Sunday, Nov 7: sign up for IRTF’s Commemoration of the Martyrs – guests from Honduras
don bryant
Also:
Please help us spread the word about the IRTF online raffle.
It runs Thursday Nov 4, 12 noon through Monday Nov 8, 7:30pm (Eastern Time).
Share our Facebook event:
Get the link for the raffle:
Text "IRTF" to 855-202-2100 to receive a link to the online raffle or go to https://go.rallyup.com/irtf . More than 20 prize packages!
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Please share the Facebook event for the IRTF Commemoration on November 7, 2021
Dear friend,
We hope you’ll join us for a special online gathering, Rising Together, Resisting Extraction, on Sunday, November 7, 2021, 6-8pm Eastern Time*. In order to receive the Zoom link for this event, our annual Commemoration of the Martyrs of Central America and Colombia, you’ll need to register online. If you haven’t signed up already, click here. Then you’ll receive a confirmation in your email inbox from EventBrite with the Zoom link .
Special guests from Honduras:
Reynaldo Domínguez Ramos, a representative from the
Environmental Committee of the Community of Guapinol, which is organizing
against river contamination from a mine being constructed to supply Nucor, a US
steelmaker, with iron oxide.
Karen Spring, host of Honduras Now! and longtime co-coordinator of the Honduras Solidarity Network
Special guest from Cleveland:
Melekte Melaku, ACLU of Ohio, working with the Ohio Bail Reform Collaborative
Simultaneous interpretation provided (English to Spanish; Spanish to English)
Read more about the Commemoration event here on our website.
We hope you will join us.
*Daylight Savings Time ends the night before. On November 7, we’re back to Eastern Standard Time
TICKETS
$40 suggested, or free-will offering
Click HERE
GROUP TICKETS
Virtual tables of 8 or more
Click HERE
SCHEDULE
5-6pm….social hour
6pm……opening remarks
6:15pm...interfaith prayer service commemorates human rights defenders killed this past year
6:45……IRTF program updates
7pm……speaker program
8pm…… break-out session for virtual group tables
WHY WE GATHER
IRTF was founded 40 years ago in response to the brutal killing of four US women in El Salvador. Jean Donovan and Sister Dorothy Kazel (from Cleveland) and Sister Ita Ford and Sister Maura Clarke (from Maryknoll) paid with their lives for their decision to stay in solidarity with poor, marginalized victims of the US-sponsored armed violence, which eventually claimed the lives of 75,000 Salvadorans and led to the mass exodus of 1 million refugees. We carry forward their legacy of solidarity today because human rights defenders continue to be threatened, criminalized, and killed for daring to speak truth to power.
Please join us to celebrate IRTF’s four decades of solidarity with the people of Central America and Colombia: promoting peace, justice, human rights, and systemic transformation through nonviolence.
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Rising Together, Resisting Extraction
More about the situation in Honduras.
Policies and practices of the US government and corporations have accelerated the extraction of resources from Honduras, especially since the military coup in 2009. The people of Honduras, however, remain resolute in their resistance to the threats to their communities, their lands, their waterways—their very existence. One example is the organized effort to protect the Guapinol River. Three years ago, US-supported police and military—heavily armed with rifles, shields, clubs and tear gas bombs—evicted a defenseless and peaceful population from the Encampment for Life. Community members had organized the encampment to stop construction of an iron oxide mine, meant to supply US steel maker Nucor Steel. People were beaten and wounded; three persons were temporarily detained, and three people were killed.
Since 2019, eight members of the Environmental Committee of the Community of Guapinol have been held in pre-trial detention (without bail) awaiting trial on trumped charges. While the Guapinol 8 water defenders remain behind bars, their fellow community members continue their organized resistance to keep Nucor Steel from polluting their water source and tearing apart their community. They ask for our solidarity in their efforts.
http://commemoration2021.eventbrite.com
Please share the Facebook event for the IRTF Commemoration on November 7 2021
Please share the Facebook event for the IRTF online raffle (Nov 4-8, 2021)
Thank you.
IRTF staff and Board of Trustees
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InterReligious Task Force on Central America
3606 Bridge Ave., Cleveland OH 44113
(216)961 0003
IRTF is a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt charitable organization.
Federal tax ID: 34-1853821 .
