence-sharing with Israel, further deepening its complicity in the devastating wars.
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said in a statement late Monday that "Israel's invasion of Lebanon, following its devastating attacks on Lebanon over the past two weeks, is the entirely predictable consequence of the Biden administration's ceaseless coddling and resupply of weapons to Israel, whatever public bleats for cease-fires the administration has otherwise made."
"The Biden administration has acted recklessly in giving Israel a blank check to light the entire region on fire, all while disregarding our own legal obligations under both U.S. and international law to halt the weapons flow to them," Whitson added.
The U.S.-based anti-war group CodePink said that "Israel claims its operation in Lebanon is 'targeted,' but like in Gaza, civilians are the real victims."
"Make no mistake: The Biden administration is providing cover for Israel as it invades a neighboring, sovereign nation," the group said. "U.S. taxpayers fund Israel's military, providing billions annually and supplying weapons used to kill innocent people."
"The Biden administration and Congress could halt this escalation by cutting military aid, demanding a cease-fire, and holding Israel accountable," CodePink continued, "but instead, they allow continued aggression across the Middle East."
"Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy," Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his decision.
Reproductive rights defenders cheered Monday's ruling by a Georgia judge striking down the state's six-week abortion ban as a violation of "a woman's right to control what happens to and within her body," a decision that means the medical procedure will be legal up to approximately 22 weeks of pregnancy.
Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney excoriated the LIFE Act, which was signed into law in 2019 by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and prohibits abortion care after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. The so-called "fetal heartbeat" law—a medically misleading term—is applicable before many people even know they're pregnant.
Other states including Kentucky, Mississippi, and Ohio passed similar "heartbeat" laws in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade, which occurred in 2022 when the tribunal's right-wing supermajority issued its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.
"Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote," McBurney wrote in his ruling. "Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have."
"It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid's Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could—or should—force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another," the judge said.
"It is generally men who promote and defend laws like the LIFE Act, the effect of which is to require only women—and, given the socio-economic and demographic evidence presented at trial, primarily poor women, which means in Georgia primarily Black and brown women—to engage in compulsory labor, i.e., the carrying of a pregnancy to term at the government's behest," McBurney added.
As Jessica Valenti noted on her Abortion, Every Day Substack, "the ruling comes just weeks after ProPublica's investigation into the deaths of two women killed by Georgia's abortion ban, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller.
As NBC Newsreported Monday:
The case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other plaintiffs in 2019 soon after Kemp signed it into law. As it faced the legal challenge, in 2022, McBurney ruled that year that the law violated the U.S. Constitution in 2022 and struck it down. The Georgia Supreme Court, however, soon took up the case and allowed it to remain in effect. The case was sent back to McBurney, who found the law in violation of the state's constitution.
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective executive director Monica Simpson said in a statement that Monday's ruling is "a significant step in the right direction towards achieving reproductive justice in Georgia."
"We are encouraged that a Georgia court has ruled for bodily autonomy," Simpson continued. "At the same time, we can't forget that every day the ban has been in place has been a day too long—and we have felt the dire consequences with the devastating and preventable deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller."
"For years, Black women have sounded the alarm that abortion bans are deadly," she noted. "While true justice would mean Amber and Candi were still with us today, we will continue to demand accountability to ensure that their lives—and the lives of others who we have yet to learn of—were not lost in vain."
"We know that the fight continues as anti-abortion white supremacists will stop at nothing to control our bodies and attack our liberation," Simpson added. "We are ready for them and will never back down until we achieve reproductive justice: the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, the human right to have children, or not, and raise them in safe and sustainable communities."
Alice Wang, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that McBurney "has rightfully struck down Georgia's six-week abortion ban as a flagrant violation of Georgia's longstanding and robust right to privacy, restoring access to abortion at a time when too many have been prevented from accessing this critical health care and from deciding what is best for their bodies, health, and family lives."
"For too long, the ban has caused a public health crisis, as evidenced by the testimony plaintiffs presented at trial and devastating stories recently reported about the preventable deaths of Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman," she continued. "Today's ruling is a step toward ensuring that people can access and clinicians can provide critical healthcare without fear of criminalization or stigma."
"This victory demonstrates that when courts faithfully apply constitutional protections for bodily autonomy, laws that restrict access to abortion and force people to continue pregnancies against their will cannot stand," Wang added.
Since the Dobbs ruling, 13 states have passed abortion bans with limited exceptions and 28 states have prohibited the procedure based on gestational duration, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
However, there has been tremendous nationwide pushback against abortion bans, with voters opting to uphold reproductive rights every time the issue appears on state ballots—including in conservative Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, and Ohio.
