Did you know that IRTF’s fair trade program raises approximately $25,000 each year, providing vital income for fair trade artisans and farmers in Latin America? They depend on groups like IRTF to find markets for their fair trade goods.
And IRTF, with only two paid staff, depends on volunteers to generate this income for the artisans and farmers.
Can you help out IRTF for a couple of hours?
Click here to see the schedule of dates and hours, and sign up for a shift.
It’s been an election like no other: polarizing, ugly, passionately contested. The results suggest a realignment of U.S. politics and a rightward shift in national policies and priorities. Yet most our greatest concerns were invisible during the campaigns.
Join Cleveland Peace Action for a panel and audience discussion, in-person and on Zoom, of the election and its implications for our work. They will address Palestine, the growing risk of nuclear war, the iron grip of the military-industrial complex, climate change, Latin America and immigration, and party politics.
register here for the online version: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMscO2pqTMvGdLzi1Afgi0RwdSyNiHeQb5y#/registration
In 2013 a young woman, Beatriz had been denied an abortion, even though she was seriously ill and the foetus would not have survived outside the uterus. Beatriz died after being involved in a traffic accident in 2017, but her case is before judges at the inter-American court of human rights and could open the way for El Salvador to decriminalise abortion, which could also set an important precedent in across the Caribbean, South and Central America, abortion is not permitted in seven countries.
In El Salvador, abortion can be punished by up to eight years in prison, and women can even be charged with aggravated homicide, which carries a sentence of up to 50 years in prison. Women have been jailed for miscarriages. And women who advocate for safe access to abortion facing hate and threats online as well as offline.
The Global Center for Human Rights, a US-based anti-abortion organisation linked to conservative evangelical groups and the Heritage Foundation opposes what it calls “ideological colonisation [of] countries rooted in Christian values”. They create websites, petitions and videos where to spread fake news like that Beatriz case was made up by the inter-American court to legalize abortion but also to spread hate against abortion activists by for example calling them “enemy of the state”, a “colleague of terrorists” and a “feminazi”.
This has serious consequences. An activist telles the Guardian: “I have received a lot of threats and hate speech on social networks, especially on X,” she says. “A post can lead to a wave of comments where I’m called a murderer; people accuse me of promoting a crime and there are requests that the attorney general investigate me.” Anti-abortion groups often gather outside her office to pray, which she sees as an act of intimidation. Her organisation’s website was the target of 13,000 cyber-attacks during the hearing of the landmark case of Manuela v El Salvador at the IACHR in 2021.
12-2pm: The Walk & Fast for Humanity will convene at the Fountain of Eternal Life at 120 Public Square on "Black Friday," November 29, 2024, Noon - 2pm. This is to name four world famines and food insecurity in Cleveland, Ohio. We emphasize the huge Pentagon budget and campaigns that foment poverty and famine in proxy war zones of our government. Famine in Gaza, Haiti, Sudan, and Yemen are our focus. We ask that participants everywhere fast from food, fuel and consumerism on "Black Friday." Readings and songs will be offered. From there we will walk to a public building to address our legislators. We invite you to join us and, if you wish, assist with a reading or song. Please reply to this email maria.smith9907@gmail.com if you'd like to be part of the program, or call Don Bryant at 216.255.1576
In preparation for the Black Friday the Cleveland Nonviolence Network and Cleveland Peace Action are hosting a Nonviolence Training. The training will take place at the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Tremont. A registration is not required.
Where is trade policy headed — and what is the role of trade justice activists — now that Donald Trump has won control of the White House?
