For Immediate Release
Press Contact: Akhila Kolisetty
1-212-627-0444 x123, akolisetty@madre.org
Amid racial justice protests in the US, a group of feminist activists from the Global South issue a statement of solidarity
New York, NY (June 15, 2020): Today, a group of 53 organizations and more than 60 individuals representing feminist activists, grassroots organizers and human rights defenders from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America issued a statement of solidarity with activists across the US marching and mobilizing for justice for Black lives.
Condemning the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others, the letter also denounced the “brutal police and military crackdowns on protests across the US.”
The effort, coordinated by MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization, brings together feminists from the Global South to express solidarity with Black communities in the US, grounded in an understanding that “feminist struggles for justice, peace and human rights are deeply tied to Black peoples’ struggles in the US.”
“Our solidarity is deepened by our own experiences of racist US wars and militarism. We live with the bitter legacies of the US occupation of Haiti and Iraq, and the training and funding of militaries and armed groups in Colombia, Guatemala and Nicaragua,” noted the statement.
“Even as we confront the dangers of police brutality and state repression, this moment of uprising holds great possibility,” said MADRE’s Executive Director, Yifat Susskind. “It lies in more and more people rising up in collective action to demand justice and oppose racist authoritarianism.”
“We in Colombia stand in solidarity with Black communities in the US as they face militarized racist violence. We know all too well what it’s like to organize in the face of repression, patriarchy, racism and right-wing authoritarianism” said Charo Mina-Rojas, from the Black Communities' Process in Colombia (Proceso de Comunidades Negras - PCN). “Beyond solidarity, our hope lies in organizing across borders for our joint liberation. In this moment, changes can be made a reality — if we come together to demand radical transformational action.”
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