Respect the religious beliefs of others.

The Way to Happiness is comprised of 21 precepts, each one predicated on the fact that one's survival depends on the survival of all others—and that without the survival of others, no joy and no happiness are attainable.

Human Rights Declaration under Threath.

All human beings are born free and
equal in dignity and rights".

It is now years since the signing of the universal declaration of human rights.

Translated into more than 360 languages and incorporated into many national laws, the document condemns discrimination, slavery, torture and arbitrary arrest.

But six decades on, many of those principles are under threat around the world.

Rosie Garthwaite's report contains images that may disturb or offend some viewers.

Give Thanks on Thanksgiving.

I want to thanks God and appreciate the food we are eating and the person or people who prepared it for you and us. They undoubtedly put a lot of work into the meal. I want to thanks The hands of the invisible people, the people without voice and vote, the people who asking for a change, an opportunity, for the people who are in the shadows, The Undocumented and the not Undocumented Immigrants; Those who did a great effort to put a wonderful piece of tasteful meal in our table. Thank youuuuuuuu.

I want to thank the people who make possible all the things I've learned this year and thus far in my life.

I want to thanks my Family, my Friends, my neighbors, co workers, my colleagues and God.

My God bless you and My God Bless America.

In My name.

.

Global poverty is a fundamental moral issue of our age. The suffering of billions of God’s people cannot go unanswered, especially when solutions are within our grasp. While we are in a time of great crisis and challenge, we are also in a time of unprecedented possibility. We are in a kairos moment. We can change the world if only we have the will to act.

If you could save a life by simply standing up, would you do it? Can one person standing up save a life from death by poverty? Perhaps not, but when 43.7 million people around the globe stood up last year it got the attention of international leaders , who have the power to finance and implement life saving policies. It all starts with one person, you, standing up. You will be joined by many millions more.

In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to the Millennium Development Goals, a set of time-bound and measurable goals for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women.

The deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals is September 2015 -- we must act now if we want to achieve these goals by their deadline.

"Four decades ago, my father, Martin Luther King Jr., proved that peaceful action of the masses can reverse the course of history, no matter how entrenched the status quo may seem. This weekend, people across the globe have the opportunity to Stand Up and Take Action to be part of a movement just as powerful, demanding that world leaders end the evil and injustice of extreme poverty.”

-- Martin Luther King III

U.S/Mexico War. An Illegal Invasion?

Did you know that until 1848 California, New Mexico and other portions of the Southwest were internationally recognized provinces of free Mexico, until the U.S. decided it wanted those provinces, declared war on Mexico, and stole them?

And How were the United States' actions to fulfill its perceived Manifest Destiny viewed by outside nations?
The attitude of Europeans and other observers was one not of fear of the United States, but a combination of lack of respect and a conviction that Americans were essentially hypocrites to talk about ideals then aim at expanding their land holdings.

This conviction developed, in part, out of American propaganda and publicity. The Americans did a great deal of talking and writing about liberty, but at the same time, they expanded the idea of Manifest Destiny. It was their destiny to expand across North America. The people poised in the way of that expansion, were aware of this, especially the Mexicans.

Mexicans were torn between two conflicting attitudes about the United States. One was an attitude of admiration, the other was an attitude of fear that the Americans would try to detach border territories from Mexico's lands.

Many Mexicans wanted to imitate the United States—its prosperity, the development of its economy and its agriculture. But they wanted to do so without losing land in the process.

Read on for the chronology of these events, and then ask yourself : "Who are the real illegals in California,Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Texas?"

Prior to 1822

What is today Mexico, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and California are all Spanish colonies.

1822

Mexican colonists, following the American revolution, rebel against Spain and win their own revolutionary war, making Mexico a free nation just like America.

1844

James Polk campaigns for the U.S. presidency, supporting expansion of U.S. territories into Mexico. February,

1845

James Polk, on his inagauguration night, confides to his Secretary of the Navy that a principal objective of his presidency is the acquisition of California, which Mexico had been refusing to sell to the U.S. at any price.

Early 1845

The Washington Union, expressing the position of James Polk, writes: "...who can arrest the torrent that will pour onward to the West? The road to California will be open to us. Who will stay the march...?" "A corps of properly organized volunteers...would invade, overrun, and occupy Mexico. They would enable us not only to take California, but to keep it."

Early 1845

John O'Sullivan, editor of the Democratic review writes it is "Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent ...for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."

Early 1845

James Polk promises Texas he will support moving the historical Texas/Mexico border at the Nueces river 150 miles south to the Rio Grande provided Texas agrees to join the union. "The traditional border between Texas and Mexico had been the Nueces River...and both the United States and Mexico had recognized that as the border."

June 30, 1845

James Polk orders troops to march south of the traditional Texas/Mexico border into Mexican inhabited territory, causing Mexicans to flee their villages and abandon their crops in terror. "Ordering troops to the Rio Grande, into territory inhabited by Mexicans, was clearly a provocation." "President Polk had incited war by sending American soldiers into what was disputed territory, historically controlled and inhabited by Mexicans." (John Schroeder , "Mr. Polk's War")

Early 1846

Colonel Hitchcock, commander of the 3rd Infantry regiment, writes in his diary: "...the United States are the aggressors....We have not one particle of right to be here....It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses....My heart is not in this business."

May 9, 1846

President Polk tells his cabinet: "...up to this time...we have heard of no open aggression by the Mexican Army."

May 10, 1846

Violence erupts between Mexican and American troops south of the Nueces River. Of course Polk claims Mexicans had fired the first shot, but in his famous "spot resolutions" congressman Abraham Lincoln repeatedly challenges president Polk to name the exact "spot" where Mexicans first attacked American troops. Polk never met the challenge.

May 11, 1846
President Polk urges congress to declare war on Mexico.

May 12, 1846

: Horace Greeley writes in the New York Tribune: "We can easily defeat the armies of Mexico, slaughter them by thousands, and pursue them perhaps to their capital; we can conquer and "annex" their territory; but what then? Who believes that a score of victories over Mexico, the "annexation" of half of her provinces, will give us more Liberty, a purer Morality, a more prosperous Industry...?

