Universal Human Rights: Public Protests Impending New Orleans Elections & Human Rights Abuses During Katrina

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Click to Download VIDEO 27 MB 11'30minutes.mov quicktime

On Saturday, April 1 2006, several thousand people marched across the Mississippi River Bridge from the Convention Center in New Orleans to Gretna, Louisiana to protest human rights abuses that occurred following hurricane Katrina and the upcoming mayoral elections on April 22.

When people tried to cross this bridge, the "Crescent City Connection", while fleeing the city and the rising floodwaters immediately following hurricane Katrina last September, they were turned back at gunpoint by police from the city of Gretna.

Protestors marched on this symbolic bridge to also protest the upcoming elections for New Orleans mayor. With less than half the city returned, and most of the residents relocated to new addresses, displaced voters, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), Rainbow Push Coalition, and other national and local civil rights advocates called for the post-ponement of the elections until equal access to the candidates, information about the election, and actual voting places can be guaranteed to all residents. In particular, voting rights advocates pointed to satellite voting opportunities given in the United States by the government to Iraqi and Bosnian citizens that are being denied to tens of thousands of displaced residents of New Orleans. Many protestors compared the expense and burden on poor and predominantly African-American residents to travel back to New Orleans just to vote for mayor to the poll taxes and Jim Crow laws that historically prevented African-American peoples from representation in electoral politics in the Southern United States.

The NAACP has set up a hotline for New Orleans voters:
1-866-Our-Vote (1-866-687-8683).
Pass it on.

HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL:
This past weekend's protest in New Orleans coincided with some of the largest protests in U.S. history. In other cities around the United States, hundreds of thousands of protestors also marched against anti-immigration legislation and immigrant worker policies. To look more at both these protests and larger movements in relationship to universal human rights and equal representation, see related links:
Democracy Now! Monday April 3 2006, New Orleans indymedia

More video for a Free New Orleans and Peace On Earth at::: www.N.O.Tv Collective.org