SC Faith Community to Hold Interfaith Prayer Vigils to Reflect on Anti-Immigrant Law, S.B. 20

The Steering Committee of the South Carolina Green Party endorses the South Carolina Immigration Coalition’s call for rallies against the Anti-Immigrant Law, S.B. 20.   Please attend these rallies in Columbia, Charleston, Greenville and Spartanburg on Sunday, December 18 and the Unity & Peace Rally held in Charleston at Washington Park on Monday, December 19.   As we meet with other South Carolinians we will build a social movement which can achieve a solution to the nation’s crisis in immigration and citizenship.

MEDIA ADVISORY

Contact-Tammy Besherse- Tammy@scjustice.org

 

–Photo and Live News Shot Opportunity–

The SC Faith Community to Hold Interfaith Prayer Vigils across the State to Reflect on Anti-Immigrant Law, S.B. 20

Sunday, December 18, 2011

South Carolina faith leaders and the faith community will gather at prayer vigils across the state on Sunday, December 18, to call attention to a hearing the following day in U.S. District Court in Charleston, where the U.S. Department of Justice and several civil and human rights organizations are challenging the constitutionality of South Carolina’s anti-immigrant law, SB 20.

SB 20, signed into law in June, encourages racial profiling by allowing law enforcement to investigate the immigration status of anyone they pull over whom they suspect may be in the state illegally.

The prayer vigils will offer reflections on the scriptural support of immigrants, the moral dimensions of the immigration issue, and the real-life consequences of SB 20. The vigils will be held in Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, Spartanburg, and Hilton Head.

Organizers of the prayer vigils, led by the South Carolina Immigration Coalition, are calling on the U.S. District Court to overturn SB 20.  On Monday, December 19, a rally in opposition to SB 20 will start at Washington Square Park before the hearing and continue outside the U.S. District Courthouse during the hearing.

Charleston Interfaith Service

Who: South Carolina Faith leaders, organized by the South Carolina Immigration Coalition

What:  Interfaith SB 20 Prayer Vigil

When: Sunday, December 18, 6 pm

Where: Midland Park United Methodist Church (2301 Midland Park Road in North Charleston)

Columbia Interfaith Service

Who: South Carolina Faith leaders, organized by the South Carolina Immigration Coalition

What:  Interfaith walk and prayer vigil

When:  Sunday, December 18, 1:15 pm

Where: Gather at 1:15 pm at Zion Baptist Church (810 Washington Street, Columbia); Walk to the Statehouse at 1:30 pm for vigil

Greenville Interfaith Service

Who: South Carolina Faith leaders, organized by the South Carolina Immigration Coalition

What:  Interfaith SB 20 Prayer Vigil

When: Sunday, December 18, 6 pm

Where: Fall Park

Spartanburg Interfaith Service

Who: South Carolina Faith leaders, organized by the South Carolina Immigration Coalition

What:  Interfaith SB 20 Prayer Vigil

When: Sunday, December 18, 6 pm

Where: Morgan Square on East Main St.

 

Unity and Peace Rally

Who: South Carolinians who oppose SB 20, organized by the South Carolina Immigration Coalition

What:  Rally at Washington Square Park and demonstrate outside U.S. District Courthouse

When:  December 19, 9:00 am

Where:  Washington Square Park (78 Broad Street, Charleston); Walk over to U.S. District Courthouse (85 Broad Street, Charleston)

URL: http://www.sc-coalition.org/home

Occupy Columbia Wins In Federal Court

Occupy Columbia has won in Federal Court!

Article in The State:

Judge: Occupiers can stay at State House

Some limitations are OK, judge says, but says protesters can’t break rules if there are none

Occupy Columbia protesters can continue their around-the-clock demonstration on State House grounds, U.S. Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled today.

Currie told attorneys for South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley that if the state wants to regulate who uses the grounds – and how – then it should develop written rules.

Because the First Amendment’s free speech issues are involved, however, any rules would have to be strictly limited and applied equitably.

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2011/12/14/2080001/judge-occupiers-can-stay-at-state.html#ixzz1gXBJmjoo

More announcements will be made throughout the day.   Check OC media for more breaking information.  We will post a transcript of the press conference when it becomes available.

Website: http://occupycolumbiasc.org

Livestream: http://occupycolumbiasc.org/livestream/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/occupycolumbia

More news reports [UPDATED]

• WIS, Channel 10:   Federal judge: Occupy Columbia protestors can stay: http://www.wistv.com/story/16323441/federal-judge

• WLTX, Channel 19 (via AP): Federal Judge: Occupy Columbia Can Stay at State House: http://www.wltx.com/news/article/163466/2/Federal-Judge-Occupy-Columbia-Can-Stay-at-State-House

Occupy Columbia, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Together

Who Is Bankrolling Climate Change?

