ABF participates in Amnesty International 50th Year Birthday Celebration in Dallas
ABF was pleased to be invited to participate in the 50th year birthday celebration of Amnesty International in Dallas, Texas on September 15, 2011. At the event, ABF staff had the opportunity to meet Mr. Larry Cox, the Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, and Professor Rick Halpern, Program Director of the Embrey Human Rights Program at Southern Methodist University, among other human rights advocates.
At the event, the ABF Interrupted Lives documentary was screened, which tells of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s violent oppression of students and puts the political unrest in Iran in a historic perspective. ABF also showed a student slideshow, which is drawn from a list of more than 1,600 executed high school and university students in the Omid Memorial and from ABF’s list of more than 11,000 students punished or intimidated by the Islamic Republic’s judiciary, security and paramilitary forces, university disciplinary committees, and ideological and political bureaus.
ABF collected signatures for the petition to the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader demanding that students are released from prison and that Iran’s authorities stop punishing students for trying to demand their human rights, and collected letters written to students in prison in Iran who have been arbitrarily detained for voicing their opinion.
For more information about the event, please visit the SMU Meadows School of Arts write-up of the event.
ABF staff and Amnesty International USA Executive Director Larry Cox.
The "Interrupted Lives" student slideshow is displayed at the SMU Amnesty International event.
ABF staff and volunteers (Kyle Berkemeier and Rama Mohtadi) participate in the Amnesty International event at SMU.
SMU Professor Halprin speaks at the Amnesty International 50th year celebration.
ABF volunteer Rama Mohtadi shows the "Interrupted Lives" documentary at the SMU Amnesty International anniversary celebration.
Greetings:
I am a philosophy instructor at Richland College in northeast Dallas and I am currently teaching a Philosophy of Religion course with my friend and colleague, Jon Ewing, who is a religion instructor at Richland.
On Thursday, April 5th we are planning to have a panel discussion on human rights. Dr. Rick Halpern from SMU will be participating as well as someone from Catholic Charities.
I learned of your work through one of my students Ateen Khakpour who I believe has been active in your group.
From what Ateen tell me and from what I have read on your website, it would be ideal to have a person from your organization serve as a third panelists.
The panel will be from 9:30-ll:00 a.m. on April 5 at Richland College in Sabine Hall 118. Our format is to have each panelist make a 5-7 minute statement and then to open the session up for discussion among the panelists as well as questions from the audience. While there are about 25 students in the class, we usually have quite a number of other students (between 75-80). We are eager to get publicity out so we can have a good sized audience.
Could you recommend someone who might be willing to take on this assignment. We appreciate your assistance very much.
Best wishes,
Robert Bennett
Philosophy Instructor
Richland College
Phone: 214-521-5084
e-mail: rbennett@dcccd.edu