My Trip To The U.N.

Last Friday, I attended the press conference announcing Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights (MVHR). This organization was founded by Renny Cushing who will be the Executive Director and previously was the Director of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation, featured at the end of Deadline.

MVHR comes out of the Victims Roundtable at the Second World Congress Against the Death Penalty held in October, 2004 in Montreal, Canada which recommended that an international network of family members of murder victims who opposed the death penalty be established for the purpose of unifying and raising the voices of victims in the global death penalty debate.

The event featured many friendly faces both from Deadline and our advisory council, including, Diann Rust-Tierney (from NCADP) and Jennifer and Bill Jenkins, members of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation who spoke at the Q & As for the film's screening at The Gene Siskel Film Center.

Every member of the newly formed board of MVHR told a brief portion of the their story (much like the way we show MVFR in Deadline) and as many times as I hear these stories, I am still constantly moved by the strength it takes to forgive the person who murdered one of your loved ones.

A woman whose husband was killed in the September 11th attacks spoke, as did Robert Meeropol, the son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Afterwards, the new board members and all in attendance signed a treaty marking the event.

Afterwards, Bill Jenkins shook my hand and replied, "Did you ever think that you would be involved in this issue at this level?" I did not but am really glad that I am.

To learn more about their new organization, log onto their website. They also have a great resource page that has some organizations that I had not even heard of.

Posted by Angela at 12:10 PM

---

Comments

Posted by: topicstarter at October 18, 2006 02:15 PM

Posted by: tester at October 20, 2006 04:07 PM

Posted by: korneplod at November 6, 2006 12:31 PM