What kind of message is Obama sending? Work for human rights and you are not welcome?

[Bluebear]

by Alex Gibney

Alex Gibney is a documentary filmmaker who made Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. He has won an Emmy, a Peabody, the duPont Columbia Award, and a Grammy.

The Obama administration has denied a visa for Hollman Morris to come to the US as a Nieman fellow at Harvard University.

Hollman Morris is an extraordinary journalist in Colombia. He produces a television public affairs program called "Contravia," in which he exposes corruption, human rights abuses and, recently, the unholy links between illegal far-right militias and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Washington's closest ally in Latin America. According to AP coverage cited on the Nieman Foundation's website, "a consular official at the US Embassy in Bogota told that Morris was ruled permanently ineligible for a visa under the 'Terrorist Activities' section of the USA Patriot Act."

What kind of message is the Obama administration sending? Work for human rights and you are not welcome here?

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/07/keeping-human-rights-out-of-the-us/59532/

From the ACLU:

Over the weekend, it was reported that renowned Columbian journalist Hollman Morris — one of 12 international journalists selected to participate in the prestigious Nieman fellowship program at Harvard University during the 2010–11 academic year — has been denied a visa by the State department. The U.S. embassy in Bogota informed him that he has been found permanently ineligible for a visa under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Today, the ACLU, American Association of University Professors and PEN American Center sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to express alarm over this apparent incident of ideological exclusion — a practice under which foreign nationals are denied entry to the United States because the government does not agree with their political views.

Earlier this year, Secretary Clinton signed orders effectively lifting the exclusion of prominent scholars Adam Habib and Tariq Ramadan, who were excluded by the Bush administration. We had hoped that Secretary Clinton’s orders signaled a broader commitment to ending the practice of ideological exclusion, but the Hollman Morris case makes us wonder whether the practice has actually been retired.

The letter we sent today states:

No legitimate interest is served by the exclusion of foreign nationals on ideological grounds. Ideological exclusion impoverishes intellectual inquiry and debate in the United States, suggests to the world that our country is more interested in silencing than engaging its critics, and undermines our ability to support dissent in politically repressive nations.

Yesterday, Alex Gibney, Academy Award-winning director of Taxi to the Dark Side, re-released this short video about Morris's work. Gibney writes in The Atlantic: "What kind of message is the Obama administration sending? Work for human rights and you are not welcome here?"

Join us in standing up for the First Amendment: Tell Secretary Clinton to end the practice of ideological exclusion once and for all.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/another-victim-ideological-exclusion

[Nite Owl]

1. Foreign nationals are only welcome

if they can take our jobs. We don't have enough IT people or engineers it seems.

And he is a liberal, can't have that now can we.

[TheWraith]

2. Oh for fuck's sake, is there anything bad we can't blame on Obama?

It's raining in central New York. Obama's fault! :sarcasm:

Here's a question: how many layers do you think there are between a foreign visa request and even the very lowest level of political appointees from the Obama administration?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. or political appointees left behind by Bushco....

n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. The political appointees are gone at this point. Those in place now were Obama appointees

or at least approved by the current administration

[Proud Liberal Dem]

15. I thought that towards the end of the last (mis-)administration

there was a lot of talk about appointees (particularly at the DOJ) "burrowing" into a lot of federal agencies? Are the miscreants really all gone? :shrug:

[TheWraith]

18. No, they're not all gone.

They've been hired into civil service jobs from which it's illegal to fire them without cause.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

23. Then they are not policial appointees

Note that they had to be hired at least a year before the elections and other fine points. Also the practice goes on in every administration. I have not read anything with a statistical basis that shows the last one was any better or worse than the recent norms.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

26. I stand humbly corrected.

Carry on with blaming Obama for this outrage- as I am quite certain (as so many other people here are) that he made this decision personally.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

31. Please point out where I blamed Obama for this outrage?

I did not offer an opinion on the matter at hand. What I did point out is that the Bush political appointees are gone at this point and by inference the current administration owns this event.

I will be interested to see what the official explanation is and what action is taken, if any. My guess that that the likely culprit is bureaucracy which infests all administrations, and not a cabal or conspiracy.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

33. My apologies

n/t

[SargeUNN]

5. well my right arm is hurting real bad, It is Obama's fault

Forget I actually broke my neck in 91 and have bone spurs pressing against nerves from it, that a VA doctor refused to diagnosis it because it might up my service-connected pension, that doesn't matter, it is still Obama's fault because it flared up when Obama was president.

[Bluebear]

20. Clueless.

[eilen]

13. Is it raining? I've been practically doing rain dances

I hope so. If Obama can do it-- I wish he would!

Too hot and dry in CNY.

[TheWraith]

19. Well, off to the western edge of the Finger Lakes.

Rochester was under a flash flood watch today.

[eilen]

24. I'm a bit Northeast, by Syracuse. nt

edited to correct my cardinal direction. for some reason I was thinking you wrote "Binghamton" instead of Rochester.