1846

Congressman Abraham Lincoln, speaking in a session of congress "...the president unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced a war with Mexico....The marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction, to you may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, un- provoking procedure; but it does not appear so to us." after war is underway, the American press comments:

February 11, 1847

. The "Congressional Globe" reports: "...We must march from ocean to ocean....We must march from Texas straight to the Pacific ocean....It is the destiny of the white race, it is the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon Race." The New York Herald: "The universal Yankee Nation can regenerate and disenthrall the people of Mexico in a few years; and we believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country." American Review writes of Mexicans "yielding to a superior population, insensibly oozing into her territories, changing her customs, and out-living, exterminating her weaker blood."

1846-1848

U.S. Army battles Mexico, not just enforcing the new Texas border at the Rio Grande but capturing Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and California (as well as marching as far south as Mexico City).

1848

Mexico surrenders on U.S. terms (U.S. takes over ownership of New Mexico, California, an expanded Texas, and more, for a token payment of $15 million, which leads the Whig Intelligencer to report: "We take nothing by conquest....Thank God").
(date unknown)
General Ulysses S. Grant calls the Mexican War "the most unjust war ever undertaken by a stronger nation against a weaker one."

Primary source: "We take nothing by conquest, Thank God", in A People's History Of the United States, 1492-Present, Howard Zinn.

The History of the U.S. and Mexico War by Manuel Payno. Book published in Mexico in 11 of August of 1848.

Two men executed in Iran. The crime being Gay.



That's ashamed to see our human evolution are still on Rock days in some Countries.
I am still completely stunned at this video, heartbroken, angered, empowered, and will fight till my death to end the ignorance around Intolerance against the Other the Undocumented, The Homosexual, the Unwanted, The Undesirables.

Before used the Law on your own Hands think.!!!!!!! We are Human Beings.

WERE ARE UNITED NATIONS STAND ON THE DECLARATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS?.



This is what we called United Nations? Why are so much ignorance from around the World from Nativists, Protectionists, Anti Immigrants labeled the Pro Immigrants, Humanitarian groups, Community leaders as a communists, Marxists, etc.
We are fighting for Human rights and Justice for all Human being and expose Society for their ignorance, Arrogance, Anti Immigrants and Inhumane sentiment for the Human being.

UNITED NATIONS MUST ENFORCE THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DO TO WE AS HUMAN BEING HAD BEEN OPPRESSED, DENIGRATED, EXPLOITED, PERSECUTED, HUMILIATED, DEGRADED, DEMONIZED, TORTURED, MURDERED, SCAPEGOATED AND CRIMINALIZED FOR SEARCHING A BETTER LIFE.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Universal Declaration for Human Rights


On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories."

PREAMBLE

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.

(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.

(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16.

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.

(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21.

(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22.

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26.

(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27.

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28.

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29.

(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30.

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein

The undesirables in PLAINFIELD, New Jersey.




Since when searching for a better life is a crime, these Lawmakers are out of humane touch, compassion, and tolerance. Families has been torn apart, kids put in jail, people sedated, people dying on detention centers, U.S. Citizens deported. And know the Lawmakers and society make them unwanted and Undesirables. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is going beyond respect for indivuals rights and humane values.
Hypocrisy, and ignorance are not Humane and family values.!!!
What's next? This must be stop.
Where are those Human rights advocates, United Nations, International Human Rigths, Religions Leaders, Immigration advocates and Leaders. God Bless America... .

A federal lawsuit challenging a landlord's right to rent to illegal immigrants has stoked tensions over immigration that have been rising for years in this diverse city of 50,000 south of Newark.

A anti-illegal immigration group filed suit against a Plainfield-based property management company earlier this month, seeking to set a legal precedent by using anti-mob legislation to crack down on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants

The civil suit alleges the company has so many undocumented tenants in their buildings that it constitutes unlawful harboring, and should be considered by the courts as a criminal enterprise that encourages illegal immigration.

The suit was brought by The Immigration Reform Law Institute - the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform - which previously backed the nation's first anti-illegal immigration ordinances in Hazelton, Pa., and Riverside, N.J. A judge overturned the Hazelton ordinance, ruling it unconstitutional, and Riverside rescinded its ordinance, with officials saying the town could not afford the legal costs of defending it.

Flor Gonzalez, head of the Plainfield-based Latin American Coalition, worries that her city may become the latest battleground in the nationwide debate over immigration. She says the suit comes at a time when tensions over the city's large immigrant population have been rising to a boil, with police ticketing day laborers, a recent spate of beatings and robberies against immigrants, and raids by federal immigration officials.

"This is the worst it's been. There is a lot of unfriendliness and disrespect against immigrants, and a lot has been happening quietly," Gonzalez said. "We need big help in this town."

Plainfield City Council President Harold Gibson said he was unaware of the lawsuit, but that city officials had been trying to address concerns over immigration. He cited as example the city's efforts to find a solution to the day laborer situation that both respects their right to look for work while addressing quality of life concerns.

"I think that the people in Plainfield, in terms of the city council and the general population, they frown on illegal immigration, they don't want undocumented persons living in the town generally speaking," he said. "However, my position is that I don't think we should set ourselves up as an immigration authority in terms of people who come from other countries and work hard to better themselves and help their families."

The Plainfield suit was filed against Connolly Properties on behalf of a former Connolly employee and two tenants who are U.S. citizens. The tenants allege they were steered into buildings occupied by illegal immigrants who were too afraid about their legal status to complain about decrepit conditions, according to Mike Hethmon, a lawyer for the group that filed the suit.

Connolly Properties has at least 45 rental complexes in northern New Jersey and Allentown, Pa.

Ron Simoncini, a spokesman for Connolly Properties, said company officials were bewildered as to why they had been targeted in a federal civil RICO lawsuit. He said he could not comment further before filing a response to the lawsuit.

Hethmon said his group decided to take on the case as part of its strategy of "attrition through enforcement," or urging illegal immigrants to leave the country by making it more difficult for them to find employment and housing in the U.S.

"We have felt for a long time that the racketeering statute would be useful in dealing with situations where businesses and commercial enterprises were heavily involved with illegal immigration," Hethmon said. "We've also felt that individual citizens, communities, neighborhoods and law-abiding small businesses have always needed tools with which they can defend themselves against the harmful affects of illegal immigration."
Using anti-racketeering laws to prosecute landlords is a legal strategy that immigration experts say they expect to be tried in other parts of the nation.

