From Cannabis churches to Russia banning Jehovah’s Witnesses, religious expression was a hot topic last week on Law Street. ICYMI, check out some of our top stories below!

Spiritual High: A Cannabis Church Opened Last Week in Denver

From the outside, it looks like any other nondescript, brick-built church. But its stained glass panels, instead of biblical images, are adorned with a colorful fresco of planets–with wide, cartoonish grins–and stars. Welcome to Denver’s International Church of Cannabis, which had its grand opening last Thursday, on the unofficial weed holiday known as “4/20.” In a city where smoking marijuana in public is illegal, despite Colorado’s legalization of the drug in 2012, the church offers a holy refuge to those looking for a more spiritual kind of high.

Russia Bans Jehovah’s Witnesses, Labels Them Extremists

Russia’s Supreme Court has banned the Jehovah’s Witness organization after the Ministry of Justice labeled it an extremist group. The denomination already was on shaky ground in Russia, as the government had banned its literature and website as well as arrested members and seized their property. But now with a complete and nationwide ban, the group’s headquarters in St. Petersburg and 395 local branches will all become state property.

How El Salvador Became the First Country to Ban Metal Mining

On March 29, El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban metal mining. The ban passed through the El Salvador unicameral legislature with support from a sweeping coalition and is favored by nearly 80 percent of the El Salvadorian population. In spite of the overwhelming support for the ban, the anti-mining movement started with a handful of grassroots groups determined to push back against the country’s historical devotion to “pro-business” policies.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On March 29, El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban metal mining. The ban passed through the El Salvador unicameral legislature with support from a sweeping coalition and is favored by nearly 80 percent of the El Salvadorian population. In spite of the overwhelming support for the ban, the anti-mining movement started with a handful of grassroots groups determined to push back against the country’s historical devotion to “pro-business” policies.

El Salvador: An Unlikely Contender

Like many Latin American countries, El Salvador opened its doors to multinational companies in the early 1990s in the hope that an influx of foreign investment would help steady its newly reformed political system. Entrance into the globalized economy appeared to be the best option for a country emerging from a long and brutal civil war. The region saw a spate of political pushbacks against neoliberal economic policies, but El Salvador remained devoted to the globalized economy.

Following the 1992 peace accords, the right-wing, pro-business Nationalist Republican Alliance (NRA) controlled El Salvador for 17 years. During this time, foreign money, much of it from mining, flooded into El Salvador. In 2001, the conservative government adopted the U.S. Dollar as its official currency. Officials pegged their currency to the dollar with the intention of stabilizing the economy and making El Salvador a more attractive destination for international investors.

Candidates from the socialist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) have won the past two presidential elections but have largely continued the economic strategies initiated by the NRA. The FMLN leaders have not employed the kind of “anti-imperialist” rhetoric that has often been used by other socialist leaders in the region. When Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former leftist guerilla, took power in 2014, he promised budget cuts and to maintain a close relationship with the United States. Sánchez’s predecessor and fellow FMLN member, Mauricio Funes, ruled the country as a centrist.

It is surprising that a country so roundly committed to foreign investment and the global economy would be the one to lead a charge against multinational metal mining corporations.

From Grassroots to Mainstream

Not long ago, El Salvador was actively courting multinational mining operations. After the civil war, the government began trying to rebuild the large-scale mining industry that had died out when conflict erupted in 1980. When global gold prices began to climb in the early 2000s, El Salvador received a flurry of exploration permit applications.

After some exploratory drilling, Pacific Rim Mining Corporation proposed plans for a mine named El Dorado to be built in the basin of the Rio Lempa–El Salvador’s primary source of drinking water.  According to Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Division, El Dorado would use two tons of cyanide and 900,000 liters of water a day to extract over 1.4 million ounces of gold in about four years.

Rapid industrialization and population growth in the 1990s caused extreme environmental degradation. By the early 2000s, over 90 percent of El Salvador’s ground water was chemically contaminated and no amount of boiling, filtering, or chlorination would make it potable. The prospect of a cyanide and water intensive mine on the crux of the country’s primary source drinking water was, for many, too much to stomach. Locals feared the mine’s copious water consumption would suck up supply and that the cyanide would render it undrinkable in the process.

As word of the mine spread, groups began to form and resist the El Dorado mine and mining in general. By 2005, the grassroots movement had turned national. Local and international groups united to form The National Roundtable Against Metal Mining in El Salvador (La Mesa), and the population’s support for a metal mining ban had grown.

In May 2007, El Salvador’s anti-mining movement gained one of its most powerful allies–the Catholic Church. In response to anti-mining statements from archbishops in neighboring countries, the El Salvadorian Catholic Church publicly denounced mining, claiming “no material advantage can be compared to the value of human life.” By October of the same year, polls showed 62 percent of the population opposed metallic mining in El Salvador.

