Many communities throughout the United States and the world are planning events to honor the people who were killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. The following organizers, seeking to help create a world with “no more victims,” are available for interviews:
DAVID POTORTI
David Potorti, who lost his brother James at the World Trade Center, said today: “Victims of terrorism and war — from Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, the Philippines and Japan — will join family members of Sept. 11 victims for a joint speaking tour in the days immediately before and after Sept. 11, 2002. The ‘No More Victims’ tour, co-sponsored by September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and the American Friends Service Committee, hopes to place the human dimension of the 9-11 attacks and of war at the center of the national debate over the ‘war against terrorism’…. By putting a human face on the casualties of terrorism and war, we hope to demonstrate the price of responding to violence with violence. The true cost of the U.S. war on terror, in human terms, is reflected in the experiences of these people, leading them to seek alternatives.” Peaceful Tomorrows members available for interviews include Talat Hamdani, a Pakistani-American woman who endured rumors that her son was a terrorist after he disappeared on Sept. 11. His remains were later found at the World Trade Center site, where it is thought he rushed to try to save people with his skills as a trained emergency technician. [Joseph Gerson is director of programs at the AFSC in New England. He can be reached at: jgerson@afsc.org, www.afsc.org.]
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MEDEA BENJAMIN
A founder of United for Peace, a coalition of groups, Benjamin said today: “In over 100 U.S. cities, as well as nearly a dozen foreign countries, people are honoring those who died on Sept. 11 by calling for no more innocent victims.”
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KATHY KELLY
Kelly is coordinator of Voices in the Wilderness, a humanitarian relief group. She and other members of the group have been on a 40-day fast at the UN headquarters in Manhattan, calling for a nonviolent foreign policy. They will break their fast on Sept. 10 at 11 a.m. with symbolic servings of embargoed Iraqi dates. The group has openly violated the economic sanctions on Iraq by taking medicine there without U.S. government approval. Two participants in the fast, Henry Williamson (from Charleston, S.C.) and Cynthia Banas (from Verona, N.Y.), are then planning to go to Iraq; they intend to stay through any massive U.S. assault on Iraq.
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020 or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167