"I think it's a new tactic, because some of the other things haven't worked," said Donald W. Benson, a lawyer with the labor law firm Littler Mendelson, who has been tracking the use of RICO laws in immigration cases. "Congress couldn't reach a consensus to reform the immigration laws, states are trying to fill in the gaps and they're having varied success, and local groups are trying to work through local ordinances, so it's just one part of a much bigger picture of immigration struggles in the U.S."

The Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act - or RICO - was designed to prosecute organized crime, and was initially used to go after the Mafia and white-collar criminal syndicates. The law was expanded in 1996 to include immigration-related provisions, making things like human trafficking, harboring and smuggling illegal immigrants into the U.S. punishable felonies.

Now, lawyers in the Plainfield case - and in a few other cases where employers have been sued under RICO for hiring undocumented workers - are arguing that RICO should be more broadly interpreted to include those who hire or rent housing to illegal immigrants.

Benson said most of the attempts to use RICO in this way have been dismissed by judges in the preliminary stages, but that they were slowly gaining some traction, with one case reaching the settlement stage.

Immigrant advocates in Plainfield said they are concerned that a national anti-illegal immigration group has their city on its radar.

"I have no idea why they picked Plainfield," said Christian Estevez, a member of the Plainfield school board who also sits on Gov. Corzine's Blue Ribbon Panel on Immigrant Policy. "This has caught us by surprise."

Estevez said he and other Plainfield residents are reaching out to national immigration advocacy groups for help.

According to the 2000 census, Plainfield is about 60 percent black, a quarter white and a quarter Hispanic. In the past decade, Gonzalez said there's been a dramatic influx of Hispanic immigrants, mostly from Central America.

Plainfield Mayor Sharon M. Robinson-Briggs said she was not aware of the particulars of the lawsuit, but said immigrants deserved respect, regardless of their status.

"All our residents deserve to be treated fairly and equitably, whether they are born here or not," she said.

Gonzalez, who does not live in a Connolly property, said she was also working to craft a response the suit on behalf of immigrants in Plainfield.

"The people in this town have to understand - I speak with an accent, I think with an accent, and when I tell them my name is Flor Gonzalez, they hear 'Gonzalez' and they assume I'm undocumented," said Gonzalez, who is a legal resident. "You can say anything you want about me, but you'll need to prove it. I don't think they'll be able to win."

Anti-Immigrant Fervor, ICE Deporting More American Citizens. By Jacqueline Stevens




A headline in the San Francisco Chronicle screams, 900 Nabbed in State on Immigration Charges. The Seattle Times reports, Feds Combing Jails for Illegal Immigrants. An AP article declares, Immigration Raid in Iowa Largest Ever in US and reports 390 arrests. In 2007, more than 276,912 US residents were deported. Thanks to a recent Bush Administration crackdown, the net cast by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) is wide--so wide, it turns out, that some of those being deported are US citizens.

Is ICE an efficient law enforcement agency? Or, in the words of Robert, 38, a US citizen twice deported to Mexico, is ICE "just throwing us out for nothing"?

Consider what happened to Peter Guzman. Last year Guzman, a US citizen born in Los Angeles in 1977, drove onto the tarmac of a regional airport in his hometown of Lancaster, about eighty miles northeast of Los Angeles, boarded a charter plane without a ticket and refused to get off. Guzman was arrested and sentenced, and served forty-one days in a Los Angeles County jail. According to his lawyer, Mark Rosenbaum of the Southern California ACLU, Guzman was excited about being released in time for his brother's July wedding in Las Vegas. "It was a big deal to Peter. He was going to be the best man." It never occurred to Guzman that in July he'd be eating garbage and bathing in the Tijuana River.

But on May 11, 2007, he called his family and said he'd been deported. According to the ACLU lawsuit, before his sister-in-law could find out exactly where he was and give him instructions, the line was cut. She overheard him ask, "Where am I?"

In early August 2007, after Guzman had spent three months trying to return, his appeal to a border agent in Calexico was finally successful: Guzman was arrested for missing his first probation hearing and brought back to Los Angeles. ICE says it has Guzman's signature on a voluntary departure agreement. Guzman's attorneys say the signature was coerced and that it is never legal to deport a US citizen.

Gary Mead, ICE assistant director for detention and removal, testified at a Congressional hearing in February that Guzman's case is unique. But California Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren calls Guzman the "poster child" for an epidemic of detaining and deporting US citizens by ICE. Kara Hartzler, an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP), agrees with Lofgren.
Last year Hartzler's staff of six attorneys provided presentations and occasionally individual advice to more than 8,000 detainees in southern Arizona. About 10 percent of people ICE detains nationwide are sent to Florence and nearby Eloy, about sixty miles south of Phoenix. Hartzler testified, "The deportation of US citizens is not happening monthly, or weekly, but every day."

ICE does not keep records on cases in which detainees claim to be US citizens. If larger trends are consistent with the pattern in Hartzler's caseload, since 2004 ICE has held between 3,500 and 10,000 US citizens in detention facilities and deported about half. US citizens are a small percentage of ICE detentions for this period, which totaled around 1 million, but in absolute terms the figure is staggering.

Phone interviews suggest the higher end may be more accurate. I called fifteen private immigration attorneys whose names appear on a Justice Department list of pro bono attorneys in Los Angeles and left messages asking whether they had clients in the past three years who were US citizens held in ICE detention for at least one month. Seven of them called back, each describing one to four clients who meet these criteria. Using these accounts, and those from attorneys at three nonprofit immigration clinics, I documented thirty-one cases from across the country of US citizens, eight born here, incarcerated as aliens for one month to five years. Fourteen were deported. Five remain in detention.

Between 2001 and 2007 Robert, who requested that his last name be withheld, was incarcerated for five years and deported to Tijuana twice because ICE refused to believe he was a US citizen. Robert described meeting seventeen other US citizens in ICE detention. Robert was born in Mexico in 1970 and orphaned at age 4. When he was 8 his uncle from Baldwin Park, California, adopted him. In 1983 he became a legal permanent resident, automatically acquiring US citizenship.

In 2000 Robert was arrested for a DWI and evading arrest. After serving sixteen months, he was transferred to El Centro Detention Facility, about 100 miles east of San Diego, where ICE set about deporting him as a criminal alien.