The conservative NRA party had previously blocked attempts by the FMLN to pass a legislative ban on metallic mining but public support for the ban had become irresistible. In March 2008, NRA President Antonio Saca instituted a nationwide moratorium on metal mining permits.

The Backlash

Though this moratorium remained in place until the passage of an anti-mining law last month, the presidential moratorium wasn’t permanent and could have been lifted at any moment. The situation was precarious.

Pacific Rim and other mining cooperations quickly filed legal complaints against El Salvador. These suits quickly devolved into drawn-out legal battles, in which mining corporations demanded hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from one of the poorest countries in Latin America.

As these compensation claims crawled through World Bank tribunals, pro-mining operatives launched violent attacks against the anti-mining movement. From 2009 to 2011, at least four anti-mining activists were murdered. Rather than silencing the movement, these acts of violence galvanized support for the ban.

In late 2016, the World Bank slapped down Pacific Rim’s claim to compensation paving the way for a permanent ban.

A Future Without Mining

Over the course of a few years, the El Salvadorian government’s stance on mining underwent a 180-degree turn. Forces that once backed the mining lobby were forced to concede to a groundswell of opposition. As the effects of environmental degradation and exploitation become more apparent, El Salvador’s grassroots movement provides hope for similar ones around the world.

Callum Cleary

Callum is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is from Portland OR by way of the United Kingdom. He is a senior at American University double majoring in International Studies and Philosophy with a focus on social justice in Latin America. Contact Callum at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Refugees fleeing gang violence, blackmail, torture, and murder in Central America hope to end up on U.S. soil after weeks of walking, but of those who make it across the border, many end up in family detention centers for months. Countries such as Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala have among the highest homicide rates in the world, according to the UN, and women and children are the most vulnerable. In 2014, over 66,000 children traveling with their mothers fled from Northern Central America to the United States.

What is a family detention center?

At “Beyond the Wall: Women and Children Refugees: A Central American Crisis,” an event hosted by the New York City Bar Association last Tuesday, human rights advocates and health researchers got together to start a dialogue about the complex Central American refugee situation. The discussion focused on a UNHCR study, “Women On the Run,” which was released  last October detailing the crisis and its current challenges.

One family detention center in particular, the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, has gotten a lot of attention from advocates. The Dilley facility is the first family detention center in the United States since the Japanese family centers during World War II. It opened in December 2014 and is the largest in the world–though the term family center may be a bit misleading because men get separated from their families and sent to all-male centers that can be located thousands of miles away. Human rights advocates have reported numerous instances of verbal and physical abuse as well as insufficient food and water for the detainees.

Read More: Mother’s Day Appeal Outside the White House Aims to Abolish Family Detention Centers

"I was just trying to save my son's life" ~ Ada fled violence in #CentralAmerica https://t.co/UUqup2A23o #refugees pic.twitter.com/rtqmKcXxch

— UNHCR Washington (@UNHCRdc) May 20, 2016

Fleeing Violence

The UNHCR’s study, “Women on the Run” details the dangerous situations that women and children in many Central American countries face, forcing many to flee to the United States for safety. These women have been through serious domestic abuse, extortion, death threats, and rape. One of them tells of how she was two months pregnant when her cousin grabbed her and raped her on the street in front of his gang. Many others say that they see dead bodies on the streets daily. It can be the choice between certain death, and risking everything to have a chance of a normal life if granted asylum in the United States.

But even if they make it across the U.S. border, these refugees are not necessarily safe. Many end up in the family detention centers, where the women and children can stay for months without any information about their cases or even when they can talk to lawyera.

Imprisoned for over a year

Ana has spent the longest time in an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) family detention–almost 13 months–according to Aseem Mehta, a fellow at Immigration Justice Corps. Her last name is kept secret for legal reasons; her case is still pending. Back in El Salvador she was blackmailed by a gang that thought her family made a lot of money, and if she didn’t regularly pay them off they said they would kill her. Ana’s husband had already been granted asylum, but she and her daughter were sent back home.

But in 2014, Ana and her 13-year-old daughter decided to make the long journey across the border–a 2000-mile path through the desert, hot during the day and very cold at night. When they reached Texas three weeks later, they were held at the Dilley family detention center–a 50-acre trailer park in the middle of the 100-degree desert, hours away from the closest city. At Dilley, the mothers’ average age is 26, the children’s is 7, according to Mehta.

