Pastors for Peace harrassed by New York City government

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IFCO Pastors for Peace Court Date: March 12, 2009

Information/Action Update

Please join us for oral argument before Judge Judith Gishe
at 60 Centre Street -- 2:30 PM March 12, 2009.
We need your presence!

Dear Friends,

On December 23, 2008, ­yes, on the day before
Christmas Eve­ we received a written notice of a
motion filed with the New York State Supreme
Court, requesting a hearing, with the intention
of holding IFCO/Pastors for Peace and its
director, Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr., in contempt of court.

That’s right: just when all of us at IFCO/Pastors
for Peace were getting ready to wish you and
yours a very happy holiday season, the NYC
Special Commissioner for Investigation dropped a
little something into our Christmas stocking. The
first page of the document says:

“WARNING: YOUR FAILURE TO APPEAR IN COURT MAY
RESULT IN YOUR IMMEDIATE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT”

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT THE PURPOSE OF THIS
HEARING IS TO PUNISH THE INTER- RELIGIOUS
FOUNDATION FOR COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT,

AND SUCH PUNISHMENT MAY CONSIST OF A FINE OR
IMPRISONMENT OR BOTH, ACCORDING TO THE LAW.”

This is the Special Commissioners second effort
to hold us in contempt. Apparently the City of
New York is still intent on flexing their muscles
and trying to find us in contempt of their
process. They want to punish us for our work in
solidarity with Cuba ­and because we did not let
them use us to help them collect information for
their interrogation and harassment of people who
go to Cuba. They are trying to threaten us with
fines or jail time. In a broader sense we think
they want to punish us as a means of intimidating
the whole Cuba solidarity movement– so we all
need to keep on organizing and we will need you support now more than ever.

People all over the US are asking the Obama
administration to do away with restrictions on
travel to Cuba, and the House and Senate have
introduced bills to eliminate those restrictions
(HR874/S428). 185 nations of the United Nations
General Assembly voted to condemn the US blockade of Cuba.

Meanwhile, with our nation in an economic
meltdown, New York State and New York City are
facing multi-billion-dollar deficits. Yet they
find time and money to threaten us for refusing
to be complicit in their witch hunt. In the midst
of so many crises, it is VERY hard to understand
why the City of New York is wasting taxpayer
funds to pursue a foreign policy agenda which is
a federal matter, and (according the US
Constitution) isn’t even within their legal
purview. Perhaps the budget of the Special CI
should reviewed by Governor Paterson while he is
looking for places to cut waste in the state budget.
We want you to know that YOUR SUPPORT, during
this nearly –two-year- long project of the NYC
Special Commissioner for Investigation to harass
and intimidate us, has been both morally and politically significant.

We truly appreciate your support­and once again,
I hope that you will be able to join us at 60
Centre Street in the courtroom on March 12, at
2:30 PM as our attorneys represent us before State Judge Judith Gische.

The Special Commissioner has reiterated his
intent to punish IFCO and me because we prefer to
invoke our rights rather than be complicit with
their investigation. With your support, we will
continue to stand up for justice.

We hope you received our year-end appeal
letter, which contains and open letter to
President Obama with our wish-list for a more
enlightened and more humane US/Cuba policy.

Please contribute by clicking the donate now
button at our website, which you can access at
<http://www.ifconews.org>www.ifconews.org or
<http://pastorsforpeace.org>pastorsforpeace.org

We wish you many blessings in this new year,
and we pledge to “keep on keepin’ on” in the struggle for justice.



In solidarity,

(Rev.) Lucius Walker, Jr.




IFCO/PASTORS FOR PEACE
418 West 145th Street, New York NY 10031
tel: [phone] - fax [phone] - e-mail [e-mail]