Progress Report #3

I'm really happy about the progress our group has made so far. It seems like we're all leaders by nature, which means that we haven't really had to have a "leader" for the group. We worked hard over the last week and a half, after realizing two of our members had dropped the class. When a few of us met last week, I led a discussion to finalize all parts that we wanted in our final presentation. We discussed how long we thought each segment would take, and now have a better idea of what information we still need. My individual contribution is the flyers we'll pass out at the end of our presentation. At this point, it's still a work in progress. We decided that we wanted to hear what Dr. Rahman has to say in the interview, before we decide on a definite 'Call to Action' from the class. This will be presented on the flyers. In our group so far, I've tried to just keep communication flowing. Sometimes things come up, and people can't make it to meetings. I try to keep people updated on what they miss, so we're all on the same page! 

General Info section for Progress Report #3

Emily Metallic- I am assigned to the general information segment of the presentation. Essentially, I am responsible for introducing the presentation and topic to the class. Because this is a broad and relatively cursory assignment, I will also compile the presentation and take on a sort of project manager role. So far I have made my portion of the presentation, beginning with laying out the organization of the presentation in the following order: introduction; case studies; roles of corporations, governments and individuals; and solutions. In the introduction section, I have defined the terms: corporation, environmental destruction and indigenous communities. I also explain why the topic is important. I found a video that links consumer dollars with government corruption and  community benefits. I am looking for better videos and graphics to accompany my portion of the presentation. Below are the links I've used with brief annotations.

http://www.fwrgroup.com.au/environmental-degradation.html - definition of environmental destruction
http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/C/Corporation.aspx - definition of corporation
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/workshop_data_background.doc - definition of indigenous people

• most cited descriptions of the concept of the indigenous was given by Jose R. Martinez Cobo, the Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, in his famous Study on the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations

http://www.globaled.org/curriculum/indigenous.html - indigenous peoples facts

Progress Report #3 - Individual contribution

Group: Refugees and Internationally Displaced Persons
(Remaining!) Members: Sandhya Sridhar, Zoe Lewis, Cloe Pippin, Austin Rose

Sandhya's contribution --

          At the beginning of our project, I was the primary notetaker of our ideas. I have coordinated with a professor who has a wide range of expertise about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict such that we may have a video interview of his opinions on the current political status and how it affects refugees in the area. I also communicated with Hope Karekezi about visiting our class to talk about her experiences, but she will be unavailable throughout October, so I provided an alternate solution to another group member. I've researched current statistics about refugees in relevant areas, and I will also be responsible for putting together our final powerpoint. My main role in group meetings was that of facilitation and identifying important issues, but all of us together contributed to brainstorming.

darfur-history

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article11445

http://www.savedarfur.org/pages/primer

http://www.the-ethic.org/darfurbackground.htm

http://www.un.org/News/dh/dev/scripts/darfur_formatted.htm

Progress Report 2

Our group has made a lot of progress by individual looking up case studies that have to do with our topic. We also have some people working on general information. Our next step is to start putting together slides and then combining them into a cohesive power point.

Sources: 

Diamond, Sara, and Christian Poirier. "Brazil's Native Peoples And The Belo Monte Dam: A     Case Study. (Cover Story)." NACLA Report On The Americas 43.5 (2010): 25-  70. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Gabriel Elizondo and Maria Elena Romero. “Brazil Tribes Occupy Contentious Dam Site.”        30 June, 2012. Web. 1 October, 2012          http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/06/201263012941975547.html

Oloo,Janak. "Battle over Yala Swamp." Reject. no. 50 (2011): 1, 5

Soest, Landon. "Good Fortune." Transient Pictures. 2009. DVD

        

Progress Report 2

Working Bibliography

Brenzvideos. "The Devil Came On Horseback." YouTube. YouTube, 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 14 Sept. 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPOyl7BLO10.

"Convention on Genocide." Convention on Genocide. The United Nations General Assembly, 16 Aug. 1994. Web. 18 Sept. 2012. http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html.

Mayroz, Eyal. "The Legal Duty to 'Prevent': After the Onset of 'Genocide'" Genocide Research 14.1 (2012): 79-98. OneSearch@IU. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/eds/detail?vid=2&hid=109&sid=377ff263-039d-4675-95cc-6f037868c55e%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=71882017.

Mills, Brendon J. "How to End the Genocide in Darfur and Why It Won't Happen." 89.4 (2009): 80-87. OneSearch@IU. Web. 12 Sept.2012. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/eds/detail?sid=041fd5d023e345bbade7b47700bd1e88%40sessionmgr4&vid=1&hid=2&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN=43251486.

"The Darfur Activism Group." Darfur Activism Group. Newsvine.com, Spring 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2012. http://darfur.newsvine.com/.

We have also decided on a more specific way to incorporate a class discussion into our presentation. The history group will split the class up in three major countries: America, China, and Russia (China and Russia still supply Darfur with ammunition and guns to kill people) and then give the groups a background of what their countries think about genocide and how they reacted to it. Then we will tie this into our action campaign and we will try to convenience them to act to help stop violence completely and help improve the quality of life of refugees. We are trying to, see at the end, if they will change their opinions and act against what their countries are doing to the people and Darfur. We also thought about making hand outs of what their countries think so they have something to look at during our presentation.