The horrors beyond the wall

Mehta told the story of how he met Ana in July 2015. He came to Dilley as part of a pro-bono effort with one purpose: get the detainees out of there. After hard work and some difficult months, he managed to get Ana and her daughter out of the family center in September 2015. A victory for Ana, but her freedom is still confined, her case still pending, and she still doesn’t know how it will end. For now, she is reunited with her husband and mother-in-law in New York.

The conditions in which the families live inside the center are worse than most people are aware of. According to Ana,

We got food once or twice daily, sometimes they forgot, so maybe only crackers. When I asked for more food for my daughter the officials said it’s not their responsibility to feed my kid, and it was my own fault she was hungry.

Dr. Allen Keller, director of the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, conducted a study at Dilley last summer. At the NYC Bar event, he called it “a disgrace” and spoke about the “icebox.” When refugees first arrive–many wet from passing through rivers–the women and children are stripped of their sweaters and placed in a 50-degree room on a cold cement floor. This is where many kids catch pneumonia.

“This is a population that is horribly traumatized, with PTSD, depression, and hopelessness,” Keller said.

And he said that as a result, many kids start to bed wet and become vegetative: dull, passive, and unresponsive. Injured women and children are denied medical help. One woman had a seizure but the guards wanted to put her on a plane anyway–risking her life–until Keller stepped in. People with chicken pox sleeps on the floor next to pregnant women, who if they catch the disease could pass it on to their fetuses, risking severe brain damage.

A collection of affidavits recovered by Fusion gives other examples of abuse–a child complaining of a dislocated shoulder was told to just drink more water. Hundreds of kids were given the adult dose of a hepatitis vaccine, after which a woman said her child got a severe earache, but she was scared to bring her back to the doctors again.

On June 1, human rights advocates cheered a Texas court decision to delay the issuing of a child care license to the Dilley facility due to low standards.

major victory against one of the nation’s largest immigration detention center, Austin, TX https://t.co/ql9plIFaMg

— ACIJ (@ALimmigrant) June 2, 2016

During Dr. Keller’s study at the Dilley center, he was part of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He witnessed how guards arbitrarily filled out questionnaires during asylum interviews without asking refugees all the questions–even when they were sitting there in the room. The list of abuses of power goes on and on.

According to Mehta, the family detention centers are really just prisons–where women are required to wear an ankle GPS at all times–and serve the purpose of discouraging more refugees to come to the United States. It’s also a way of keeping children locked up without actually putting them in prison.

What can we do?

It’s easy to feel hopelessness when hearing about the fates of the families in Dilley, but Mehta urges Americans and their politicians to start talking about it and to change the dialogue, and to stop seeing refugees as a threat to our national security.

These people don’t flee their homes to exploit the U.S. government and get things for free; they flee because they don’t have a choice–it’s a humanitarian crisis. Trump may be the one talking about building a wall, but as Dr. Keller points out, this has happened under a liberal government. We all need to keep pressuring politicians to make a change. We all need to help more women like Ana.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Last Friday, July 25, 2014, three Central American leaders  — Presidents Juan Olando Hernádez of Honduras, Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala, and Salvador Sánchez Cerén of El Salvador — convened at the White House to discuss with President Obama the recent wave of Central American immigrants, specifically unaccompanied minors, to the United States.

“Washington must understand that if you have a Central America with violence because of the drug traffic crime, a Central America without opportunities, without growth in the economy, it is going to always be a problem for the United States,” said President Hernández of Honduras. The root causes, Hernández went on, are not America’s lax border polices, but rather the demand for illegal drugs in North America, which fuels violence in Central America, causing migrants to flee their homes. In a joint statement on Friday, President Obama and the three Central American leaders pledged to address the “underlying causes of immigration by reducing criminal activity and promoting greater social and economic opportunity.”

What this estimation overlooks, though, are the perspectives of the immigrants themselves. What causes them to submit to a perilous exodus, vulnerable to a harsh desert climate, drug violence, and personal injury crossing rivers and fences, all at the likelihood of being detained by U.S. border security, and possibly being sent back? Drug violence may very well be a cause for the flight of immigrants, but I am skeptical to hear this from leaders of governments who have vested interests in the economic exploitation, and repression of their citizens. Rather, we should listen to the people.

In Central America, graffiti is a voice for a voiceless people: the agrarian peasants and the urban poor. Graffiti is an alternative medium of communication that broadcasts messages that corporate media outlets such as radio and television fail to incorporate. It is an open forum of dissent, writ large on the side of a government building, or across a freight car, traveling throughout the region. More importantly, graffiti is a vantage point from which we can discern the perspective of Central American immigrants, and the pressures behind their flight.

