Second Set of One Thousand Appeal Signatures Released to Congress October 17, 2007

Video of Press Conference on YouTube Edited Press Conference Statements Video of Hutto's comments Comments by Rep. Woolsey Comments by Rep. Barbara Lee Comments by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee Comments by Rep. Grijalva Comments by Rep. Filner Comments by Activist/Playwright Eve Ensler Videos by William Hughes

A well attended and publicized event on Capitol Hill kicked off the release of a second wave of grievances from soldiers signing the Appeal for Redress. Attending the event were Appeal cofounders Jonathan Hutto Sr., and Liam Madden. Hutto is currently active duty, and serves aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt as Petty Officer Third Class. Ex-Sergeant Madden was honorably discharged from four years with the U.S. Marine Corps (including one tour of duty in Iraq), in January 2007. Also attending were Appeal signers Linsay Burnett and Jeffrey Fitting; playwright and activist, Eve Ensler; and several representatives from the Institute for Policy Studies, who plan to award the Appeal for Redress campaign with the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award later this evening. David Cortright, activist and author of Soldiers in Revolt also attended. Hutto provided commentaty on how the Appeal movement compared to the anti Vietnam war movement that Cortright participated in as an active duty soldier in the U.S. Army in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Congressional Representatives Lynn Woolsey (D-CA 6th); Barbara Lee (D-CA 9th); Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX 18th); Bob Filner (D-CA 5st), Chair of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee; Rául Grijalva (D-AZ 7th) and others were in attendance to officially "receive" names of their constituents who signed the Appeal.

Approximately one thousand new grievances from those signing online appeals at the Appeal for Redress website were released to each signer's congressional representative and senators. Individual letters from each signer were generated and faxed confidentially to each of the signer's representatives. The letters merely restated the Appeal grievance, and included the information contributed via the website only to that signer's elected officials, and, since it is a grievance sent confidentially, a request was added to not include that information in the public record.

In a ceremony held at the Institute for Policy Studies that evening, Madden and Hutto received, on behalf of all Appeal signers, the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award. On September 21, 1976, agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet detonated a car bomb that killed former Chilean diplomat and director of the Institute's Transnational Institute, Orlando Letelier, and IPS development associate, Ronni Karpen Moffitt, in Washington, DC. To honor their work and their courage, and to celebrate new heroes of the human rights movement, the Institute for Policy Studies has provided this annual award.

View the transcript of comments at the Letelier-Moffitt Award Presentation

Top to bottom: (1) U.S. Flag and Appeal banner; (2) Jonathan Hutto;
(3) Cong. Woolsey with Jeffrey Fitting and Jonathan; (4) Attending representatives
with Jeffrey, Jonathan, and David Cortright, far right.