Len and Nancy Tsou send their slideshow of the ALBA's 2011 New York City celebration and the ceremony for the first ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism. Click here to see the images.
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Earlier today, Prof. Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School summarized the main points of his two-hour conversation with ALBA/Puffin awardee Baltasar Garzón:
Garzón stated that the Obama Administration’s use of the “just following orders” defense as well as the protection of lawyers involved in the torture program violated the Nuremberg...
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All the major Spanish papers covered the news of Judge Baltasar Garzón's acceptance of the ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism yesterday in New York City, as well as his conversation with Professor Jonathan Turley: El País, ABC, El Mundo, Público, as well as El Diario in New York.
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Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, members of ALBA, representatives of the Puffin Foundation, authorities, amigas y amigos:
Seventy-five years ago in my country, Spain, one of the darkest and saddest chapters in the history of humanity began. It lasted more than forty years and even today, after 34 years of democracy, it has not...
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"An effort to declassify American intelligence files on Argentina’s dictatorship failed in Congress on Friday in Washington, disappointing rights activists in Argentina who believe the secret documents could help them identify young people stolen as babies by the military junta," the Associate Press reports:
The amendment by Representative Maurice D. Hinchey, Democrat...
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The Spanish-language channel of CNN interviewed Judge Garzón this afternoon. View the video here:
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"In the 1930s some 2,800 Americans joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and traveled to Spain to fight to defend democracy and defeat fascism after Gen. Francisco Franco’s right-wing coup," Georgetown University Law Professor David Cole writes in The Nation. "In 2011 the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA), an educational nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the...
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Judge Garzón said yesterday that even if he is cleared of the charges brought against him in three pending cases before the Spanish Supreme Court, his ability to do his job at his post on the National Criminal Court (Audiencia Nacional) will be severely compromised, Reuters reports:
"Any interested party could use...
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Baltasar Garzón, in New York to receive the first ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism this Saturday, was interviewed this morning on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now. View the interview at the Democracy Now website; listen to the half-hour interview here (mp3). (Translation by ALBA's Tony Geist.) Interested in meeting Judge Garzón? Some
In an interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Baltasar Garzón has condemned the assassination of Osama bin Laden. "Not even the worst terrorist on earth deserves to be killed, especially when other options are still open," declared the Spanish judge, who is a staunch opponent of the death penalty. "If I do not...
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) is an educational non-profit dedicated to promoting social activism and the defense of human rights. ALBA’s work is inspired by the American volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Learn more at our website or
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New information about the New Zealand-born Spanish Civil War surgeon Doug Jolly (1904-1983) has emerged following the recent publication of his biography, Frontline Surgeon.
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On September 24, 1945, Dr. Barsky delivered this speech during the Spanish Refugee Appeal rally at Madison Square Garden.
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In 1944, Barsky wrote A Surgeon Goes to War, an 18-chapter memoir of his time in Spain, which was never published but can be consulted at NYU’s Tamiment Library. This is the first chapter.
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Self-effacing and shy though he was, Dr. Edward Barsky’s experience in Spain made him an outspoken activist, tireless organizer, innovative frontline surgeon, and political prisoner. “Eddie is a saint,” Hemingway wrote. “That’s where we put our saints in this country—in jail.”
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The Volunteer is thrilled to honor Dr. Barsky on the fiftieth anniversary of his death.
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For Edward Barsky, political and humanitarian activism were two sides of the same coin. Those who persecuted him begged to differ.
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The time she spent in civil-war Spain loomed large in the life of Martha Gellhorn, the St. Louis-born war journalist. “The truth is that Martha could not stop thinking, feeling, and writing about her Spanish experiences.” “Objectivity bullshit.” That’s what Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) called the journalism of her day. Her letters to personalities like...
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Among the thousands of Jewish volunteers who joined the International Brigades were many descendants of the Sephardim. What was it like for them to “return” to Spain? Three case studies: Lini de Vries, César Covo, and Samuel Nahman, aka Manny Harriman.
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How the 22-year-old Jewish American dancer Janet Riesenfeld performed flamenco to help raise money for the Second Republic under fascist attack.
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Why did Jawaharlal Nehru, future prime minister of India, visit civil-war Spain in 1938? As it turned out, the triangular relationship between Britain, Spain, and India had deep cultural and geopolitical implications.
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ALBA's project to provide a complete list of the more than 2,800 individuals who left from U.S. territory to fight with the Spanish Republic
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