[Karmadillo]

16. Well, the Bush II regime did grant Mr. Morris a visa, so it would seem hard to put the blame there.

http://mydd.com/2010/7/3/why-did

Why Did the Obama Administration Deny a Visa to Hollman Morris?
by Charles Lemos , Sat Jul 03, 2010 at 04:00:50 AM EDT

My patience with the Obama Administration has been running thin on numerous issues for quite some time now but on the subject of human rights my patience is, well, just plum exhausted. Hollman Morris is an award-winning Colombian journalist, television producer and a defender of human rights. His reporting has been seminal to documenting the serial abuses of the Uribe Administration and of its ties to right wing death squads that have claimed an estimated 20,000 lives in the last eight years. Mr. Morris' work has earned him the sobriquet of "an ally of terrorism" from President Uribe.

This past June, Hollman Morris applied for a US visa at the American embassy in Bogotá in order to come to take up his place as an International Neiman Fellow at Harvard University, the oldest and one of the most prestigious programmes for mid-career journalists. Being named a Neiman Fellow is recognition of the incredibly important, and frankly dangerous, investigative research that Hollman Morris has performed in documenting the ties of members of the Colombian government and the Colombian armed forces have to paramilitary and drug trafficking groups. His being denied a visa by the Obama Administration is an affront to human rights groups and suggests that the Administration is not interested in having the many crimes of Alvaro Uribe aired in public.

Cecilia Zarate-Laun, a founder of the Colombia Support Network, told The Progressive that the visa suspension was “a prime example of ideological exclusion by the U.S. Government premised on the sensitivity of a foreign government to valid critical reporting.” It is an embarrassment that the Obama Administration is choosing to sweep under the rug the countless abuses of the Colombian people by the Colombian state and its armed forces. Here's a man who has risked his life to uncover human rights abuses and who has been a target of a comprehensive spying campaign by the Colombian state and the Obama Administration denies him a visa and the opportunity to join an academic mid-career development programme? The denial of the visa sends a dangerous message that journalists who defend are fair game and that the Obama Administration will look the other way when it comes to human rights abuses.

Below is a short three minute interview from October 2007 when Mr. Morris came to Washington to receive an award from Human Rights Watch as its 2007 Human Rights Defender. In the interview, Mr. Morris talks about the "other Colombia" - the fact that for ethnic minorities in Colombia life under Uribe has been deadly. In case you missed it, the Bush Administration granted Mr. Morris a visa. The Obama Administration did not. Funny that.

more...

[HughMoran]

17. It's a hobby

someone has to do it, right?

[Jakes Progress]

21. Do you have an opinion about the exclusion?

If you think it is a good thing, then defend your point of view. If you think it is a bad thing, join in signing the letter asking that the practice stop.

Or you can just jerk your knee all over the place.

[ixion]

3. Gee, it's almost like the neocons never really left

just sayin'...

[Octafish]

6. It's like my cable system has lots of channels, but the program's always the same.

And the cable bill keeps going up up up.

[Catherina]

8. That's the best short I've heard in a long time. +1 n/t

[G_j]

25. exactly!

of course light has a way slipping through here and there, though not by design.

[Lost4words]

30. thats it to a T

[laughingliberal]

7. K & R nt

[stray cat]

9. Lots of people get denied visas - why don't we cry for all of the others?

[Bluenorthwest]

10. Name them, tell their stories, perhaps I will cry for them.

But this is about a specific person, with a body of great work, coming for a specific academic reason. Discuss that. It is the subject at hand.

[SargeUNN]

11. it is at a lower level and now the ACLU has

sent a letter to Clinton asking her to look into. Now how Hillary acts on it WILL be a direct Obama offical appointed by Obama himself. That will tell the story for the admin. not this lower level person.

[Bluebear]

22. Tell us some of their stories, stray cat, please! Better still tell the ACLU!

We will await your answer.

[Radical Activist]

32. They aren't going to Harvard.

Maybe a little press attention will get him his visa.

[Catherina]

12. It's most unfortunate. The before and after are too different

Candidate Obama in October 2008

OBAMA: "The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions. And what I have said, because the free trade -- the trade agreement itself does have labor and environmental protections, but we have to stand for human rights and we have to make sure that violence isn't being perpetrated against workers who are just trying to organize for their rights,

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2008/10/hail-hail-colom.html


President Obama on June 29, 2009, with Colombian President Uribe below




I commended President Uribe on the progress that has been made in human rights in Colombia and dealing with the killings of labor leaders there, and obviously we've seen a downward trajectory in the deaths of labor unions and we've seen improvements when it comes to prosecution of those who are carrying out these blatant human rights offenses.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-President-Obama-and-President-Uribe-of-Colombia-in-Joint-Press-Availability/

[Occulus]

27. WHOOPS- accidental unrec

Could someone counter it for me?

We desperately need a confirmation dialog for both rec choices. Or an undo function.

[Lost4words]

28. Dupe

[Lost4words]

29. Got Goose Step?

One of the first marks of an abuser is keeping their victims isolated from outside contact and information.