DGAP Human Rights: Local Organizations Shine International Spotlight on Chicago Race Issues

Monday, February 18, 2008

Local Organizations Shine International Spotlight on Chicago Race Issues

PRESS ADVISORY

February 15, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Michaela Purdue, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs
(312) 663-0960 (o), 773-425-4784 (c), michaela@jcua.org

Joey Mogul, Lawyer to Torture Survivors
(773) 235-0070, joeymogul@aol.com

Willie Fleming, Coalition to Protect Public Housing

312-735-6894 (c), iamcabrini@gmail.com

COALITION OF CHICAGO ACTIVISTS TRAVEL TO GENEVA, SWITZERLAND TO TESTIFY AT THE UNITED NATIONS ON RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

What: Local activists representing over 30 Chicago-based organizations are outraged with
the systematic practices of the City of Chicago and are taking their claims to the United Nations International Committee to Eliminate Racial Discrimination (ICERD). As an international treaty signed by the US, the ICERD has the force of law in the United States. This is extremely timely as the City of Chicago is bidding for the 2016 Olympics.

The Chicago delegations include Stan Willis, a local civil rights lawyer, who will be bringing the Burge torture cases to ICERD because police officers have still not been prosecuted, despite torture violations they have committed. Further, there are still 27 men wrongfully imprisoned due to confessing while being tortured. The use of such convictions violates state and federal laws, as well as international law. Jessie Belton and Lisa Lust from the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and Southwest Youth Collaborative are taking claims of the systematic displacement of African-American people from their homes in Chicago pubic housing developments. Nancy Bothne and Brian Gladstein of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and the Developing Government Accountability to the People Network will be advocating that the United Nations take the necessary steps to ensure that the City of Chicago ends its racial discriminatory practices.

This trip builds off the release of a national and a Chicago-based shadow report, both of which charge our government with failure to comply with its obligations under the treaty and with whitewashing the reality of racial inequality in Chicago. (For a copy of the Chicago shadow report please visit www.jcua.org/ChicagoShadow and for the national report by the U.S. Human Rights Network visit www.ushrnetwork.org/cerd_shadow_2008).

When: February 18 – 22, 2008

Where: United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland

Whom: The following individuals are included in the Chicago delegation to the United
Nations and will be available for interviews and reporting during their visit.

Nancy Bothne - Former Midwest Regional Director of Amnesty International USA; PhD student, Community Psychology at DePaul University

Stan E. Willis - National Conference of Black Lawyers/Black People Against Police Torture

Brian Gladstein – Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and Developing Government Accountability to the People Network

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JCUA An International Player on Human Rights Agenda

Brian Gladstein, JCUA's Community Director, and Nancy Bothne, Former Midwest Regional Director of Amnesty International, USA, along with Stan E. Willis, with National Conference of Black Lawyers, and Jessie Belton, with Southwest Youth Collaborative and the Coalition to Protect Public Housing have been invited by the U.S. Human Rights Network to appear before the United Nations committee that oversees the International Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). Representing JCUA and its offshoot, the Developing Government Accountability to the People (DGAP) Network, Brian will be in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 17-23, where he will present a report decrying Chicago's officially sanctioned human rights violations.

As a formal partner to the ICERD treaty, the United States every two years provides the committee a report monitoring efforts to eliminate racial discrimination in this country. Additionally, non-governmental organizations have been invited to submit "shadow reports." On behalf of JCUA and advocacy and grassroots organizations in the DGAP network, Brian will advocate for the creation of standards and a monitoring process that will hold city officials accountable for the elimination of racist practices in city government.

"As Chicago campaigns over the next 18 months to become the host city for the 2016 Olympics, this is an opportune time to shine a light on the city's racial practices to hold city officials accountability for their attitudes, behaviors and policies," Gladstein said. "But we also are trying to be a catalyst in building a human rights network or human rights and community organizations throughout Chicago, in fostering an environment of awareness about human rights."

Activist Biographies

Standish G. Willis

is a Chicago attorney specializing in civil rights, criminal defense and human rights cases. Stan Willis attended the University of Chicago (BA, MA), University of Illinois (MA) and IIT Chicago Kent College of Law (JD). Attorney Willis has tried many cases in both the state and federal courts, and has represented many appellants in both the Illinois Appeals Court and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Stan has taught seminars on civil rights litigation sponsored by the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education and the Chicago Kent College of Law.

In 2001, Attorney Willis was a member of the “Durbin 400”, a delegation of African American NGOs and community activists who attended the United Nations “committee on race” in Durban, South Africa. Stan, a member of the National Conference of Black Lawyers and Black People Against Torture, has traveled to Geneva, Switzerland to meet with the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Stan will be seeking support from the CERD in pursuit of justice in the Jon Burge police torture cases. Stan hopes to gain global support for local criminal justice issues like the Burge torture cases.

Nancy J. Bothne

is a PhD student in community psychology at DePaul University who is working with the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs to help use international human rights to advance its agenda fighting racial discrimination and promoting rights to housing, education and a standard of living that respects the human dignity of all people of Chicago. Nancy was the Midwest Regional Director of Amnesty International USA from 1993 – 2004. in that capacity, she worked to abolish the death penalty in Illinois, to promote the rights of incarcerated women in labor to have their children without being shackled, and on the international campaign for the rights of women to be free from violence. Nancy is currently researching gender differences in how experiences of torture have affected relationships with communities among immigrant survivors of torture.

Nancy traveled to Geneva to seek allies among the international movement of human rights activists who can help us develop new strategies to move forward an agenda that promises a life of dignity and respect for all human people.

Brian Gladstein
is the Director of Community Programs at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs where he has been on staff since May 2000. Brian has assisted such organizations as the Blue Line Transit Taskforce in successfully restoring late night and weekend services on the Douglas Branch of the Blue Line, God’s Gang in organizing after being displaced from Robert Taylor Homes and receiving a $250,000 as a result, reconveyning the New West Side Federation, and assisting the Pilsen Alliance in their on-going anti gentrification campaign – “Pilsen Is Not for Sale”. Mr. Gladstein was instrumental in establishing the Developing Government Accountability to the People (DGAP) network that released a groundbreaking 216 page report on the City of Chicago in January 2007. Brian has an undergraduate degree from Indiana University in Public Affairs and a graduate degree from Illinois University at Chicago in Urban Policy and Planning.

In the summer of 2007, Brian helped to bring together a coalition of organizations and leaders to create a Chicago-based shadow report for the Convention to Eliminate all forms of Racial Discrimination. Brian is in Geneva to express human right violations that are occurring in Chicago including housing discrimination, police abuse of people of color, and educational segregation.

DGAP Human Rights

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Monday, February 18, 2008

Local Organizations Shine International Spotlight on Chicago Race Issues

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