Human Rights Now! Summer 2019

Today the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute (MCLI) releases the Summer 2019 issue of Human Rights Now!

As Trump pulls out of the U.N. Human Rights Council, violations of human rights have continued and expanded on the local, state, and national level.

In this issue of Human Rights Now! we discuss human rights violations of prisoners, immigrants, sex workers, unhoused people, and black women as well as human rights violations by law enforcement.

On June 20, 2019, MCLI will be exploring many of these intersections of systemic oppression in the upcoming screening in Oakland of Detroit 48202: Conversations Along a Postal Route. MCLI Board Members Walter Riley and Vicki Sawicki will be joined by mail carrier Wendell Watkins and filmmaker Pamela Sporn to discuss the film and the issues it highlights.

In this issue of Human Rights Now! we discuss efforts in the courts to fight the criminalization of homelessness.

MCLI has assisted homeless encampments in the San Francisco Bay Area to fight sweeps by distributing Civil Rights Templates that can be used by unhoused residents to represent themselves in court. This has resulted in numerous civil rights lawsuits challenging attacks by local authorities against some of the most vulnerable members of our communities.

On June 22, 2019, MCLI will be presenting the Workshop on the Criminalization of Homelessness at the upcoming Far West conference of the National Lawyers Guild. MCLI Interim Executive Director Steven DeCaprio and Program Director Needa Bee will be joined by attorney Dan Siegel and organizers and attorneys from Sacramento and Los Angeles to discuss both political and legal strategies to fight the abuse of unhoused people.

MCLI has released a list of human rights questions to the U.N. Human Rights Committee which discusses many of the issues raised in this issue of Human Rights Now! By advocating for accountability within the Human Rights Committee MCLI can help to fill the void left by the Trump administration at the United Nations.

With your support MCLI will continue and expand our work focused on combating human rights abuses against poor people and people of color.

Please share this issue of Human Rights Now! with as many people as possible.