Legal Activists of Color: Forward Everywhere! Free Speech and Human Rights Attorneys Under Attack!

HANO & HUD CENSOR TRUTH!

Human Rights Attorneys Free Speech Attacked

-Send a message that censorship does not have a place in America!

Housing rights attorneys Bill Quigley & Tracie Washington are fighting to bring people home to New Orleans, challenging HUD/HANO's disgraceful plan to destroy undamaged New Orleans public housing. In an extraordinary and shameful move, HUD/HANO are now trying punish them for their opposition to HUD & HANO's plans. Quigley is coming under fire for calling out HUD's lies and Washington is facing legal action for speaking out at a Martin Luther King Day rally.

Defend free speech! HANO/HUD doesn't like the bad press associated with demolishing people's homes, preventing people from returning, and making people homeless. Washington and Quigley are shining a spotlight on HUD/HANO's disgraceful actions. HANO/HUD want to ban public access to information they don't want you to know. They don't want you to read the articles available at www.justiceforneworleans.org or see the public housing documentary "This is My Home" available at www.advancementproject.org Support your right to the truth! Call, email or fax HANO, HUD & their lawyers and let them know they can't censor the truth.

When human rights lawyers are threatened, all of our rights are threatened!

Don't let HANO use threats to silence dissent. Defend your right to all the information-not just what HANO/HUD want you to see.

Your Immediate Action is Needed!!! Cc: survivorsvillage@gmail.com with all of your e-mails.

Stone Pigman Walther Whittmann L.L.C.

Rachel W. Wisdom, Counselor at Law, firm representing HANO. Email: rwisdom@stonepigman.com Phone: (504) 593-0911 or Fax: (504)596-0911.. Tell her to stop using underhanded tactics to censor the truth about HANO/HUD!

Housing and Urban Development
Alphonso Jackson, Email: secretary_jackson@hud.gov Phone: (202) 708-0417 -when you reach the recording, press 9 & leave a message, TTY: (202) 708-1455 Fax: (202) 708-2706 . Tell him to let Katrina families come home, and oppose the tactics used on behalf of HANO against free speech!

Housing Authority of New Orleans

C Donald Babers, Chairman of the HANO Board, Email: info@hano.org Phone: 504-670-3300

Fax: (504) 286-8789. Remind him to tell the truth about the condition of public housing of New Orleans and stop attacking those who do!

Read the threatening letter in .pdf from HANO's attorney, and then read the truth and watch the documentary HUD wants to ban!

Go to www.justiceforneworleans.org and www.advancementproject.org

See www.survivorsvillage.com for more information

SAMPLE LETTER:

January 27, 2007

Secretary Alphonso Jackson
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street S.W. Washington, DC 20410

Dear Secretary Alphonso Jackson:

I am writing to express my disgust at the recent actions of HANO/HUD regarding the St. Bernard Housing Development in New Orleans. The actions taken against Attorneys Tracie Washington and Bill Quigley on behalf of HANO/HUD by the law firm of Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann are an underhanded attempt to stifle the constitutional right to free speech while trying to keep important information away from the public.

Representatives of HANO/HUD have consistently made misleading statements:

· Lie: HANO/HUD are telling the truth Truth : email to HANO commissioner Babers "take photos of the worst of the worst parts. . . also be careful on the numbers. . . Shelley may have better, more robust numbers."

· Lie: HANO's statement that repair is "not possible nor realistic" Truth: HANO's own evaluations confirmed that many public housing units were "livable"

Lie: Spokeswoman Donna White says, "We are listening to the residents." Truth: HUD ignored the clear call for reopening at the court ordered resident consultation meeting.

I ask that HANO/HUD immediately end such legal action against Quigley and Washington for speaking the truth and defending the right to housing. I also ask that HANO and HUD withdraw the restraining order being filed against the residents of the St. Bernard Housing Development in New Orleans, and honor their rights as legal lease-holders to continue cleaning their apartments.

I would like to remind you that as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development it is your mission to

"increase access to affordable housing free from discrimination. To fulfill this mission, HUD will embrace high standards of ethics, management and accountability." ( www.hud.gov)

The recent action against residents of the St. Bernard Housing Development and their counsel is in direct contempt of this mission. Furthermore, as a taxpaying citizen I am disappointed by your agency's lack of ethics or accountability in this case. You are endorsing a wasteful plan to demolish over 5000 units of affordable public housing that is desperately needed for families displaced by Katrina. White said "it will cost more to repair apartments" but the truth according to HUD's own internal documents is that the demolition plan that will end up costing more than $450 million more than repair, and $175 million more than extensively modernizing the developments, while significantly reducing the number of units.

It is important that you take action immediately to halt this injustice. End the attack against free speech; tell the truth about public housing in New Orleans.

Sincerely yours,

[your name here]

cc: Donald Babers, HANO via email

Office of Investigator General, via email

Rachel Wisdom, Esq, via email

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I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.