Robert told the court and his attorney, to whom he paid $5,000, that he was a US citizen, but his lawyer did not submit the necessary documents, and Robert lost the case. Robert believed an appeal was hopeless. The year he'd spent in detention was enough: "I decided to leave and come back [to the United States] the next day."

In February 2002 Robert disembarked from the ICE van in Tijuana with an order forever banishing him from the United States. The next day his sister-in-law picked him up and they drove into the United States together, telling the border agent they were US citizens, which they are. They drove to their homes in a Los Angeles suburb.

In 2003 Robert, fearful of being turned over to ICE, sped away from a police car signaling him to pull over. He was sent to a deportation center in Chino and had a video hearing: "You face the TV and some little judge is inside TV talking to you." He explained that he was a US citizen. The little judge ruled otherwise and told Robert an appeal would take nine months. Robert decided to repeat the 2002 routine. ICE again dropped him off in Tijuana.

Robert told the US patrol agent apprehending him during the middle of the night in the hills of El Centro, "I am a US citizen." The agent charged Robert with falsely impersonating a US citizen and other felonies associated with an illegal border crossing. The public defender told Robert to plead guilty to the impersonation charge, or he'd face additional time for entering the United States as an illegal immigrant. "I said, 'No, I can't. There's no way. I'm trying to tell you, my dad is a US citizen. I am a US citizen.' I told the judge that the things they're charging me with are not true, but I have no choice and if that's what it will take for me to go faster to my family, I will plead to that." Robert served three years for falsely impersonating a US citizen.

In 2006 Robert was released into ICE custody at Terminal Island in San Pedro. At this hearing the immigration judge considered the information Robert had assembled in the prison library and realized he was probably a US citizen. Robert was released on bond to find the relevant documents and a lawyer. A few months later Robert and his new attorney, Veronica Villegas, went to the Los Angeles United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office. Villegas told me, "The agent looked at his papers and said, 'Congratulations! You've been a US citizen since 1983.'"

ICE has no jurisdiction over US citizens. If someone claims birth in the United States, as Guzman did, then ICE agents must have a "reasonable suspicion" for disbelief before detaining him. Racial profiling doesn't count. "Not speaking English, not being white and appearing to be from a Central American country is not enough," says Rebecca Musarra, of the Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic of Washington College of Law. In practice, ICE detains thousands of people who were born in the United States and forces them to prove citizenship. According to Mario Quiroz at Casa de Maryland, which assists low-income Latinos, "People who have Spanish names, are five-four, have black hair, get profiled. At the end of the day, [ICE] only says, 'Oops, we made a mistake.' But somebody's life was messed up."

Proving citizenship can be tough, especially when the people who might help can't find you. An immigration judge, who requested anonymity, told me it was "notoriously common for people to be whisked away and nobody knows where they are. When you just want to get rid of someone, you don't want their family to know where they are. It's something that would happen in a Third World country. It's not something that should happen [here]."

Pastor Aquiles Rojas agrees. On October 11, 2007, he went to pick up his brother-in-law from a two-month sentence at the Honor Farm jail in Modesto, California. René Saldivar, 38, wasn't there. "They told me that immigration had taken him, and they didn't know where he was," says Rojas. He called everywhere: San Francisco, Sacramento, Arizona. "They told me they had no record of my brother-in-law. We thought maybe he was in Mexico, but we couldn't figure out why he didn't call. Certainly he was in trouble. We just wanted to find out where he's at." Saldivar's family was especially concerned because of Saldivar's impaired psychological condition.

After the family's five-month vigil, Saldivar called. He was in the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. Saldivar told me, "I didn't have no money and no way of talking to nobody." The center allows collect calls but cellphone plans will not accept them. Eventually a stranger lent Saldivar a calling card. In February Saldivar explained his ancestry to an immigration judge, who concluded that Saldivar most likely was a foreign-born citizen--like John McCain and George Romney--and sent the case to FIRRP.

Hartzler told me she thought she could get Saldivar released at his hearing on April 9, but she had to track down the Social Security employment records of her client's deceased father to prove his citizenship. She wrote, "I don't think it's appropriate for government proceedings with consequences as severe as lifetime deportation to rely on nonprofit organizations for their safeguards. For every René, there's dozens of people with valid claims to US citizenship who are deported."

Detainees with psychological disabilities find it especially hard to navigate their release, but according to a FIRRP social worker, Erin Maxwell, "Even people who are not diagnosably mentally ill or developmentally challenged still don't really get [why they're in deportation proceedings], and it can be very scary." One client of hers was arrested for possessing drug paraphernalia and then detained at Eloy for four months. "He didn't bring up his citizenship with the judge," Maxwell said. "Then I met with him and he said, 'I don't know why this is happening. Both my parents are US citizens.'"

According to Nancy Morawetz, a New York University Law School professor supervising the Immigrant Rights Clinic, "a lot of people don't know they're citizens." The rules for foreign-born citizenship are complicated. Different laws apply to different years of birth. Since the state does not guarantee legal representation in civil cases, 90 to 95 percent of detainees lack attorneys. Even the immigration lawyers seem not to understand the laws, the immigration judge told me. So it's not surprising that Saldivar's eleven siblings are just learning that they, too, are US citizens.

For the millions of US citizens who are foreign-born, court precedents shift the burden of proving citizenship onto them. But the Fourteenth Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" should be treated equally. Therefore, the Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic is planning to challenge the constitutionality of the burden of proof placed on US citizens born abroad.

Finally, it was April 9, and Saldivar had his hearing, where his documentation was deemed insufficient. The Social Security Administration's annual employment records in Arizona went back only to 1959. ICE wanted the additional two years to verify Isidoro Saldivar's US residence the entire ten years before René's birth in 1967. Hartzler was hoping the Washington office had the fifty-one-year-old employment records. René would begin his eighth month in detention.

Giving Saldivar his liberty while ICE figured out the paperwork would have made sense because of his family's roots in Stanislaus County, going back to 1940. In addition, NYU's Morawetz says that doing otherwise may be unlawful: "I believe they don't have the power to put a detainer on someone and figure it out later. It's an abuse of the detention power. They only have jurisdiction over people who are noncitizens."

