Ajamu Baraka

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Ajamu Baraka 2016
2016 presidential election poster

Ajamu Baraka (born October 25, 1953 in Chicago ) is an American activist and politician . In 2016, the presidential candidate Jill Stein selected him as her runner-up candidate (" Running Mate ") for the 2016 election .

Career

Life

Baraka has worked for Amnesty International for a long time , including leading the organization's program for the abolition of the death penalty in the United States. In 1998 he was one of 300 participants in the first International Summit of Human Rights Defenders on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter of Human Rights . In 2001 he was a delegate at the World Conference against Racism . He is also active at Africa Action and the Center for Constitutional Rights .

In 2004 Baraka became the founding director of the US Human Rights Network , in which human rights organizations organize individual human rights activists in the United States. Under his leadership, which lasted until the summer of 2011, the organization grew from almost 60 groups to over 300 organizations and over 1500 activists.

Baraka and Stein, August 2016

On August 1, 2016, Jill Stein , the Green Party's top candidate for president , announced that Baraka would support her as a vice president in the 2016 US presidential election .

Through his work as an activist, Baraka is a sought-after expert and appears regularly on television or writes articles for various newspapers; Among other things, he regularly writes articles for the political magazine CounterPunch . He also regularly gives lectures at various universities and offers training and information events, particularly on human rights.

Positions and Criticism

Baraka is particularly committed to the civil rights of the black population. For example, he made several comments on police violence against blacks. In September 2016, he called for an international investigation into the incidents in the United States. In addition, he was critical of the " War on Drugs ", since minorities in particular are being persecuted more strongly by the police and drug authorities, and efforts to promote free trade , since the rights of minorities are being pushed into the background, and described the fight against this as a central "black concern".

Baraka also campaigns against the death penalty . In 2001 he was named "Abolitionist of the Year" by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty .

In addition to his commitment to human rights, he is best known for his commitment to the politics of Israel , which he regards as more repressive in controlling its own population than the Soviet Union , North Korea or Cuba before 1989.

Baraka was critical of the self-revolving reaction of the Western world after the attack on Charlie Hebdo . He criticized the disproportionate interest in the attack in relation to the Islamist-motivated massacre in Baga , which a few days earlier had resulted in significantly more victims, and the alleged suppression of the non-European culture of Arabs and Muslims in France, which is particularly evident in the ban on veiling .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. http://www.jill2016.com/jill_stein_selects_ajamu_baraka_as_running_mate
  2. http://www.ajamubaraka.com/blog/2016/9/23/the-body-count-rises-a-call-for-international-oversight-of-us-police-killings
  3. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/12/stopping-the-trans-pacific-partnership-is-a-black-issue/
  4. http://www.commondreams.org/news2001/1019-01.htm ( Memento from November 22, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  5. Article Barakas on counterpunch.org from November 19, 2014 (English)
  6. http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/01/the-charlie-hebdo-white-power-rally-in-paris/