Russian Human Rights Defender murdered

I got an email from Amnesty International about Natalia Estemirova. Apparently she was murdered last Wednesday, shot dead in a van she was thrown into.

The small group of Russians fighting for human rights in Russia, of which Natalia Estemirova was counted among, probably have a bigger fight on their hands than those of us here in America do. Amnesty International is asking all of us to demand a full investigation by Russian authorities into Estemirova's murder. She is only one among many, and she is the most recent.

Please join me in helping out this worthy cause.

Amnesty

I support the right to have free speech. A journalist or a protestor should have the right to express their views and opinions freely without fear of being locked up in prison and abused. The stories of Roxana Saberi who was recently released from prison in Iran, and now the 2 journalists who were sentenced to over a decade of hard labor in North Korea because they were reporting on abuse against women there. The N. Korean government didn't like what they had to say, so instead of inviting them to an open dialogue in order to reach a compromise, they had them captured, locked up, and threw away the key.

I feel so helpless to situations like that, but there is something I've discovered I can do. Voice my opposition against those governments who treat their citizens like that. And so I'd like to use my blog to declare that I stand in full support of the effort to free journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

Along the way to researching some information for this blog post I stumbled across a musician by the name of Chad Stokes. I think I have totally, utterly fallen in love:



Turns out he is quite the social and political reformer and I totally applaud his efforts, most recently for teaming up with Amnesty Int'l. for a teach-in on Women's Human Rights. Yeah, Chad Stokes has my vote, all the way!