As many as 10 states could have abortion rights measures on the ballot in this November's election, which at the top of the ticket pits reproductive freedom champion and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris against former Republican President Donald Trump, who has boasted about appointing three right-wing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe and who critics fear would sign a national abortion ban if one were passed by Congress.
Trump also said he would allow states to monitor people's pregnancies and prosecute anyone who violates an abortion ban.
Kemp's office slammed McBurney's ruling.
"Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives have been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge," Garrison Douglas, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement. "Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred responsibilities, and Georgia will continue to be a place where we fight for the lives of the unborn."
Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr is expected to appeal to the state Supreme Court to block Monday's ruling.
"We are prepared to continue fighting this case regardless," the Center for Reproductive Rights vowed on social media, "and we will NOT back down from this fight."
"Ordinary people shouldn't pay for disasters they couldn't prevent," said one group. "But Big Oil should"
In the wake of one of the hottest summers ever recorded in the United States and the deadly destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene, climate defenders on Monday urged Congress to pass recently introduced legislation that would make polluters pay into a $1 trillion fund to finance efforts to combat the planetary emergency.
"Emissions from burning oil, gas, and coal are cooking the planet and super-charging deadly heatwaves, floods, and storms," the international NGO Global Witness said in a statement. "Several major fossil fuel firms knew for decades about the climate impacts of their products, but they ignored scientific advice and denied the climate crisis was happening."
"The Polluters Pay Climate Fund Act can help redress this injustice by making fossil fuel companies pay for some of the damage they're doing to America," the group added. "This would create a $1 trillion fund that would pay for climate disaster relief and efforts to help keep us cool and safe. They can afford it—in 2023 the top five oil and gas producers in the U.S. made over $74 billion in profits."
Introduced last month by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Judy Chu (D-Calif.), the Polluters Pay Climate Fund is backed by dozens of climate and environmental justice groups.
"From sweltering heat waves to rising sea levels to ever more intense storms, our planet is screaming out every day for us to take action on global warming," Van Hollen said at the time of the bill's introduction. "And after fueling the climate crisis for decades, big polluters can no longer run from their responsibility to address the harm they have done."
"The principle behind this legislation is simple but very powerful—polluters should pay to clean up the mess they made and build a more resilient future, and those who have polluted the most should pay the most," the senator added.
With an eye on next month's U.S. presidential election, campaigners demanded a president who will make polluters pay for fueling the climate crisis. With former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, running on a "
drill, baby, drill" platform and previously calling climate change a "Chinese hoax," activists have focused on imploring Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris to make fossil fuel companies pay for their damages.
"We need a president who is willing to take on Big Oil. A president who will make polluters pay for the damage they've done to our climate," the Make Polluters Pay campaign said in a video posted last week on social media.
"As California's attorney general, Kamala Harris prosecuted big polluters like BP and Chevron and launched an investigation into ExxonMobil's climate lies," the video continues. "As vice president, she cast the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, helping lower energy costs and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."
"Kamala Harris says she'll take on corporate price gouging and hold Big Oil accountable. Donald Trump? He's asking the oil companies for bribes," the video adds, referring to his promise to fossil fuel executives that he would gut the Biden administration's climate regulations if they donated $1 billion to his campaign.
Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn cited a December 2023 survey conducted by his group and Data for Progress that found 64% of U.S. voters—including 89% of Democrats, 58% of Democrats, and 42% of Republicans—are more likely to vote for a candidate "who will make polluters pay for climate damages."
The campaigners' calls come as extreme weather fueled by the burning of fossil fuels
wreaks havoc around the world, including in the United States, where Hurricane Helene and its remnants tore a deadly path of destruction from the Florida Gulf Coast to the mountains of North Carolina. The storm has claimed at least 121 lives across the Southeast.
"It's obscene that communities across North Carolina are suffering and dying from the reality of the climate emergency while Donald Trump denies that it even exists," Brett Hartl, political director at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, said in a statement.
"While roads, bridges, and entire towns are being washed away, Trump and Project 2025 plan to gut [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] and roadblock every agency from confronting the climate crisis," he said, referring to the right-wing blueprint for overhauling the federal government. "Vice President Harris will act on climate change, and she'll hold the polluters that caused it accountable for their willful destruction."
Responding to Helene's devastation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on social media Monday that "I'm heartsick for the families who lost their homes and their loved ones."
"It's a sad reality that this hurricane rapidly intensified into a powerful Category 4 storm because of climate change," she added. "We must do more to confront the climate crisis as we rebuild."