When ICE detains and deports US citizens, it is not only illogical; it also can be false imprisonment, a felony. When I asked Rosenbaum, Guzman's ACLU attorney, why the government wasn't prosecuting ICE agents for civil rights and criminal violations, he laughed and said, "Good luck!" Rosenbaum said the ACLU's complaint was alleging false imprisonment, but US Attorneys were defending the government in the lawsuit. No US Attorneys have stepped forward to prosecute ICE agents. Meanwhile, immigration judges, many of whom are patronage appointments from the Bush Administration or former ICE agents, entertain the flimsiest of arguments on behalf of deportation.

The case of Anna (not her real name), arrested in Phoenix on October 8, 2007, for prostitution, is particularly tragic. When the police asked for her place of birth she answered, "Paris." When applying under another name for a US passport, in 1991, Anna wrote that she was from Tehran. According to Hartzler, Anna also claims JFK is her father and the Pope is her father. Anna is from France the way that Borat is from Kazakhstan. In February 2007 an Arizona Superior Court dismissed drug charges against Anna, finding her "unable to understand the nature of the proceedings" as well as "criminally incompetent and a danger to herself and others." Anna has been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic.

On October 9, based only on her claim to have been born in Paris, Anna was taken to the Eloy Detention Center, where an ICE agent took full note of her US passport application and "8 different aliases, and 2 SSNs." On February 20 immigration judge Thomas Michael O'Leary, who had Anna's records, including the diagnoses of the court psychiatrists, issued an order to remove Anna from the country. The French consulate refused to issue travel documents for her, telling ICE that Anna is not a French citizen. Having been possibly stripped of her citizenship rights in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Americans With Disabilities Act, Anna will be held in detention for at least three months. If released, she is not functional enough to attend the meetings ICE requires of aliens remaining in the country with deportation orders. A warrant for her arrest will be issued, and in her next encounter with law enforcement the warrant will trigger an arrest. Kristine Brisson, the ICE agent initiating Anna's removal, did not return messages requesting comment. Judge O'Leary has been promoted to run the Tucson Immigration Court.

Anna's case may seem unusual, but US citizens with mental disabilities reflect the criminal inmate population ICE targets. According to a 2006 Justice Department press release, about 40 percent of the incarcerated population has "symptoms of mania." Twenty-four percent of the jail population and 15 percent of state prisoners have a "psychotic disorder, such as delusions or hallucinations." Rachel Rosenbloom of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice in Boston testified to Congress, "It is not uncommon for someone who is mentally ill and suffering from delusions to state that he or she was born abroad." By using the incarcerated population as its hunting grounds, ICE is inevitably going to snare mentally ill US citizens. The immigration judge observed, "If you don't have your marbles, or someone on the outside, there's no safety net."

Carlos Barrios, a Los Angeles private attorney who has represented US citizens in detention, notes, "It is strange. How can they keep a person detained in an immigration facility if they're a citizen?"

In response to different versions of this question from members of Congress in February, ICE's Mead pretended that the events brought before him did not exist. He repeated the law stating that ICE has no jurisdiction over US citizens, and then affected ignorance of ICE agents detaining US citizens. Mead was in the same room as US citizens testifying to ICE abuse. At one point Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez exploded in frustration over Mead's failure to have any comment on a racial-profiling incident in Chicago during which ICE detained more than 100 Latino men: "Thank you very much for not knowing any of the information about a very well-publicized case on which Secretary Chertoff has been well informed!"

The official line, as ICE public affairs officer Brandon Alvarez-Montgomery explained it to me, is that ICE does not "knowingly detain US citizens." This is false. Hartzler showed an ICE attorney the Minnesota birth certificate of Thomas Warziniack, and yet ICE held him for two weeks until his hearing. Morawetz described a citizen in detention whose attorney faxed a New York birth certificate "and detention says, 'How do we know this is that person's record?'" even though the law requires ICE to prove otherwise.

While Saldivar remained in detention, I sent Alvarez-Montgomery the details of his case, explaining that Social Security employment records for Saldivar's father did not exist before 1959. He responded, "Anyone who[se] first year of earnings were recorded between 1937 to the present will appear on the Social Security statement. For this case, it's safe to assume that 1959 was the first year of recorded earnings for his father."

Alvarez-Montgomery was wrong. Later, using ancestry.com, I found a Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) record for Isidoro Saldivar from before 1951. I sent it to Alvarez-Montgomery and other ICE officials. They did not reply or release René. I sent it to Hartzler, who contacted the RRB, which provided records of "compensation received by René's father each year from 1947 to 1958, as well as a copy of his application for a Social Security card in 1947." Hartzler gave these to ICE, which held René for six more days, releasing him on April 28.

Shortly after that I asked Saldivar, who was drywalling his sister's home in Chowchilla, how he understood what happened. "Someone took me to prison, even though I had my papers. It's bad. It's not fair," he told me. ICE alleged that René lacked legal permission to reside in the United States. Even if ICE is correct, the charge of undocumented residence is a minor civil infraction that requires release to be disputed and is not a crime. ICE's false imprisonment of US citizens and other legal residents, however, is a serious crime.

A tribute for those who are not here and for those who's still continue fighting for the Civil and Human rights.
Hopefully we can learn from others their tolerance, understanding, compassion for humanity, civil and profounded love for others. Thank youuuuuuuuu.

Poor support and the military government's refusal to allow foreign aid workers have left most of the delta's survivors living in miserable conditions.



YANGON, Myanmar - Heavy rains and another potentially powerful storm headed toward Myanmar's cyclone-devastated delta on Wednesday. The U.N. warned that inadequate relief efforts could lead to a second wave of deaths among the estimated 2 million survivors.

The International Red Cross said in a new estimate that the death toll already may be between 68,833 and 127,990.

The Red Cross says it arrived at the number by adding figures gathered in affected areas by other aid groups and organizations and extrapolating the total.

The Myanmar junta says Cyclone Nargis left at least 34,273 dead and 27,838 missing. U.N. agencies and other groups have been able to reach only 270,000 people so far.

The country's junta told visiting Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, however, that it is in control of the relief operations and doesn't need foreign experts.

Samak visited a government relief center in Yangon and told reporters after returning to Bangkok that the junta has given him the "guarantee" that there are no disease outbreaks and no starvation among the cyclone survivors.

"They have their own team to cope with the situation," Samak said, citing Myanmar Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein. "From what I have seen I am impressed with their management."