Ciudad de Juárez, the capital of Oaxaca, Mexico, six hundred miles from the Guatemalan border, is home to the Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca (ASARO). Comprised of multiple graffiti crews and independent artists, ASARO was forged in the summer 2006 following the violent state-oppression of teachers demanding better pay and working conditions. Forty-five hundred federal police forcibly removed the teachers from the streets, injuring 92 protesters and killing 17, including an American news correspondent. The brutal government crackdown on protests mobilized disparate activist groups against the government, which they saw as a common cause of their plights, and ASARO emerged as a visual amplification of their dissent through the streets of Ciudad de Juárez.

“Arte Del Pueblo y Para el Pueblo” (Art of the People for the People) courtesy of ian m via Flickr

What is more interesting, though, in regard to immigration to the United States, is the political motive and content of the ASARO graffiti. In their images and slogans, we find the root cause of strife afflicting the people in Mexico and Central America, and ultimately the systemic causes for the massive waves of immigration to the U.S. over the last five years.

“The assembly of revolutionary artists arises from the need to reject and transcend authoritarian forms of governance and institutional, cultural, and societal structures, which have been characterized as discriminatory for seeking to impose a single version of reality and morality[.]” – ASARO Manifesto

In Oaxaca, where 80.3 percent of the population lack sanitation services, street lighting, piped water, and paved roads, ASARO illuminated institutional prejudices against ethnicity, class, and sex, keeping eight out ten people in extreme poverty. Their graffiti critiqued the violence of the Mexican government in the 2006 uprising, but also demanded  equal rights for disenfranchised groups like farm workers, indigenous people, and women, as well as exposing the hypocrisies and corruption of the ruling elite. Slogans such as “Todo el Poder al Pueblo. Colonos en Pie de Lucha” (All the Power to the People. Neighbors on our feet to fight!) incited reflection and fiery debates on issues ranging from the privatization of public goods, to gender equality, democratic participate, and Indigenous rights. Moreover, images of the Oaxacan governor labeled “Cynic, Thief, Autocrat, Repressor, Murders,” and “End Fascism in Mexico!” rallied protesters against the government.

Courtesy of natarén via Flickr

“Todo el poder al pueblo. Colonos en lucha” (All Power to the people. Neighbors, on their feet for the fight). Courtesy of nataren via Flickr.

In addition to social struggles in Mexico, ASARO’s political graffiti illustrate issues that affect Central America broadly, such as the economic exploitation of natural resources and labor by transnational corporations, as well as documenting the physical and emotional trauma of immigration. ASARO’s political graffiti critiqued the extraction of oil and minerals from Oaxacan land, which is exported by the Mexican government at an exorbitant profit, without benefit to the Oaxacan people. One ASARO poster featuring a barefoot peasant tilling the land read, “La Tierra es de queen la Trabaja” (The earth belongs to those who work it); a wood-cut block print depicted Uncle Sam under an eagle drinking from an oil can, kicking miniature figures with guns, who represent the Mexican people.

These critiques of foreign exploitation not only speak to conditions in Mexico and Central America, but suggest a system of global colonization by transnational corporations. A block print called Body Parts on Railroad (2010) documents the perils of immigration. Body parts litter train tracks leading to the U.S.: a leg labeled “Salvador,” a finger labeled “Mexico,” a hand “Honduras,” and a head “Guatemala.” Similarly, another block print depicts small animals standing at the opening of a sewer drain like those used by some immigrants to enter the U.S., that runs under a border fence replete with police and an American flag.

In all, the political graffiti of Oaxaca, Mexico demonstrates that there is much more to the immigration debate than just the quips of politicians. In order to understand the root cause of the recent wave of unaccompanied child immigrants, and in order to address this crisis adequately, discussions must include the perspectives of the immigrants themselves. Drug violence is not the only cause for immigration from Central America; but rather a host of systemic issues force immigrants to travel to the U.S. Government corruption and economic exploitation are, perhaps, the most intolerable conditions for the people, as evidenced by the ASARO graffiti. Only from the oppressed can we fully understand their oppression; graffiti is the voice of the subaltern.

 —
Ryan D. Purcell (@RyanDPurcell) holds an MA in American History from Rutgers University where he explored the intersection between hip hop graffiti writers and art collectives on the Lower East Side. His research is based on experience working with the Newark Public Arts Project and from tagging independently throughout New Jersey and New York.

 Featured image courtesy of [Fabricator77 via Flickr]

Ryan Purcell

Ryan D. Purcell holds an MA in American History from Rutgers University where he explored the intersection between hip hop graffiti writers and art collectives on the Lower East Side. His research is based on experience working with the Newark Public Arts Project and from tagging independently throughout New Jersey and New York. Contact Ryan at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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