Wheels of Justice

Garrick Ruiz has been an organizer and activist in Los Angeles for nearly a decade. In the summers of 2002 and 2003 he spent nearly five months in occupied Palestine working with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

This time was spent both in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, where he was also the ISM Freedom Summer Campaign Coordinator for the summer of 2003. While there he accompanied ambulances, engaged in monitoring Israeli military checkpoints, stayed in homes threatened with destruction, documented human rights abuses by the Israeli Occupation Forces, accompanied Palestinians as they removed roadblocks and many other activities. Garrick has been active in the California youth movement, the anti-corporate globalization movement and many local struggles for justice in Los Angeles. He also spent nearly two months in East Timor in 1999 as a U.N. accredited election observer for the referendum on independence. The Wheels of Justice welcomes his return to the tour.

Ruth Coffee, from the San Francisco Bay Area, went to Palestine summer 2003; during this time she traveled to Bethlehem and Jerusalem but spent most of her time in Jenin. “I went there to witness what was happening and support occupied Palestinians in whatever way I could,” Coffee states. Mostly that involved listening to, talking to and being with people for whom life under military occupation is an inescapable part of their lives. “I wished to somewhat decrease the intense isolation that such living conditions create,” Coffee adds. Upon her return, she has become increasingly compelled to break the “veil of silence” that covers honest, open discussion about Israel’s military occupation and the critical role played by the U.S. government.

Brian Terrell lives and works with his family and friends and small herd of dairy goats at Strangers and Guests Catholic Worker Farm in Maloy, Iowa. Brian began his activism and career with the Catholic Worker movement in New York City in 1975. Since 1999, he has also been employed part time as director of Catholic Peace Ministry in Des Moines. Brian visited Iraq in 1998 and has been active in opposing sanctions and the ongoing war against Iraq and has been arrested for bringing these issues to the Pentagon, the White House, the US Mission to the United Nations.

In 1992, Terrell spent some weeks in Israel and Palestine with an international peace walk, was arrested when the walk crossed the “Green Line,” spent 2 days in jail and was deported. He has also helped organize against the use of Iowa National Guard troops in Iraq and the Air National Guard patrols of the ‘no fly zones’ and has been arrested four times at local Guard installations. Answering an invitation to speak to high school students in Germany, Brian toured Europe this fall, addressing the war in Iraq and United States imperialism.

John Farrell, 28, is an organizer at the Voices in the Wilderness office in Chicago. He recently traveled to Iraq for three weeks with Kathy Kelly and other members of Voices in the Wilderness to help maintain friendships that Voices has made with ordinary Iraqi people over the past seven years of delegations and convey to the world in some small way what ordinary Iraqis are saying about the current occupation and chaos in Iraq today. John is a firm believer in nonviolence as a way of life and as a tactic for positive social change. As a former high school teacher, John believes in the possibility of educating others on nonviolent principles and as graduate student in theological studies at Loyola University Chicago he has been learning much about how the principles of nonviolence can be grounded in the ethics of many world religions and philosophies.

Joe Carr is a 22-year-old peace and anti-racist activist from Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from Center High School in 2000, having been involved in a variety of environmental and human rights work. He attended the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington to study the performing arts, and became involved in direct-action movements such as Earth First! and arts in activism. He is now studying history at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. From January 11 to April 22, 2003 he helped coordinate for the International Solidarity Movement in Rafah, the southern-most city of the Gaza Strip, Palestine. He trained new activists, planned actions, and networked with community organizations. He met incredible people and witnessed life-changing atrocities, including the murder of US activist Rachel Corrie and the shooting of British activist Tom Hurndall. He has returned to share his story.

Cathy Mahoney, 49, is a mother and a bilingual elementary school teacher from Oakland, California. She has spent four months living and working in the West Bank as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and International Womens Peace Service (IWPS). She is an active member of the Northern California ISM Support Group. Cathy has been an activist in the peace and social justice movement for over 30 years.

Siouxzie Morrison is an Olympia community organizer and was a close friend of the late Rachel Corrie. Rachel was crushed to death on March 16, 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah, Palestine while she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. Siouxzie is currently working to keep one of Rachel’s dreams alive by creating a sister city relationship between Olympia, Washington and Rafah, Palestine. Siouxzie is a U.S. coordinator for the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project and is eager to share how sister city relationships between the U.S. and Palestine can create hope and social change in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Eric, 20, from Indiannapolis, spent October and some of November in Iraq with the Iraq Peace Team. Eric was present in Baghdad as the prisons were emptied and spent much of his time getting to know ordinary Iraqis around Baghdad. While passing through US Immigration in Shannon, Ireland, Immigration officials “lifted” (their words) his passport and sent it to the State Department for Investigation. Upon his return to the United States, he put to work his many talents in guerrila art, stencilling and other forms of creative resistance.

A 35-year-old father of two from Hartford, Connecticut, Chris’s nonviolent action and witness has taken him across the globe. He has been to Iraq 7 times, been to Palestine twice, and spent time in Bosnia in ‘93 during the civil war. Chris has a BA in Religious Studies and serves the poor and oppressed in Hartford; along with his wife and other faith-based peace activists, Chris co-founded the Hartford Catholic Worker Community, a community of individuals who committed to the works of mercy. From the St. Martin de Porres House in inner-city Hartford, Chris and his community house homeless people and run several programs for underprivileged children.

A Palestinian-American in his mid-20’s, Ramzi left his home territories of Ohio and NYC to join the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine for the “Freedom Summer” campaign, a season of nonviolent direct action supporting Palestinian human rights. Ramzi brings his experience to much of Nebraska and Colorado this fall.

Photojournalist and writer, Lorna Tychostup is Senior Editor of Chronogram magazine [www.Chronogram.com], a monthly progressive publication with a distribution of approx. 20,000 in the Mid-Hudson Valley of New York. Tychostup has been working on an independent photography project entitled, “Defining Patriotism” capturing images of national and international peace actions across since 9/11. As part of this project, Tychostup spent three weeks in Iraq in Feb 2003 from which a separate photography show emerged entitled, “The War on Iraq: Looking into the Eyes of the Enemy” Tychostup has been a guest on several major network and cable TV shows, including Fox’s Hannity & Colmes and Tom Brokaw’s Nightly News. She has also done a number of radio interviews in her effort bring attention to issues surrounding the war in Iraq.

Of “Defining Patriotism” Tychostup says, “In the days following the WTC attack, a reactive shockwave of fear instigated a redefinition of certain terms — among them the word “patriotism.” As a war cry rose from a supposed 85% American majority calling for acts of retribution, a smaller group took to the streets in the name of peace. They demanded that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights be upheld. As is many times the case, I accidentally found myself in the middle of one of the first of these rallies just five days after 9/11 at the Brooklyn Promenade, camera in hand. In light of the fact that the mass media outlets seemed and continued to seem oblivious to the actions of these people calling for peace, I made a commitment to capture the movement of this minority. However unpalatable for some, I feel these open displays of yet another definition of patriotism deserve, at the very least, documentation.”

“My commitment is to get these photos shown in as many places as possible to encourage people to actively participate in a peace movement that does indeed exist, or at the very least, to help allay the fear of those who might be afraid to speak out in the face of the war rhetoric.”

Kathleen Tinley is a Creighton U student and member of September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group that formed shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

A Palestinian-American hip hop artist and a Palestine solidarity activist, the Iron Sheik has already toured the US twice: once speaking about Palestine, and once performing his songs. He was one of the organizers of last year’s student conference in solidarity with Palestine. The Iron Sheik has become a popular artist in addition to being a great activist.