Trial Begins for Humanitarian Facing 20 Years in Prison for Giving Water to Migrants

[G_j]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/05/29/criminalizing-compassion-trial-begins-humanitarian-facing-20-years-prison-giving?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook


Published on
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
byCommon Dreams

'Criminalizing Compassion': Trial Begins for Humanitarian Facing 20 Years in Prison for Giving Water to Migrants in Arizona Desert

"If Dr. Warren were convicted and imprisoned on these absurd charges, he would be a prisoner of conscience."

byJessica Corbett, staff writer

Human rights advocates accused the U.S. Justice Department of "criminalizing compassion" as a federal trial began in Arizona Wednesday for activist Scott Warren, who faces up to 20 years in prison for providing humanitarian aid to migrants in the desert.

Warren, a 36-year-old college geography instructor from Ajo, Arizona, is a volunteer for the humanitarian organization No More Deaths/No Más Muertes, an official ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson. He was arrested by Border Patrol agents in 2017 and faces three felony counts for providing food, water, clean clothes, and beds to two migrants.



Warren's parents, Pam and Mark, launched a MoveOn.org petition earlier this month calling on federal authorities to drop all charges, which has garnered nearly 130,000 signatures. Amnesty International issued that same demand on May 15, in an open letter to Michael Bailey, the U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona.

The charges against Warren "are an unjust criminalization of direct humanitarian assistance" and "appear to constitute a politically motivated violation of his protected rights as a Human Rights Defender," Amnesty International's Americas regional director Erika Guevara-Rosas wrote to Bailey.

..more..

[BigMin28]

1. So his deeply held

belief in helping others doesn't matter. Only in denying someone or discriminating against someone does one's deeply held beliefs count.

[G_j]

2. well stated

ain’t that the truth!

[gratuitous]

4. Isn't it odd how that works?

If a pharmacist's deeply held religious beliefs keep him from giving a raped minor the morning after pill, well, that's highly protected, and nobody has the right to question those beliefs or hold the pharmacist accountable for the secondary trauma he inflicts. The pharmacist doesn't even have to show he's a member of a church or document that that church has a long-standing commitment to traumatizing rape victims.

But providing other humans with water in the desert? Even if you belong to a church with a documented commitment to offer food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, and clothing to the naked? It's 20 years in the slammer for you!

It's unconscionable that it has to come down to this, but let's hope the jury is more compassionate than Arizona's U.S. Attorney. It's sad that under Donald Trump, the United States is no longer great enough to welcome the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

[Volaris]

7. The tired, poor, etc are only welcomed here if they're WHITE.

everyone else from those 'shithole countries' can apparently fuck off and die.

Thus is the Trump Doctrine.

Weve ALWAYS been better than this. If we're no longer , I weep for what we really are

And because I'm in St Louis ...

Go Blues.

That is all heh.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

Sick society.

[Kid Berwyn]

5. Seems they take their hatred seriously in Arizona.

Glad there are good people there, too, like Dr. Scott Warren.

[Volaris]

6. I'm sorry, what law did he break?

[bluecollar2]

8. The don't be nice to brown people law...n/t.

[Volaris]

11. Well that's a white people Trump law if there ever was such a thing . .

[llmart]

9. This makes me depressed.

What have we devolved into in this country when someone is punished for doing the humanitarian/Christian thing?

I'm not religious but I have to believe that Jesus would weep.

[Volaris]

13. I guarantee you, if it were up to to Yertle, Cortez wouldn't be a congressperson

It has NOTHING to do with Mitch himself might not be a rascist , and EVERYTHING to do with him getting re elected BY rascists...

and for that, a Dem Senate majority needs to expell his craven ass.

[GReedDiamond]

10. So is it OK to compare Trump/Repukes to nazis yet?...nt

[oasis]

12. Time for a bit of jury nullification. nt