Human Rights

With a handgun strapped to his belt, the owner of what was once a Far West Side farm points a chubby finger to a nearby retention pond in a small and mostly forgotten City of Columbus park. “There was once an old stone church there. Presbyterian,” says the mustached man from under his ball cap. 

The church was demolished for the pond when a large apartment complex went up next door in 2001. The City turned the church’s former property into Clover Park, and near the pond’s banks is a cemetery where some of the dead perished in the Civil War fighting for the Union. They had to be Presbyterian.

“At least the City kept the bodies,” says “Brett” who wished to remain anonymous. His property, with a 100-year-old farmhouse and barn intact, is close to Clover Park.

On Wednesday, June 28, workers at the 1085 W. 5th Ave. Starbucks store will be on an unfair labor practice strike to demand that Starbucks meet the partners at the bargaining table to negotiate a fair contract. The workers are also calling on the Company to end its attacks on LGBTQIA+ workers as part of its relentless union-busting campaign that includes threatening workers’ access to benefits and refusing to let partners put up pride decorations at dozens of stores across the country. 

You need to get involved.

Members of the Black Mauritanian community – in Ohio and beyond – have been opening their homes to young men and women applying for asylum in the US. The situation in their native country is growing worse, and more young people are making the dangerous journey to the US.

Immigrant Mauritanians in the US like to debate what Ohio city has the largest Mauritanian community in the US, and while Columbus won out not too long ago, a growing number are calling Cincinnati home.

As Abdoul Mbow wrote in the Columbus Dispatch: “What future is there, when you have no present?”

May 15th of this year was the 75th anniversary of the Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe) that befell Palestinians when the state of Israel was created, at least 750,000 Palestinians (about 75 percent of the indigenous population) were Israel forcibly exiled and became refugees. Some 530 Palestinians villages and cities were destroyed and by massacres and forced Between 1947 and 1949. About 15,000 Palestinians were killed in a series of mass atrocities, including dozens of massacres.

Throughout the world, human rights activists commemorate this horrible and ongoing event. For the first time, there was a Nabka commemoration at the United Nations. Rashida Tlaib organized a congressional commemoration and introduced a house resolution “Recognizing the ongoing Nakba and Palestine refugees’ rights.” As the founding of their state by the U.N. is celebrated, Israeli law authorizes the Ministry of Finance to impose financial penalties on any organization or body that commemorates Israeli Independence Day as a day of mourning and withdraw their funding or support from the state.

The details of the May 9-14 escalation of hostilities in Gaza and Israel are available in United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Flash Updates. The UN verified the killing of 33 Palestinians including 12 civilians (4 girls, 2 boys, 4 women and 2 men). One additional killing was unverified at the time of the report. 190 Palestinians were injured (including 64 children and 38 women. At least three of the fatalities were due to rockets falling short.

A total of 2,943 housing units were damaged and 1,244 Palestinians were internally displaced. At least 26 schools were damaged and Al Aqsa hospital and the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza sustained, and two primary health care clinics in Khan Youris and northern Gaza sustained partial damage. One Israeli woman and Palestinian worker from Gaza were killed and at least 40 injuries due to rocket fire were reported in Israel. 2 The security of all people in Palestine and Israel depends on finding a just and durable peace by ending Israeli’s illegal occupation and insuring equal rights for everyone.

May 11 marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of Palestinian America journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was killed by an Israeli soldier while wearing a clearly marked vest while on assignment to cover a military raid in Jenin refugee camp in the illegally occupied West Bank. To date, the U.S. has not held Israel accountable.

Our government is morally bound to hold Israel accountable for this and any other extrajudicial killings in Palestine because of the nearly four billion dollars of military aid our taxes provide to Israel and our unwavering disapproval of any action by the U.N. to hold Israel accountable under international law. It’s our responsibility as U.S. citizens, to hold our government to the highest moral standards. Israel must be held accountable for its human rights violations, and the US must stop paying for human rights abuses!

Israeli defense forces have killed at least 23 journalists in Palestine since 2002, according to UNESCO data, and hundreds have been injured by or targeted with violence. (1)

The Ohio Immigrant Alliance is a group of immigrants and citizens working together to protect the dignity and rights of all individuals who choose to make Ohio their home. We engage in activism and volunteerism that connect communities across the state, and include people currently living abroad due to our inhumane immigration laws.

Here are six ways you can help make Ohio a better home for everyone, including immigrants and refugees.  

Anyone who completes all six will receive a FREE COPY of Ohio Migration Anthology, Volume 2! Email proof of completion to admin@ohioimmigrant.org, with your name and address.

ONE

Nazis disrupted a drag brunch on the Westside last week. Social media exploded over the news that white supremacists were disrupting a children’s event and were surprised by the inability of Columbus Division of Police to ensure the Nazis were barred from exposure and scaring the community with their black ski masks.

Up until a few weeks ago, when three Democratic lawmakers joined mostly young people at the Tennessee legislature demanding stricter gun legislation in the wake of yet another mass shooting, the First Amendment was sacrosanct: It states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

When the City of Columbus apparatus (government) does respond to massive calls for systemic, progressive change, it does its best to do so in the most superficial, and often in the most hypocritical and insulting way possible.   

The City government functions as a corporation – according to Council President Hardin – wherein our Mayor acts as CEO and our City Council acts as a Board of Directors, and then consistently offers the people (the City’s “customers” if this analogy is to continue) less than half of the products we demand while trying to make us believe we’re getting the best they can offer.

When the people of Columbus demanded – twice – that our City government better reflect the needs of its citizens through a district-based Council system with substantial campaign finance limits, the “Board” opted to pour millions of dollars into defeating that effort.

On April 19, the Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 92 and Senate Joint Resolution 2, which would strip political power away from everyday Ohioans and make it harder for their voices to be heard. We cannot allow this effort to silence Ohioans to succeed. The resolution, and companion House Joint Resolution 1, raise the requirement for constitutional amendment ballot initiatives to only pass if they reach 60% approval from Ohio voters.