Action Alert: Rama Carty Is Assaulted as Amnesty International tours detention center, demonstration to denounce attack and deportation effort
Nicholas Limbeck
For Immediate Release
June 3rd, 2009
contact: anay...@gmail.com
anayanse garza 956.224.2934
hector guzman
Human Rights Group Visits Immigrant Detainee – Violence Ensues
Los Fresnos, Texas – International Human Rights group, Amnesty International, met with Rama Carty yesterday. Carty is an outspoken detainee at the Department of Homeland Security/Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Port Isabel Detention Center (PIDC). This morning of June 3rd, 2009, at around 5:35am, Amnesty attempted to visit with Carty for a second time, but Carty has not been able to meet with them; instead, he was beaten by facility guards and “taken away”. DHS/ICE is illegaly being transferred to Louisiana to be deported to Haiti.
Another detainee, was witness to the attack by the guards, and called Anayanse Garza of the Southwest Workers Union immediately afterwards. He told Garza that Carty was talking about meeting with Amnesty this morning, when a number of guards at the facility punched and kicked him, informed him that he would not be meeting with Amnesty, and then proceeded to “take him away”.
We do not know what has happened to Carty.
Some Background
Rama Carty is a known leader and participant in a hunger strike that has been going on at the PIDC since late April of this year. Hunger strike demands include the right to due process, real medical attention for all detainees, access to legal resources, and end to physical and verbal abuses by guards at the facility.
Carty was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and has lived in the United States for over 38 years; he is 39 years old. He has been detained by DHS/ICE for over thirteen months now for a drug conviction he has already served time for.
Carty has been interviewed by several news sources, including a recorded telephone interview with the Texas Observer aired on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now; an independent radio/television news source watched and listened to by millions of Americans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBxbLzEz8R
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For Immediate Release
June 3rd, 2009
Press Conference and Protest to Denounce Detainee Abuse
Who: Southwest Workers Union
When: Today, June 3rd, 2009 at 1:30pm
Where: Outside the DHS/ICE Port Isabel Detention Center (PIDC) - 27991 Buena Vista Blvd, Los Fresnos, TX 78566
Why: To denounce the recent abuse of Rama Carty, a detainee at PIDC that was to meet with representatives of Amnesty International. He is also a participant in the hungers strike demanding an end to such abuses, lack of medical care, and lack of due process.
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