Human Rights Awareness Week, March 15-19: Speakers And Events

Chestertown, MD, March 15, 2004 — All members of the community are invited to attend these free events organized by the Washington College chapter of Amnesty International.

Monday, March 15

Movie: Rabbit-Proof Fence, Casey Academic Center Forum, 7-9:30 p.m. Set in Australia in 1931, Rabbit-Proof Fence tells the story of an Australian government policy that required “half-caste” children (whose mothers were Aboriginal and whose fathers were white) to be taken from their homes by the authorities to be trained to work as servants. Based on the true story of Molly Craig, Philip Noyce's film follows the odyssey of three young girls who escaped from the government's training facility and, using the country's long stretches of rabbit-proof fences as their guide, walked 1500 miles to get back home.

Tuesday, March 16

Talk: “The Repression of the Tibetan Freedom Movement In China: A Former Political Prisoner Speaks Out,” Casey Academic Center Forum, 7:30 p.m. Ms. Ngawang Sangdrol, a former political prisoner from Tibet, will be speaking about her experiences in China. Born in Lhasa, Tibet in 1978 into a family of Tibetan patriots, she has been imprisoned three times by Chinese authorities for “counterrevolutionary crime” and suffered both physical and psychological torture for her political and religious beliefs.

Wednesday, March 17

Exhibition: Amnesty International will remember the atrocities committed in Ireland through a visual display in the Casey Academic Center Gallery.

Thursday, March 18

Talk: “The Women of Juarez: Ten Years of Murder in Mexico,” Hynson Lounge, 7:30 p.m. Ms. Mona Cadena, Field Organizer for the Amnesty International USA Mid-Atlantic Office, will be speaking on the femicide (murder of women) in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Since 1993, at least 370 women from Juarez have been murdered.

Friday, March 19

Casey Academic Center Gallery, 11a.m.-1 p.m. Amnesty International members will display information about several different issues that they have been working on and studying throughout the year.