ICYMI! Pride Is Protest: Celebrating a Legacy of Black Queer & Trans Resistance, Resilience, and Rebellion 

Pride Month month, a month that centers the radical legacy of Black and Brown queer and trans people who rose up against police brutality and state violence, has just concluded. During Pride Month and every month we honor and celebrate the organizing, resilience, resistance, and rebellion of our LGBTQIA+ community, and continue to follow the leadership of those on the ground, in the streets, and beating down doors to institutions of power in pursuit of queer and trans liberation! 

For those of you who missed it, we hosted a special two-part series on Instagram Live (@ccrjustice), which has now been archived on our page for all to see. 

Watch part one featuring Pepe Julian Onziemap, LGBTQIA+ activist and Programme Director at Sexual Minorities Uganda, here and part two with Nigerian queer rights activist Matthew Blaise here.

READ: “Tax Breaks for Colonization” by Staff Attorney Diala Shamas 

“Much attention has been rightly paid to the billions of dollars that the U.S. government hands over to Israel every year, regardless of Israel’s war crimes, or even the warnings of military and diplomatic experts that such support might harm U.S. strategic interests in the region,” writes Staff Attorney Diala Shamas. “Less public scrutiny has been trained on the U.S. government’s indirect support to the Israeli settlement enterprise through the export of private actors, ideology and capital.”

Read the piece on the LPE Project’s website.

LISTEN: Ashley Diamond — and her vibrant community of advocates — highlighted in the latest “Activist Files” podcast episode 

What does the work toward abolition look like when it comes to the fight for trans justice and prisoners' rights? On episode 39 of "The Activist Files," our Bertha Justice Fellow Rafaela Uribe talks with Heena Sharma and Katrina Hamann-Azanov, two members of the Free Ashley Campaign, about their work to support Black trans liberation and prisoners’ rights activist Ashley Diamond while she is incarcerated in a men’s prison in Georgia.

They discuss why it’s important to organize support campaigns for people in prison and how to get involved, how their support work connects to their position as abolitionists, and how Ashley’s experience offers an important case study for the particular issues faced by trans people both in prisons and through the discrimination-to-incarceration pipeline that criminalizes and punishes trans people for their survival.

Listen on our website.

Abu Ghraib torture survivors’ case back to the trial court 

As we shared last week, the Supreme Court conferenced last week to once again consider private government contractor CACI’s 2019 petition in which it asked the high court to hear its appeal from the lower courts’ denials of its claim of “derivative sovereign immunity” from former Abu Ghraib detainees’ claims of war crimes, torture, and cruel treatment. On Monday, the Supreme Court denied CACI’s petition, sending our long-running case, Al Shimari v. CACI, back to the district court, where we hope it will proceed expeditiously to trial.

“The Normalizing Gaze: Surveillance from Drones to Phones” biweekly speaker series beginning July 7 

In conjunction with Sam Durant’s public art installation, the High Line Plinth commission Untitled (drone), we are proud to support – together with High Line Art, S.T.O.P, and the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at NYU Law –a biweekly online speaker series from July to October 2021: “The Normalizing Gaze: Surveillance from Drones to Phones.”. This series brings together artists, activists, scholars, filmmakers, journalists, and more to demystify the twinned histories of surveillance and drone warfare in the U.S. and illuminate routine examples of surveillance in our daily lives. Center for Constitutional Rights Advocacy Program Manager Aliya Hussain will be participating in Building Surveillance: Three Chapters in U.S. History on October 13.

Find out more and register for these virtual conversations on the High Line's website.

We are excited to be a member of the advisory group working on public engagement for Durant’s High Line Plinth commission Untitled (drone), along with Immigrant Defense Project, MediaJustice, Mijente, MPower Change, Reprieve, and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.).

Get your copy of Michael Ratner’s memoir Moving the Bar and watch the video of our tribute event, “What Michael Taught Us”! 

If you are not yet a monthly donor, we invite you to take advantage of a special offer — give to the Michael Ratner Campaign for the Next Generation as a Justice Sustainer by July 16 and receive a free copy of Michael’s newly released autobiography, Moving the Bar.

On June 16, we had a moving conversation about Michael’s legacy and Moving the Bar. It was so great to hear personal reflections from current and former Center for Constitutional Rights staff members and others who had the opportunity to work with, learn from, and laugh with Michael Ratner. He left a legacy of love that drove his fierce commitment to justice. We are grateful and privileged to continue his work.

If you were not able to join us on the 16th or want to experience it again, you can watch the event, “What Michael Taught Us,” on our YouTube channel.