Videotape released

By Staff and Releases March 5, 2009, 4:31 pm 0 Edit

The president of the National Save Darfur Coalition, Jerry Fowler, will visit Pittsburgh next week to speak at a Holocaust-related event at the University of Pittsburgh and attend other functions related to the Darfur crisis.
Fowler, who will be here from from Tuesday through Thursday, will speak at the Holocaust Arts and Writing Contest Assemblies at the University of Pittsburgh. The program, put on bythe Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation, will take place at the David Lawrence Hall and will begin at approximately 11:30 a.m. on each day.
He also will appear at a major exhibit at Duquesne University, “Darfur’s Destroyed Villages,” and will highlight a local postcard campaign by the Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition (PDEC), which has sent more than 10,000 cards to President Obama asking him to prioritize peace, protection and accountability in the region. The campaign goal is 20,000 cards.
Fowler also will speak at the Global Solutions Pittsburgh Annual Spring Dinner at the William Penn Hotel on Tuesday at a East Liberty Presbyterian Church luncheon for clergy and
community leaders.
In all, Fowler will be speaking at six different events throughout the city during his three-day visit.
Fowler’s visit is in advance of a national Save Darfur rally on April 19 in Washington D.C., to commemorate the genocide in Darfur, a region in western Sudan.
It also comes one week after the International Criminal Court charged Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Darfur situation. Sudan responded by ordering at least 10 western aid groups to leave the country.
The Duquesne exhibit, which begins Monday, will have 600 signs with the names of destroyed villages in Darfur will be set in Brottier’s Commons and along the Academic Walk of the
Duquesne University campus.
Prior to joining the coalition, Fowler served as the director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museums Committee on Conscience.
The PDEC has been leading the local advocacy movement to end genocide in Darfur, focusing its efforts most recently on targeted divestment of public funds from international corporations that enable the government of Sudan to commit genocide.
Go online to pittsburghdarfur.org fo rmore information about Fowler’s visit.