Bankrolling Climate Change NGOs present groundbreaking research on banks’ involvement in coal financing. The State of South Carolina Retirement System invests in many of the worst offenders.

We all know that climate change is happening.
But do we know who is financing the dirty energy investments that are heating up the globe?

Until now, little was known about banks’ role and responsibility for global warming. While most large commercial banks provide figures on their annual investments into renewable energy, they neither track nor publish their annual investments into fossil fuel projects. Many banks have made farreaching statements on climate, but are they putting their money where their mouth is?

This study presents new research on the portfolios of 93 of the world’s leading banks. It examines their lending for the coal industry, the prime source of global CO2 emissions. It provides the first comprehensive climate ranking for financial institutions and identifies the top “climate killers” in the banking world.

FYI: European Green Party on Durban Climate Talks

 Note:   The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has just concluded in Durban, South Africa.  The following resolution by the European Green Party sets out a point by point overview of what is at stake in the Durban negotiations.   The Canadian Green Party also has a good resource page devoted to the conference. Find the original of the EU Greens resolution here, bolding below is as in the original.

For an overview of the Durban conference from the BBC, please see here.

UN climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa (COP17)

Congress Resolution adopted as amended European Green Party Congress • 11 – 13 November 2011 – Paris

Adopted Congress Resolution:

COP17 Durban- Making Up for Lost Time

The European Green Party Congress…

1. Notes with ever-increasing concern that progress in the Climate Change negotiations are proceeding at an irresponsibly slow pace and that the global community needs to rediscover the political will to make radical improvements in our climate policies. The planet is fast running out of time and patience!;

2. Considers that all parties to these negotiations must ensure that the COP 17 meeting in Durban in late November 2011 represents a turning point in multilateral climate negotiations and that they must forge legally binding agreements, which will contribute to securing the future against climate-related threats to the well-being of our planet and to its citizens;

3. Demands therefore that the Durban climate conference must make up for lost time in international climate negotiations and agree on:

• A peak year for global emissions of 2015 and a 2050 reduction target of at least 80% globally and 95% for Annex I countries, and establishing a process to address the gigatonne gap between current mitigation pledges and the objectives of limiting climate change to levels, not exceeding a temperature rise of 1.5°C;

• A second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol 2013-2017, closing forest management accounting and hot air loopholes, to ensure environmental effectiveness of the reduction targets;

• A mandate with a timetable for a legally binding outcome to be implemented by 2015 under the Convention track, including industrialised countries as well as emerging economies and developing countries;

FYI: For a Free and Open Internet

BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN : Alliance 90/The Greens

Note: This position paper was adopted by the Green Party of Germany at their recent convention of November 27, 2011. Thanks for the link goes to the techblog Techdirt, which notes:

The founding of the Pirate Party in Sweden in 2006 was regarded by many as a joke. After all, the argument went, who would want to be associated with “pirates” or vote for such a narrow platform? This overlooked the fact that the traditional political parties had consistently ignored the concerns of voters who understood that the Internet raised important questions about areas such as copyright and privacy. By focusing on precisely those issues, the Pirate Party gave disaffected voters the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the old political parties and their outdated policies.

The U.S. lacks a Pirate Party, but the concerns of tech libertarians are at the cutting edge of intellectual property and freedom of speech issues around the world. The concerns of this paper are not uniquely German or European. We’re reposting the paper here because activists in the U.S. have a great deal of work to do to address copyright in particular, and digital rights in general in the Internet age.

Original via Techdirt. Translation by Google Translate. Original here.

Exploit the opportunities of the Internet – – openness, freedom, participation, making the digital transformation go green!

Our social cohabitation has changed fundamentally over the past 20 years. After the peaceful revolution and the end of the Cold War began with the pioneering development of the World Wide Web a more decisive phase of globalization. Since then, we find ourselves in an ongoing process of global democratization, have increased while at the same dangers of censorship and surveillance by state and private agencies rapidly. Increasing transparency and participation, which we are commanded by the possibilities of the Internet have changed society and politics around the world sustainably. The digitization of the educational landscape and access to knowledge for all is the challenge before us. There are now some two billion people on our planet online, only 60 million users inside of them in Germany. All these people have more or less free access to global knowledge resources, economic, social, political and cultural participation. They use, how we could find recently in North Africa and the Middle East, which they offered new ways of communicating, to demand more democracy and transparency and to introduce to document human rights abuses and to create a global public. In many dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, the Internet – at least in part – the last voice and the only remaining bastion of freedom, even when individuals or state agencies through the manipulation of information, resources, pictures and videos to try another public through its propaganda . produce All this makes the Internet and the digital revolution of the largest media achievements since the invention of printing.