International agencies say bottlenecks, poor logistics, limited infrastructure and the military government's refusal to allow foreign aid workers have left most of the delta's survivors living in miserable conditions without food or clean water. The government's efforts have been criticized as woefully slow.

Rain has been has been pounding the cyclone-hit area all week, and more is expected in the coming days, compounding the already difficult task of moving supplies over ruined roads. It also poses significant health risks to survivors of the May 3 cyclone.

"The weather will exacerbate humanitarian conditions for the homeless, many of whom are living under an open sky," said Elizabeth Griffin, a director of Catholic Relief Services from Baltimore. "Thankfully, no serious outbreaks of bacterial, water or mosquito borne diseases have been reported, but this could change in the next two to three weeks."

The U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center said there is a good chance that "a significant tropical cyclone" will form within the next 24 hours and head across the Irrawaddy delta area.

But other forecasters were unwilling to make such a prediction.

Dr. Thawat Sutharacha of Thailand's Public Health Ministry said Wednesday the junta has given permission to a Thai medical team to go to the cyclone-hit delta.

The government separately announced that it will allow 160 relief workers from neighboring countries — India, China, Bangladesh, and Thailand — to come to Myanmar, but it is not clear if they include the Thai medics or whether they will be allowed to travel to the delta.

"The government has a responsibility to assist their people in the event of a natural disaster," said Amanda Pitt, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs.

"We are here to do what we can and facilitate their efforts and scale up their response. It is clearly inadequate and we do not want to see a second wave of death as a result of that not being scaled up," she said.

The news of a possible second cyclone was not broadcast by Myanmar's state-controlled media. But Yangon residents picked up the news on foreign broadcasts and on the Internet.

"I prayed to the Lord Buddha, 'please save us from another cyclone. Not just me but all of Myanmar,'" said Min Min, a rickshaw driver, whose house was destroyed in Cyclone Nargis. Min Min, his wife and three children now live on their wrecked premises under plastic sheets.

Soldiers have barred foreign aid workers from reaching cyclone survivors in the hardest-hit areas, but gave access to an International Red Cross representative who returned to Yangon on Tuesday.

Bridget Gardner, the agency's country head, described tremendous devastation but also selflessness, as survivors joined in the rescue efforts.

"People who have come here having lost their homes in rural areas have volunteered to work as first aiders. They are humanitarian heroes," said Gardner.

Gardner's team visited five locations in the Irrawaddy delta. In one of them, they saw 10,000 people living without shelter as rain tumbled from the sky.

"The town of Labutta is unrecognizable. I have been here before and now, with the extent of the damage and the crowds of displaced people, it's a different place," Gardner was quoted as saying in a statement by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Some survivors of Cyclone Nargis were reportedly getting poor-quality or spoiled food, rather than nutrition-rich biscuits sent by international donors, adding to suspicions that the junta may be misappropriating foreign aid.

The military, which has ruled since 1962, has taken control of most supplies sent by other countries, including the United States, which began its third day of aid delivery Wednesday as five more giant C-130 transport planes loaded with emergency supplies headed to Myanmar.

Lt. Col. Douglas Powell, a spokesman for what has been dubbed operation Caring Relief, said a total of 197,080 pounds of provisions have been sent into Myanmar on the eight U.S. military flights that have been cleared to go.

Most of the provisions have been blankets, mosquito nets, plastic sheets and water.

In Washington, the State Department renewed U.S. appeals for the junta to allow in outside disaster relief experts and more assistance.

"We want to see the regime do more to allow the outside world to be able to help people in need in that country," deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters. "This is not a political issue, this really is simply a humanitarian issue."

Myanmar has agreed to attend an emergency meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers next week to discuss problems in getting foreign aid into the country, Asian diplomats said Wednesday.

Diplomats from the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar, are to hold the meeting Monday in Singapore, said two Manila-based Southeast Asian diplomats knowledgeable about preparations for the gathering.

Singapore, which currently heads the ASEAN bloc, organized the meeting after getting a nod from Myanmar, which has committed to sending its foreign minister, according to one of the diplomats. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.

Immigration around the globe: Thailand. Human rights and exert pressure on the Lao government to end human rights violations committed against Hmong living in the jungle.



Over the years Thailand has been providing temporary protection to hundreds of thousands of people who have fled persecution and conflict in neighbouring Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

For decades, Thailand has served as the main hosting country in the region for Lao Hmong asylum-seekers. The total number of Lao Hmong seeking international protection in Thailand is not clear, but some 7,000 people claiming to have fled Laos due to a well-founded fear of being persecuted currently reside in an informal refugee settlement in Huay Nam Khao, in northern Phetchabun province. Much smaller numbers live in other places across the country, notably in the border areas and the greater Bangkok region.

The vast majority of Lao Hmong in Thailand have not had access to a determination process to assess their refugee claims, as so far, UNHCR has not had access to the refugee camp in Huay Nam Khao. In consequence, it is not known how many of these are in need of international protection. As long as the status of these people is unknown, any attempts to return them to Laos places the Thai government at risk of breaching its obligations under international law.

In the past 15 months at least around 100 individuals have been unlawfully deported back to Laos. On three occasions Lao Hmong asylum-seekers were rounded up and held either at police stations or in Immigration Detention Centres for some time inside Thailand before being handed over to authorities in Laos.

Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Thai authorities not to forcibly return people who would be at risk of severe human rights violations, including torture, in keeping with Thailand's obligations under inter¬national law, inclu¬ding under the ICCPR, to which Thailand is a state party.(49) The Human Rights Committee, the body entrusted under the Covenant with monito¬ring its applica¬tion by states parties, has main¬tained that Article 7 of the Covenant provides an absolute prohibition on return to torture or other ill-treatment. In its General Comment on Article 7, the HRC stated the following:

In the view of the Committee, States parties must not expose individuals to the danger of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment upon return to another country by way of their extradition, expulsion or refoulement.(50)

Non-refoulement is a principle of customary international law which is binding on all states regardless of whether or not they have ratified a relevant treaty, such as 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.

At the time of writing, around 350 Lao Hmong men, women and children are held in Thai detention and face the risk of imminent deportation. At least 153 of them are recognized refugees under UNHCR's mandate, but the majority of them have not had access to a screening process to have their protection needs ascertained.

