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Demand
release of jailed democracy fighter Rene Civil!
Don't
let them silence the voices of Haiti's poor majority!
Free
Rene and all political prisoners
1.
The Illegal Political Arrest -- Late in the night of August
25-26 Rene Civil, a leading grassroots activist with
Haiti's Lavalas movement, was illegally arrested by Haitian
police without a warrant. On August 28, Civil was
interrogated by the new prosecutor of Port-au-Prince, Claudy
Gassant, a well-known opponent of Lavalas, and thrown in the
National Penitentiary. Brother Rene is now one of
more than a thousand political prisoners reportedly
languishing in Haiti's prisons.
As
he left the court building, Rene Civil defiantly thrust his
manacled hands in the air and said: "Liberty or death. I
have been arrested unjustly, with false accusations, because I
defend democracy and the return of President Aristide. This is
a political arrest," according to a report on HaitiWebs. The
same report quoted Lavalas sources as saying "the arrest is
part of a plan to throw 200 Lavalas leaders into prison,"
and that certain state officials left over from the coup
government were behind the plot.
2.
The Fake Charges -- Rene Civil faces three charges
-- all bogus. The first, "use of a stolen vehicle,"
involves a car Civil has owned for six years and had
registered with the police. [While Civil was in exile, the
police themselves seized the car and used it for two years.
Civil had only recently reclaimed his car.] The second charge
relates to two pistols in the possession of others in the car,
not Mr. Civil. The third charge, "association with
wrongdoers," is a vague conspiracy charge often used to
keep democracy activists in prison -- including
Father Gerard Jean-Juste and former Prime Minister Yvon
Neptune -- without a shred of evidence that they
committed any crime.
3.
The Hounding of Rene Civil -- After the February 29, 2004
kidnapping and coup d'etat that overthrew the democratically
elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Rene
Civil went into exile for two years in the Dominican
Republic. On his return to Haiti on May 12, 2006 he was
arrested at the border and jailed for two weeks -- on an
earlier set of trumped-up charges. Those charges were
dropped on August 14. Now, barely two weeks later, he's
arrested and jailed again!
4. "The
Coup regime people are the ones responsible for my
arrest" -- Visited in prison by San Francisco writer
Ben Terrall, Civil said his arrest is a provocation directed
at the base of Lavalas. He said the people responsible for his
arrest are the same people who were behind the 2004 coup, who hate
President Aristide and any _expression of popular democracy.
WHO
IS RENE CIVIL? -- Mr. Civil was a founding member and leader
of Jeunesse Pouvoir Populaire or JPP (Youth/People's Power), a
youth movement founded after the 1991-94 coup when President
Aristide returned to Haiti. The JPP organized young people in
the struggle for democracy, mainly in the poor neighborhoods
of Port-au-Prince. The JPP provided financial support to
encourage the youth to pursue their studies in school or learn
a trade, and set up centers where young people could get a hot
meal and political education.
Two
days before his arrest, Rene Civil addressed the 3rd
Solidarity Encounter with the Haitian People, at the Aristide
Foundation in Port-au-Prince. He denounced the system
"which causes economic, political, military and
social war on the people of the world", and which is preventing
poor nations like Haiti from exercising their independence.
"The people of Haiti," he said, "who believe in
freedom, who have tasted freedom, will never accept this
criminal, slaving system."
Delegates
to the Solidarity Encounter, including Rene Civil,
participated in a chanting mass demonstration in front of the
National Penitentiary on August 23 -- demanding release of the political
prisoners.
Your
action now can make the difference.
Write
to Judge Durin Duret, the Investigating Magistrate (Juge
d'Instruction). Letters can be sent directly to Judge Duret by
regular mail. Or, you can send them to Rene Civil's lawyers by
fax at 206-350-7986 (a U.S. number) or by email to avokahaiti@aol.com
and his lawyers will see they are promptly delivered.
In
your letter, very simply state (in any language) that this was
an unjust political arrest of a pro-democracy activist, and demand
the immediate release of political prisoner Rene Civil.
Address
your letter to:
Maitre
Durin Duret
Juge
d'Instruction
Pres
du Tribunal de premiere instance de Port-au-Prince
Ministere
de la Justice
18,
Avenue Charles Sumner
Port-au-Prince,
Haiti
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