Brockport's Amnesty International group honors founder

Brockport's small, but dedicated, group of Amnesty International members are hosting a memorial program in honor of their co-founder, Sylvia Thompson. While the group may only number ten, they have been successful in drawing influential speakers to the area in honor of this memorial program for Thompson who started Brockport's chapter in 1979. "This is clearly quite an undertaking for our small, but dedicated group of members," said Barbara Deming, a member of the Amnesty International Group #191. "These programs were brought about by our desire to honor the memory of one of our founding members."

The program, "Is There Torture In Our Time?", will be presented Tuesday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Wells-Brown Room of the Rush Rees Library on the University of Rochester campus. The program and reception following are free and open to the public and were made possible by a grant received by the Brockport chapter from Amnesty International. The guest speakers, Joshua Rubenstein, Northeast regional director of Amnesty International USA, and Sister Alice Zachmann, recently retired director of Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, will host the program at the library. In addition to the March 30 library program, the guests speakers will be speaking to the editorial board of the Democrat and Chronicle, will appear on the Bob Smith show and will speak at the School Without Walls as well as visiting several area colleges. "Both of the speakers are major players in the field of human rights and both have expressed an interest in helping students learn about human rights conditions," Deming said.

Rubenstein has been involved with human rights and international affairs for more than 25 years as an activist, scholar and journalist. He has lectured and written on the Soviet human rights movement. Since 1975, he has been the regional director of Amnesty International USA.
Sister Alice Zachmann founded the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA in 1982. Zachmann rarely takes credit for all that she and her staff have accomplished. "Without the dedicated staffers, interns, volunteers and financial support given by many supporters, none of the efforts made could have been fulfilled," she said. "Guatemala has not achieved the fulfillment of the Peace Accords signed in 1996. The commission's work continues and support is needed as much as ever."

Art Smith has been a member of Brockport's Group #191 since 1984. "After I returned from a year in Brazil and saw first-hand the power of a military government to limit basic human rights of its citizens, I joined the organization," he said.

Smith said he was "vaguely aware" that Amnesty International was dedicated to the defense of human rights and that it had received a Nobel Peace Prize for its work but it was a campus meeting led by co-founder Sylvia Thompson that convinced him to become a member.

Amnesty International (AI), founded in London in 1961, is a Nobel Prize-winning grassroots activist organization that boasts more than one million members worldwide. Amnesty International is dedicated to freeing prisoners of conscience, gaining fair trials for political prisoners, ending torture, political killings and "disappearances," and abolishing the death penalty throughout the world.

Smith said anyone interested in learning more about AI are welcome to attend the monthly meetings that are held the third Thursday of each month at 7:30 p.m. at the Sweden Municipal Building, 49 State Street, Brockport.