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National Lawyers Guild Calls on US to Cut Ties with Illegal Junta in Honduras
Letter to State Department and Obama The National Lawyers Guild calls for concrete action in response to the military coup perpetrated against the democratically- elected government of President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras which included the kidnapping and expulsion of President Zelaya and his Foreign Minister, Patricia Rodas, the detention the Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan ambassadors, […]
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Puerto Rico Bar Association Under Attack for its Progressive and Independista politics
The Puerto Rico Bar Association, founded in 1840, is the oldest professional organization in Puerto Rico and the third oldest in the American hemisphere. It is a mandatory organization, similar to the majority of state bar associations in the U.S., such as California and Florida, where membership is required. In addition to providing services to […]
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NLG Delegation Observes Election of FMLN: Preliminary Report
El Salvador, the smallest and most densely populated Central American country with the most extreme disparity of wealth and poverty, has turned a new page. For the first time in its history, a party dedicated to structural improvement of the lives of the majority poor has come to power with the historic March 15, 2009 […]
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Presidential Election Monitoring Delegation to El Salvador Voices Pre-Election Concerns
San Salvador, El Salvador – A delegation of twenty lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild* arrived March 10 in El Salvador to begin serving as accredited international observers in the presidential election taking place this Sunday, March 15, 2009. As observers of the electoral process in the United States we have seen incidences of fraud […]
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Update on Puerto Rico: Task Force on the Americas to Reinitiate PR Work
At this year’s convention, the NLG International Committee Americas Task Force made the important decision to reinitiate its work around Puerto Rico in the future. The decision came after a presentation by Judith Berkan, longtime Guild member and resident of Puerto Rico, supported by Jan Susler, also a longtime Guild member who lived many years […]
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Haitian Death Squad Leader Emmanuel Constant Sentenced in New York
Brian Concannon, Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti Haitian death squad leader Emmanuel Toto Constant was sentenced today in Kings County Supreme Court in New York, by Judge Abraham Gerges, on mortgage fraud charges. According to the Sentencing Memorandum, the full sentence should be between 12 and 37 years. It is not yet clear […]
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National Lawyers Guild Applauds Inter-American Court Decision Upholding the Human Rights of Former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune
Urges Rapid Compliance With Judgment The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) welcomes the recent decision from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) finding that the State of Haiti has violated 11 provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights by illegally imprisoning former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune for two years and by continuing to […]
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International Committee appears at UN Decolonization Hearings on Puerto Rico
Jan Susler After 400 years of Spanish colonial rule of Puerto Rico, in 1898 Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States, and the U.S. militarily invaded and established a military government. Over a century later, Puerto Rico continues to be a U.S. colony- one of the few juridical colonies in the world- in spite […]
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National Lawyers Guild Congratulates Raboteau Massacre Victims on Historic Victory
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) congratulates the victims of the Raboteau Massacre on their recent victory after a 14-year struggle in the courts of Haiti and the United States. On May 16, the victims received over $400,000 in court-awarded compensation. NLG President Marjorie Cohn noted that “the Raboteau victims have provided all of us a […]
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Disturbing the Peace, in Haiti and New Orleans
Brian Concannon Gerard Jean-Juste, a Catholic priest from Haiti, just does not know when to shut up. In the 1970’s he saw his people starved and persecuted while Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier lived in opulence, so he organized for change. The Duvalier regime responded as dictatorships do, and kicked him out of the country. When […]
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