Progress Report #2 (cumulative)

Progress Report #1: Group # 6; Julia Mandehr, Grace Robinson, Kate Kenny, Dominique Bryant, Lilly Judge, Katie Hansen and Mick Pence; Guantanamo Bay and the War on Terror

Our topic focuses specifically on Guantanamo Bay Prison and the events that transpired there with relation to torture and the war on terror. We chose to focus on Guantanamo bay because it is one of the best-known examples of a challenge of human rights. Our plan for developing an action campaign is to spread awareness to the class, and try to gain support to have Guantanamo bay more heavily regulated, and ultimately shut down. We plan on asking the class to get together into discussion groups to go around and share what they really know about Guantanamo bay, and the torture that has gone on within its walls. It is our hope to really engage the class in our presentation and to educate them enough to hopefully have them join our campaign to shut Guantanamo down. We will use examples from the war on terror itself to show how torture has really affected people for the rest of their lives, and how experiencing it within these prison walls is detrimental to ones physical and mental health. There aren’t many specific accounts shared from prisoners within Guantanamo bay because the government has done a lot to keep it quiet. However, there are many stories told from war on terror victims that are similar to those that prisoners exposed to.

The questions we are going to try to answer are:

·      Real examples from prisoners and their stories

·      What are the specific violations of human rights

·      What steps need to be taken to shut it down

·      What is the history of Guantanamo bay

·      Why hasn’t it been shut down yet

·      What are the requirements for being sent to Guantanamo bay

We plan on using our class articles, library books, movie clips and internet sources to find sufficient information to back-up our arguments and build an affective campaign. We are going split up into pairs to research and focus on the different aspects of our presentation, and then combine all of our findings together to form one presentation.  Our topics are the History, the torture techniques and specific accounts of torture, and the steps necessary to close Guantanamo down.

The History: Dominique & Mick

Torture techniques: Grace & Julia

Steps to shut down: Lilly, Kate & Katie

Progress Report #2: Group # 6; Julia Mandehr, Grace Robinson, Kate Kenny, Dominique Bryant, Lilly Judge, Katie Hansen and Mick Pence; Guantanamo Bay and the War on Terror

So far our group has deepened our understanding of Guantanamo through our research. We have focused finding credible sources for our research, and weeding out all of the sources that have no proof or evidence of their claims. We have found a lot of great popular media sources like youtube videos. We also plan to have a group screening of Sicko (directed by Michael Moore) which we will follow up with a discussion. We are aiming to find as many current sources as possible to talk about the present-tense state of Guantanamo Bay. We believe that by putting the issues of Guantanamo Bay in a current context it will be presented as a more serious and relevant issue.  This will hopefully motivate the students to take action in this issue that we have seen begin and evolve within our own lifetimes.

Our presentation format has changed slightly since progress report #1. Instead of only advocating the closing of Guantanamo we are now going to present both sides of the argument and urge students to choose whichever side they support to get involved. Since Guantanamo is such a controversial issue we want to inform our class about both sides of the argument, instead of presenting a biased perspective. We believe this will be a more effective strategy in getting students involved because all opinions about the topic will be represented so students will have the option to get involved for whichever position they take on the issue.

               

Here are some more specific details about the progress of each of our members:

Grace & Julia have an extensive list of torture tactics and the effects they have on both the guards and prisoners of Guantanamo Bay.

Dominique & Mick are continuing research on the history of Guantanamo Bay.

Lilly & Kate are working to research the perspective of those who advocate closing Guantanamo Bay while also investigating different plans to make this happen.

Katie is researching the opposite perspective of keeping Guantanamo open and the reasons why many people believe that the procedures carried out at Guantanamo are justified.

In addition to the sources we have already acquired we plan to explore more media sources (particularly video clips) to determine the best sources to use in our presentation. We also want to find a few more articles to strengthen our framework and have a more detailed understanding of the issues surrounding Guantanamo Bay. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bellinger, John. Kadidal, Shayana, et al. Should Guantanamo Bay be closed? http://www.cfr.org/human-rights/should-guantanamo-bay-closed/p21247

Cratty, Carol. (2009) Sept. 11 families: Keep Guantanamo Bay Open. CNN Politics. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-07-17/politics/gitmo.families_1_guantanamo-detainees-military-commissions-terror-trials?_s=PM:POLITICS

Inside Guantanamo Bay (National Geographic Documentary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY7UOil5W64&feature=fvwrel

Mazetti, Mark. (2009) Interrogation memos detail harsh tactics by CIA. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/us/politics/17detain.html

Morgan, Melanie. (2008) Obama should keep GITMO open. http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com/2008/12/obama-should-keep-gitmo-open.html#.UGjm6a6MKSo

Priest, Dana. Graham, Bradley. (2004) Guantanamo List Details Approved Interrogation Methods. Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29742-2004Jun9.html

Q&A Closing Guantanamo (2010) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11623753

Rogan, Tom. (2012) Why Guantanamo Bay should remain open. http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/24/why-guantanamo-bay-should-remain-open/

Savage, Charlie. (2012) Will the Election Decide what is considered Torture? New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/us/politics/election-will-decide-future-of-interrogation-methods-for-terrorism-suspects.html?_r=0

Senate Judiciary Committee with Alberto Gonzalez. (2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vZFqjoVLjdQ

Torture Techniques used in Guantanamo. http://thejusticecampaign.org/?page_id=273

Welcome to Guantanamo Bay: A Rare Inside Look. http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=sLqKTh80q0o