URGENT !!! REVEREND LANDAVERDE HUNGER STRIKE ==== 6 PM TONIGHT PRESS CONFERENCE
Comite 10 de Marzo
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION
Hunger Strike to Stop Deportations Continues As Reverend Landaverde Passes on the Torch
What: Hunger strike by local priest ends and another person takes it on.
Who: Rev. José Landaverde suspends his hunger strike after 15 days for health reasons, and a Rainbow-Push Coalition Activist keeps it alive.
When: Friday, July 2nd, 2010, at 6 p.m.
Where: Our Lady of Guadlupe, 3442 W. 26th St. LittleVillage.
Why: President Barack Obama’s empty speech on immigration encourages local activists to step up the fight.
Short after President Barack Obama repeated President George Bush’s discourse on immigration from 4 years ago, Reverend Jose Landaverde suffered a health crisis after 15 days of hunger strike to stop raids and deportations and had to go to Cook County Hospital. Being diabetic, 15 days in hunger strike have deeply affected his health.
Salome D’Amezcua, a longtime activist with the Latino Chapter of the Rainbow-Push Coalition will fast for the next three days, and Artemio Arreola, Political Director of the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights will take over after her.
“Deportations are decimating our community”, says Rev. Landaverde. “President Obama said he will not stop deportations but that will not stop us from demanding exactly that from him. It is absurd to deport today a worker, the head of a family, the father of United States citizen children, that could benefit from Obama’s plan to work on an immigration reform by November.”
The hunger strike by Rev. Landaverde began at Federal Plaza on June 17, relieving Rev. Martin Santellano, who went 32 days without solid foods. The hunger strike has received support from Mexican home town associations and pro immigrant groups, and support will extend now that a chain of hunger strikes will be scheduled.
The hunger strike is part of the Immigrant Youth Justice League, March 10th Committee and other organizations’ campaign to End Raids and Deportations, and against Arizona’s SB 1070 law, which legalizes racial profiling against immigrants.
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