One attempt has already been made at deporting the recognised refugees, in clear breach of international law:

In the morning of 30 January 2007 following a bilateral agreement between Thailand and Laos reached some six weeks earlier, authorities attempted to deport 153 refugees. Immigration officials dragged women and girls crying and screaming out of their cell in the Immigration Detention Centre in the north-eastern town of Nong Khai where they had been held since 17 November. They were then loaded onto buses that drove them to the Lao border. Two of the women were eight months pregnant and one had a baby who had been born weeks earlier in the detention centre.

Two seriously sick men were also put into vehicles, after having been taken from their hospital beds where one had been receiving care for a serious liver condition and another for a bullet wound to the face.

The women and sick men were kept in the buses at the border awaiting the men, who had barricaded themselves in the male cell in an attempt to evade deportation. Police tried to saw through the bars to gain access to the cell. Witnesses also reported that police released a gas-like substance, possibly tear gas, three times, despite the fact that 20 children, all boys, were in the cell.

By afternoon, the deportation attempt was halted, a decision that Amnesty International welcomed. The women, girls and sick men were later taken back to the immigration detention centre at Nong Khai. Thai authorities said they would not deport the refugees against their will, but instead pledged to agree to them being resettled in third countries.

Meanwhile, Lao government spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy blamed the Thai government for having been ill-prepared ahead of the deportation and urged for the deportation to go ahead:

"The Lao side requests Thailand continue to ready the group for repatriation and ensure the security of Lao officials who will accompany the group." (51)

Thai authorities have yet to confirm that the deportation of these refugees, which with a new-born now number 154, has been permanently halted. Amnesty International remains concerned about their safety. The organisation is also concerned about the possible risk of forcible return of many other Lao Hmong people who may also be in need of international protection.

Recommendations

Amnesty International makes the following recommendations:

To the Lao authorities

• Immediately stop all armed attacks against Hmong people living in the jungle;

• Ensure that the security forces immediately end the use of arbitrary detention, rape and torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees, and in particular the unlawful detention and ill-treatment of children;

• Ensure prompt, independent and impartial investigation of all allegations of attacks by the security forces on Hmong living in jungle encampments or other unlawful use of force against them, including killings, torture or other ill-treatment, rape and other sexual abuse, and bring the perpetrators to justice in proceedings which meet international standards of fairness and without the imposition of the death penalty;

• Enable the people living in jungle encampments to realise their basic economic, social and cultural rights, in particular their right to an adequate standard of living, including access to food, water, shelter, and essential health care, including through permitting access by international humanitarian organisations to the areas of concern;

• Allow and assist those Hmong who want to reintegrate into mainstream society and have not committed any internationally recognizably criminal offence to do so, while ensuring respect for their human rights during this process, including the right to life, liberty and security of person, an adequate standard of living, and liberty of movement and freedom to choose their place of residence. Any resettlement should be with the free and informed consent of those affected who should be involved in the planning and management of their relocation;

• Allow international monitoring, including by UN human rights bodies and experts, of such reintegration.

To the Thai authorities

• Ensure that under no circumstances persons are returned to Laos if they face a risk of serious human rights violations, including violations of the right to life, torture or other ill-treatment;

• Ensure that Lao Hmong asylum seekers inside Thailand, including approximately 7,000 Lao Hmong at the camp in Huay Nam Khao, are provided access to a fair determination process in order for their protection claims to be assessed either by UNHCR or national bodies, in keeping with international human rights law and international refugee law;

• Ensure that those who are in need of international protection inside Thailand are provided with such protection and that all attempts at finding durable solutions, including local integration and resettlement are explored.

To UN agencies and the international community

Whenever possible open up dialogue with the Lao authorities about human rights and exert pressure on the Lao government to end human rights violations committed against Hmong living in the jungle;

Call on the Lao government to accept independent monitoring of the concerned areas inside the Lao jungles and areas where groups from the jungle have resettled so as to ascertain their needs and assure their well-being;

Those states in a position to do so make clear to the Lao government their willingness to provide international assistance to support the authorities in meeting its minimum core obligations with regard to ensuring the economic, social and cultural rights of the groups in the jungle as well as of those who reintegrate in to the mainstream

Immigration around the Globe: Indonesia. Indonesia deports four over Timor attack.




Four former East Timorese soldiers deported from Indonesia face jail terms of up to 25 years if they are convicted over attacks on East Timor's leaders, prosecutors say.

Indonesia on Monday deported the four men under heavy security, two weeks after they were caught in Indonesia's West Timor and the capital Jakarta.

The men fled East Timor after the February 11 attacks on East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.

East Timor's Prosecutor General Longuinos Monteiro said the men would be interrogated in Dili later Monday.
They are Jose Gomez, 28; Edigio Lay Kalfayo, 26; Ismael Sansao Monis Soares, 26 and Tito Tilman, 25.

Their cases would be presented to a Dili court on Tuesday to determine their detention status, he said.

"We haven't investigated them here. After they arrive in Dili then they will be questioned," Monteiro told reporters in Bali, where the group transited before flying to East Timor.

"This case has a maximum penalty of 25 years for main perpetrators, and less for the accomplices.

"The charges we will go with are premeditated murder."

Monteiro said the men were former soldiers under the command of slain rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, who was shot dead in the February attack on the president's house.

He said the group crossed illegally into Indonesia using the "mice route", along the 239km border.

"They went through the land border, which is very long (and) without security," Monteiro said.

The men's deportation comes almost a week after 12 other rebels, including their leader Gastao Salsinha, surrendered in Dili.

Ramos Horta, who was shot twice in the attack on his home, said last month that some others involved in the attempt on his life may also have fled to Australia.

The 58-year-old head of state also said "elements" outside the country had provided support to fugitive rebel leader Reinado for at least a year, including money, communications equipment and clothing.

Ramos Horta has made a fresh appeal for his countrymen to stop messing about with violence and weapons in East Timor, which has been plagued by instability since gaining independence from Indonesia in 2002.

Meanwhile, East Timor's major opposition party Fretilin has taken steps to form a government in the future.

Fretilin said one of the government's ruling political parties, the Timorese Social Democratic Association (ASDT), had quit the governing coalition, and formed an alliance with Fretilin instead.

