Each day, Janet Syriani runs to her mailbox hoping to find a letter from her father, Elias Syriani. A missive from the father she has not touched since she was 8 years old always makes her day. What makes this story so remarkable is that Janet’s father is on Central Prison’s death row for the […]
Patrick O'Neill
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‘Many execution dates this fall’
When Chapel Hill defense attorney Marilyn Ozer first got involved in death penalty appellate work around 1990, she didn’t think she’d be at it very long. “Fifteen years ago I never would believe that we would still have the death penalty today,” Ozer says. “It’s not just that I hoped. I was sure there wouldn’t […]
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A fond farewell to Joe Straley
When Joe Straley received the 2003 Peace Award from North Carolina Peace Action, he told a story from his childhood that helped his friends understand the source of his passion. Straley was 7 years old as his parents washed dishes together. “My father was expressing remorse, anger, regret about something awful that was happening to […]
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The human side of the war
READ MORE: “Had enough?” | “Les bon temps (finissent)“ Standing in Raleigh’s Moore Square Park, the mother who may be remembered as the person who set in motion the campaign that ended the Iraq war, told her story. Angry that her son, Casey, was killed in the war, Cindy Sheehan had a “brainstorm.” While in […]
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Anti-torture activist to speak at Capitol
Jennifer Harbury’s harrowing memories of U.S.-backed torture extend more than two decades. Not much has changed since her husband was tortured and murdered in Guatemala 10 years ago by Central Intelligence Agency-backed torturers. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Harbury moved near the Mexican border in southern Texas in the 1980s to work with Latino […]
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Hundreds of war protesters turn out
The common theme for people who joined solidarity vigils with Cindy Sheehan was surprise as local activists turned out in large numbers on short notice to back a mother who was encamped outside George W. Bush’s Texas ranch waiting to ask the president why her son had to die in Iraq. With two days notice […]
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Mom cuffed, jailed, freed
With a smile on her face, Durham mother and peace activist Beth Brockman slid her hands behind her back and cooperated with the sheriff’s deputy who handcuffed and arrested her Aug. 6 for blocking a road leading to the entrance to the Department of Energy’s Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Brockman, the […]
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Cindy Sheehan may take protest to D.C.
When Cindy Sheehan came to Fayetteville March 20 to address an anti-war rally, the grieving mother who lost a son in the Iraq war received little fanfare. Today, Sheehan’s face is recognized around the world as the mother who has been encamped outside of George W. Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch since Aug. 6, waiting for […]
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Mom may be jailed as part of Hiroshima protest
Catie Brockman was a little worried when her mother recently called a family meeting. “Is there anything bad about it?” Catie, 9, asked her mother. “Well, maybe,” Beth Brockman replied. At the meeting, Beth Brockman, a member of Durham’s First Presbyterian Church, told her daughter and 4-year-old son, Matt, that she was planning to engage […]
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House helps death row families
When her youngest son, Elmer Ray McNeill Jr., was sentenced to death on April 9, 1996, in a Wake County courtroom, Roberta McNeill yelled to him as sheriff’s deputies led her son away: “Hey! I love you! I’ll always love you!” Since that day, McNeill has endured a gut-wrenching wait, not knowing if her son […]