#soa watch

[heartveined-archive-blog]

with everything happening in the season 5 finale, the only thing my brain is wrapping around is how cute Tig is with that dog. I literally cannot touch anything else.

[dendroica]

A Freedom of Information Act request has revealed that School of the Americas Watch, a nonviolent human rights organization founded by a Maryknoll priest, was investigated and infiltrated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for at least a decade. The 429 pages of documents -- which were obtained by Washington D.C.-based lawyer Mara Verheyden-Hilliard -- also show SOA Watch was under surveillance by a consortium of law enforcement agencies that included the FBI’s counter-terrorism division, said Loyola Law School Professor Bill Quigley of the SOA Watch Legal Collective, who is referred to in one FOIA document without mentioning his name. In comments to NCR, Quigley, who authored a summary of the FBI documents, said the FBI surveillance has had a chilling impact on some SOA Watch activists. “Even people who have been involved in this movement for a long time were chilled by the fact that they were being subject to counter-terrorism monitoring and surveillance,” Quigley said. The released files, which are heavily redacted and did not include 75 pages that were withheld from the release, cover the years 2001-2010. The report was released just a week prior to the SOA Watch’s 25th anniversary gathering at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Ga., where most of the FBI’s surveillance was conducted. The annual protest began as an effort to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas, an Army training school for Latin American soldiers, some of whom carried out human rights abuses and murders in their native countries. The school is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. SOA Watch was founded in 1990 by former Maryknoll priest Fr. Roy Bourgeois, who once served as a Latin American missionary.

Report: FBI infiltrated nonviolent protest outside Georgia army base | National Catholic Reporter

[freespeechradionews]

New Post has been published on FSRN

New Post has been published on http://fsrn.org/2015/11/fbi-documents-show-counter-terrorism-division-spied-on-school-of-the-americas-watch-vigils/

FBI documents show counter-terrorism division spied on School of the Americas Watch vigils

Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that – for at least a decade – the FBI actively monitored an annual non-violent vigil outside of the military base at Fort Benning, Georgia. The yearly action, organized by School of the Americas Watch, protests a military training academy currently known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

The academy – formerly called the School of the Americas – trains military personnel and police from various Latin American countries. Among the graduates are figures accused of massive human rights violations in the Americas, including former military dictators like  Efrain Rios Montt of Guatemala, Manuel Noriega of Panama, Argentine junta members and many other lesser known military commanders.

The annual vigil at Fort Benning marks the anniversary of the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador by members of a counterinsurgency battalion formed at the School of the Americas. The newly-released FBI documents even note that the protests are always peaceful…but that didn’t deter the bureau’s counter-terrorism division from closely monitoring the yearly event. For more, FSRN’s Nell Abram spoke with Hendrik Voss of School of the Americas Watch.

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[riseuptimes]

SOA Watch: Court Hearing on April 9 for Acts of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience

SOA Watch: Court Hearing on April 9 for Acts of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience

SOA Watch stands in solidarity with the “Stewart 5″, and continues to call for the closure of Stewart Detention Center    Court Hearing on April 9 for Acts of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience      April 6, 2015  soaw.org

“The depth of a loving society is going to be marked by how quickly we can close these facilities down”  ~Anton Flores-Maisonet, Alterna

On Saturday, November 22, 2014, over a…

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[urbanomad64]

SOA Watch is a nonviolent grassroots movement that works through creative protest and resistance, legislative and media work to stand in solidarity with the people of Latin America and the Caribbean, to close the SOA/WHINSEC and to change oppressive U.S. foreign policy that institutions like the SOA represent. We are grateful to our sisters and brothers throughout Latin America and the the Caribbean for their inspiration and the invitation to join them in their struggle for economic and social justice.

[oscanicsis]

We held a screening of Somos Una América last week to discuss the pervasiveness of militarism throughout the Americas and in our everyday lives. We see this as an important factor in framing solidarity work to build transnational relationships that break away from the US's history of military and economic intervention in Latin America. 

Watch the film and learn more at: http://www.soaw.org/

[oscanicsis]

Join the Nicaragua Sister Partnership for an overview of Nicaraguan history, screening School of the Americas Watch (http://www.soaw.org/) short 25 min documentary film, Somos Una Ameria, and discussion on militarism and US Intervention in Latin America on Thurs. 11/14 at 7:30pm, King 239. Somos Una América is the story of people from across the Americas, who are united in their struggle against the Pentagon mindset that is promoting U.S. domination and Somos Una América"military solutions" in the Western Hemisphere. You can watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj92bWqVaik