In a joint statement, the two parties branded the current government, headed by Gusmao, as "full of nepotism, corruption, collusion and injustice

Expects 10,000 deaths in cyclone. Hundreds of thousands 'in dire need'





YANGON, Myanmar - The death toll from the cyclone that ravaged Myanmar is expected to reach 10,000, a top official said Monday, with at least 4,000 people already listed as killed and nearly 3,000 others unaccounted for.

Foreign Minister Nyan Win told foreign diplomats at a briefing that the death toll could reach 10,000, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors.

“The basic message was that they believe the provisional death toll was about 10,000 with 3,000 missing,” a diplomat present at the meeting told Reuters in Bangkok.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma, early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph, leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

In the former capital Yangon, food and fuel prices have soared as aid agencies scrambled to deliver emergency supplies and assess the damage in the five declared disaster zones, home to 24 million people.

The government had previously put the death toll countrywide at 351 before increasing it Monday to 3,939.

A radio station broadcasting from the country’s capital, Naypyitaw, said that 2,879 more people are unaccounted for in a single town, Bogalay, in the country’s low-lying Irrawaddy River delta area where the storm wreaked the most havoc.

“Reports are coming out of the delta coast, particularly the Irrawaddy region, that in some villages up to 95 percent of houses have been destroyed,” said Matthew Cochrane at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ Geneva headquarters.

“Widespread destruction is obviously making it more difficult to get aid to people who need it most,” said Michael Annear, regional disaster management coordinator for the federation.

The situation in the countryside remained unclear because of poor communications and roads left impassable by the storm.

Hundreds of thousands 'in dire need'

“It’s clear that we’re dealing with a very serious situation. The full extent of the impact and needs will require an extensive on-the-ground assessment,” said Richard Horsey, a spokesman in Bangkok, Thailand, for United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“What is clear at this point is that there are several hundred thousands of people in dire need of shelter and clean drinking water,” Horsey said.

U.N. agencies were working with the Red Cross and other organizations to see how it can help those affected by the cyclone. UNICEF spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said the U.N. children’s agency alone has five teams assessing the situation in the country.

The World Food Program has pre-positioned 500 tons of food in Yangon and plans to bring in more relief supplies, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

At a meeting with foreign diplomats and representatives of U.N. and international aid agencies, Myanmar’s foreign ministry officials said they welcomed international humanitarian assistance and urgently need roofing materials, plastic sheets and temporary tents, medicine, water purifying tablets, blankets and mosquito nets.

Neighboring Thailand announced that it would fly some aid in Tuesday.

In Washington, the State Department said the U.S. Embassy in Yangon had authorized an emergency contribution of $250,000 to help with relief efforts. But it added that the Myanmar government initially had refused to allow a U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team into the country to assess damage.

“We have a DART team that is standing by and ready to go into Burma to help try to assess needs there,” deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters. “As of this moment, the Burmese government has not given them permission, however, to go into the country so that is a barrier to us being able to move forward.”

Two Indian naval ships loaded with food, tents, blankets, clothing and medicines would sail for Yangon soon, Indian’s Ministry of External Affairs said.

Largest city hit hard

The cyclone blew roofs off hospitals and schools and cut electricity in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon. Older citizens said they had never seen the city of some 6.5 million so devastated in their lifetimes.

With the city’s already unstable electricity supply virtually nonfunctional, citizens lined up to buy candles, which doubled in price, and water since lack of electricity-driven pumps left most households dry. Some walked to the city’s lakes to wash.

Many roofs were ripped off even sturdy buildings, suggesting damage would be severe in the shanty towns that lie on the outskirts of the city of 5 million people.

At the city’s notorious Insein prison, soldiers and police killed 36 prisoners to quell a riot that started when inmates were herded into a large hall and started a fire to try to keep warm, a Thailand-based human rights group said.

State television showed military and police units on rescue and cleanup operations in Yangon, but residents complained the junta’s response was weak.

“Where are the soldiers and police? They were very quick and aggressive when there were protests in the streets last year,” a retired government worker told Reuters, referring to protests led by Buddhist monks last year that were swiftly crushed
Hotels and richer families were using private generators but only sparingly, given the soaring price of fuel.

Many stayed away from their jobs, either because they could not find transportation or because they had to seek food and shelter for their families.

“Without my daily earning, just survival has become a big problem for us,” said Tin Hla, who normally repairs umbrellas at a roadside stand.

With his home destroyed by the storm, Tin Hla said he has had to place his family of five into one of the monasteries that have offered temporary shelter to those left homeless.

His entire morning was taken up with looking for water and some food to buy, ending up with three chicken eggs that cost double the normal price.

Vote to go ahead Saturday

Despite the havoc wreaked by Nargis, the military government indicated that a referendum on the country’s draft constitution would proceed as planned on May 10.

“It’s only a few days left before the coming referendum and people are eager to cast their vote,” the state-owned newspaper Myanma Ahlin said Monday.

At the meeting with diplomats, Relief Minister Maj. Gen. Maung Maung Swe said the vote could be postponed by “a few days” in the worst-affected areas. However, the foreign minister intervened to say the matter would be decided by the official referendum commission.

Pro-democracy groups in the country and many international critics have branded the constitution as merely a tool for the military’s continued grip on power.

Should the junta be seen as failing disaster victims, voters who already blame the regime for ruining the economy and squashing democracy could take out their frustrations at the ballot box.

The secretive military, bunkered in their isolated new capital of Naypyidaw, 240 miles north of Yangon, has ruled for 46 years and has been shunned by Western governments after a violent crackdown on Buddhist monk-led protests last September

Darfur the silence genocide.

The UN security council is being criticised for "shameful silence" over the crisis in Darfur, which is now in its sixth year. The denouncement comes after attacks in Sudan's Darfur region went overlooked by the security council. HRW wants a probe into the killings and penalties for those committing them.

"HRW said that in western Darfur 'hundreds of civilians' have been killed, tens of thousands have been displaced and provision of 'life-saving humanitarian assistance' has been prevented from reaching the worst affected areas by government attacks on villages since February 8. 'The council's inaction has given Sudan a green light to continue attacking civilian targets, flouting international law and security council resolutions' and obstructing the deployment of a UN-mandated peacekeeping force.

The conflict in Darfur has raged since 2003 when anti-government forces attempted to gain a greater regional share of power.

Fighting has claimed 200,000 lives and displaced 2.2 million people, according to UN estimates."