Annette Auguste(So-Anne) finally is free! Many thanks to all who helped! Please distribute widely:
August 15, 2006 Half-Hour for Haiti: Annette Auguste Released! Update: It worked! Annette Auguste, who has spent the last 826 nights sleeping in a prison cell, will spend tonight home with her family. So will Georges Honoré (813 nights) Yvon Antoine (Zap Zap) (812 nights) and Paul Raymond (388 nights). Their lawyer Mario Joseph of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux just called with the news from the prison. The day in court was straightforward, because for once it was honest: the prosecutors conceded that there was no evidence against Ms. Auguste (as they had conceded in March), and the judge accordingly made a finding of not guilty. Above all, Annette Auguste and her co-defendants deserve our thanks and praise for insisting on justice through the dark days of Haitis brutal Interim Government, and the frustratingly slow transition to democracy. Their perseverance through such injustice and suffering is a model to us all, and an inspiration for creating a stable democracy in Haiti so that political dissidents never again need to worry about becoming political prisoners. But those 826 nights- 90 of them under an elected President- demonstrate that being persistent and being right is not enough to guarantee justice. We are only celebrating tonight because top-notch legal representation in Haitian courts was combined with a persistent campaign, in Haiti and abroad, to pressure the justice system to finally give the defendants their day in court. Ms. Augustes supporters fought for justice on the streets, courageously organizing demonstrations despite the great risk. Mario Joseph and his BAI colleagues were equally courageous and persistent fighting in the courts. Supporters of justice in Haiti abroad, including Rep. Maxine Waters, and Amnesty International which twice issued calls for Annette Augustes release, kept the cases on the worlds radar screen. Finally, all of us who wrote, faxed and called on behalf of the political prisoners demonstrated that there was a constituency for justice in Haiti that would not give up. We also would not be celebrating if Haitis new Constitutional government and some members of the justice system had not pushed the system to work democratically. Todays result was too slow, and there is too much more to be done. Some prominent political prisoners like Ameus Mayette remain in jail, Yvon Neptune and Fr. Jean-Juste are out of prison, but still have cases against them. No one knows how many lower-profile political prisoners remain in jail, but they probably number in the hundreds. But we now know that the system can work, and that we can help make it work. No action to take this week. But well have an action next week. Before he hung up today, Mario asked me to make sure that we thank everyone who pitched in from abroad to make this victory possible. Then he ended with and dont forget the other prisoners . ____________________________________________________________ For more information about the Half-Hour for Haiti Program, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, or human rights in Haiti, see www.ijdh.org. To receive Half-Hour for Haiti Action Alerts once per week, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ___________________________________________ Graffiti.net free e-mail @ www.graffiti.net Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.graffiti.net/ Powered By Outblaze [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
