Please join us for oral argument before Judge Judith Gishe
at 60 Centre Street --
2:30 PM March 12, 2009 - NYC
We need your presence!
Dear Friends,
On December 23, 2008–yes, on the day before Christmas Eve–we received a written notice of a motion filed with the New York State Supreme Court, requesting a hearing, with the intention of holding IFCO/Pastors for Peace and its director, Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., in contempt of court.
That's right: just when all of us at IFCO/Pastors for Peace were getting ready to wish you and yours a very happy holiday season, the NYC Special Commissioner for Investigation dropped a little something into our Christmas stocking. The first page of the document says:
"WARNING: YOUR FAILURE TO APPEAR IN COURT MAY RESULT IN YOUR IMMEDIATE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT THE PURPOSE OF THIS HEARING IS TO PUNISH THE INTER- RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION FOR COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT,
AND SUCH PUNISHMENT MAY CONSIST OF A FINE OR IMPRISONMENT OR BOTH, ACCORDING TO THE LAW."
This is the Special Commissioners second effort to hold us in contempt. Apparently the City of New York is still intent on flexing their muscles and trying to find us in contempt of their process. They want to punish us for our work in solidarity with Cuba–and because we did not let them use us to help them collect information for their interrogation and harassment of people who go to Cuba. They are trying to threaten us with fines or jail time. In a broader sense we think they want to punish us as a means of intimidating the whole Cuba solidarity movementˆ so we all need to keep on organizing and we will need you support now more than ever.
People all over the US are asking the Obama administration to do away with restrictions on travel to Cuba, and the House and Senate have introduced bills to eliminate those restrictions (HR874/S428). 185 nations of the United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn the US blockade of Cuba.
Meanwhile, with our nation in an economic meltdown, New York State and New York City are facing multi-billion-dollar deficits. Yet they find time and money to threaten us for refusing to be complicit in their witch hunt. In the midst of so many crises, it is VERY hard to understand why the City of New York is wasting taxpayer funds to pursue a foreign policy agenda which is a federal matter, and (according the US Constitution) isn‚t even within their legal purview. Perhaps the budget of the Special CI should reviewed by Governor Paterson while he is looking for places to cut waste in the state budget.
We want you to know that YOUR SUPPORT, during this nearly ˆtwo-year- long project of the NYC Special Commissioner for Investigation to harass and intimidate us, has been both morally and politically significant.
We truly appreciate your support–and once again, I hope that you will be able to join us at 60 Centre Street in the courtroom on March 12, at 2:30 PM as our attorneys represent us before State Judge Judith Gische.
The Special Commissioner has reiterated his intent to punish IFCO and me because we prefer to invoke our rights rather than be complicit with their investigation. With your support, we will continue to stand up for justice.
We hope you received our year-end appeal letter, which contains and open letter to President Obama with our wish-list for a more enlightened and more humane US/Cuba policy.
Please contribute by clicking the donate now button at our website, which you can access at www.ifconews.org or pastorsforpeace.org
We wish you many blessings in this new year, and we pledge to "keep on keepin' on" in the struggle for justice.
In solidarity,
(Rev.) Lucius Walker, Jr.
IFCO/PASTORS FOR PEACE
418 West 145th Street, New York NY 10031
tel: 212.926.5757 - fax 212.926.5842 - e-mail ifco@igc.org
