Drop the Case against Marissa Alexander

from the Free Marissa Now Facebook page:

YOUR URGENT ACTION NEEDED!

DEMAND THAT FLORIDA OFFICIALS DROP THE CASE AGAINST MARISSA ALEXANDER!

Write, call, fax, email — tell Florida officials to drop the case against Marissa Alexander. Stop the trauma — free this momma!

Last week the Florida Appeals Court overturned Marissa’s conviction because of extreme errors in the case: rather than being presumed innocent until proven guilty, Marissa’s persecutors put the burden of proof on her. This is opposite to the most basic principles of the U.S. legal system.

Call, write, fax or email State Prosecutor Angela Corey, State Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Florida Governor Rick Scott to demand that they drop the case now. Marissa Alexander did no wrong. Do not subject this domestic violence survivor and mother to another trial. This innocent woman has already served three years.

Here is preliminary information about how to contact these officials. More information and sample letters will follow soon. But please take action now and start spreading the word now!

Office of Attorney General Pam Bondi
State of Florida
The Capitol PL-01
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1050
Phone: 850-414-3300
Email: http://myfloridalegal.com/contact.nsf/contact?Open&Section=Citizen_Services

Angela Corey, State Prosecutor
Courthouse Annex
220 East Bay Street
Jacksonville, FL 32202
(904) 348-2720
(904) 630-2400
Fax (904) 348-2783

Office of Governor Rick Scott
State of Florida
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
(850) 717-9337

E-mail: rick.scott@eog.myflorida.com

More information on Marissa’s case at the Free Marissa Now! Tumblr

Warwick University Students Occupy Council Chambers

We express our solidarity with students at Warwick University who have just released a statement confirming that they have occupied the Council Chamber in protest of the marketization of the public university. An excerpt from the statement is below; the statement can be read in full here. They can be contacted at PPUWarwick on Facebook or warwickagainstprivatization@gmail.com.

While fees climb to £9,000 a year, bursaries are either cancelled or transferred to ‘fee waivers’; meanwhile, in universities like Warwick, maintenance costs are driven up by the construction of ever-more expensive accommodation. The vast post-university debt (£43,500) now facing less privileged students whose families cannot afford to pay up-front makes university education seem both risky and undesirable for many. This process is changing the perception of higher education from a public good to a private investment, from a communal right to an individual privilege, accessible only by the few, as demonstrated by falling applications from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The widening gap in pay between senior managers and frontline staff, and the debt forced on students, means that the university now reproduces social inequalities rather than contesting them. This undermines the university’s democratic function as a space in which free thought, debate and critical inquiry is fostered in order to give people the tools to challenge social hierarchies and play an active role in the public sphere.

Our opposition to the rising salary of the Vice-Chancellor speaks to a deeper opposition to the continuing marketization and privatization of higher education. The problems at Warwick University are problems for the entire university system under market logic. The management of this university is failing to make the case for the protection and promotion of the public university, so we must do it. The government’s radical restructuring of higher education has crept up on us, and we must act now if we are to resist – before it’s too late.

***TEACH-IN UPDATE: Tuesday June 18th at 16:45 there will be a teach-in held outside Senate House at Warwick University to discuss the future of higher education. Speakers include 2 co-founders of the Campaign for the Public University. More details here.***

SoR in Interface: feminism, women’s movements and women in movement

Sisters of Resistance are delighted to appear in the latest edition of Interface. Our discussion with Dr Sara Motta, about resistance to patriarchy, the SoR blog and practicing feminism in the everyday, is available for download as an audio file here.

Volume three, issue two (November 2011):

Feminism, women’s movements and women in movement

Full PDF is available here

Issue editors: Sara Motta, Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Catherine Eschle, Laurence Cox

Volume three, issue two of Interface, a peer-reviewed e-journal produced and refereed by social movement practitioners and engaged movement researchers, is now out, on the special theme “Feminism, women’s movements and women in movement”. Interface is open-access (free), global and multilingual. Our overall aim is to “learn from each other’s struggles”: to develop a dialogue between practitioners and researchers, but also between different social movements, intellectual traditions and national or regional contexts.

This issue of Interface includes 27 pieces in English and Spanish, by authors writing from / about Australia, Canada, Denmark, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Spain, the UK and the US.

The Women of #OccupyWallSt

Viva las mujeres de la revolution.

Venceremos!

Cross-Post: The demand is a process #OccupyWallSt #Sept17