When Rosa Saavedra spotted Catholic Sister Kitty Bethea on Monday at the Raleigh May Day march and rally for fair immigration reform, Saavedra looked at her friend in amazement. “Did you ever think we’d see this day?” said Saavedra, who marched in Smithfield and then joined a caravan of cars that drove to Raleigh for […]
Patrick O'Neill
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Execution as science experiment
Using a machine to make sure he was asleep, Central Prison officials lethally injected Willie Brown Jr. last Friday, ending yet another round of international media attention focused on a North Carolina execution. In last-minute court filings, Brown’s lawyers tried to make the case that lethal injection can result in a painful death if the […]
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Judge OKs lethal injection in N.C.
As the Independent was going to press Tuesday, defense lawyers were scrambling with last-minute appeals in an attempt to save the life of death row inmate Willie Brown. Brown, who has a history of mental illness, was scheduled to die by injection Friday morning at 2 a.m. at Raleigh’s Central Prison. Brown’s final minutes of […]
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‘We are here, and we are human, and we have rights.’
SILER CITY–Around 2 p.m. Monday, Ilana Dubester greeted a small band of walkers with the Pilgrimage for Justice and Peace. The pilgrims, who are marching throughout Holy Week in numerous North Carolina cities, had stopped in front of the offices of El Vinculo Hispano (The Hispanic Liaison). Dubester, Vinculo Hispano’s interim director, and a room […]
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Immigration marches spread statewide
Monday’s march and rally for immigration reform in Siler City came on the heels of another march that took place on Palm Sunday at the kickoff for the 20th annual Pilgrimage for Justice and Peace. More than 500 people gathered Sunday at the Lenoir Latino Center in Caldwell County, and made their way south down […]
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Iraqi pleads for U.S. withdrawal
When she spoke in public, Iraqi pharmacist Rashad Zidan was so passionate that she often seemed to be yelling; sometimes she was yelling. For Zidan, who has been touring the United States to plead for an end to the three-year occupation of her country, the promises of George Bush of a better life for the […]
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Antiwar protesters warned about Bush, Iran
With George Bush’s approval rating at an all-time low, you would think he might tone down his “Let’s roll” rhetoric. Not likely, says former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. “I think the chances are better than even that we’ll start bombing Iran within the next couple of months,” McGovern told more than 160 people Sunday at […]
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Patrick Moody: N.C.’s 41st execution
As a friend and spiritual advisor, the Rev. Myles H. Walburn of Chapel Hill agreed to witness the execution of Patrick Moody at 2 a.m. on St. Patrick’s Day. Walburn, who had visited Moody for almost two years on Central Prison’s death row, said words could not describe the pain he felt as he watched […]
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Quaker hostage killed in Iraq
For Fayetteville Quaker House director Chuck Fager, the war is hitting close to home this year. Last week, the body of Fager’s friend and fellow Quaker, Tom Fox, was found along the road to the Baghdad airport. Fox, who was in Iraq as part of a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation assisting Iraqis, had been bound […]
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Protests this weekend
The Rev. Charlie Mulholland, the local activist priest who died in 2001, once called for a demonstration at the Greenville post office, a frequent gathering place for left-wing pickets of all kinds in that Eastern North Carolina town. When someone at the Greenville Peace Committee meeting complained about yet another demonstration at the post office, […]
