In honor of John Murtari and August being Child Support Awareness month in
America.

please redistribute:

International Day of Protest for John Murtari, Equal Parenting and Family
Law Reform – August 9

Members of A Kids Right ,
Fathers4Justice-USAand
Fathers4Justice-Canada ,
along with local parents will be demonstrating in Syracuse, New York on Wednesday, August 9, in support of passive resister John Murtari. Murtari is founder of A Kids Right and proponent of Equal Child Custody and a Family Rights Act.

Inspired by Gandhi, John refuses to cooperate with his captors while he is incarcerated for failure to pay all of his child support.

Murtari has not had any water or food since Monday, July 31. His health started to decline quickly and he was moved to a jail with better medical facilities. By Friday he was in a local emergency room with a rapid and irregular heartbeat. The demonstration will either be at the Syracuse City Jail, or the hospital. Most likely it will be the hospital. Let’s pray it’s not the morgue.

John says:

“We love our children. We have been denied our rights. We need Congressional hearings into reform.

Please understand, this is NOT A HUNGER STRIKE. I have no desire to hurt myself. I want the ‘system’ to expend an enormous amount of effort to keep me captive as they ignore my most basic right to be considered a fit & equal parent to my son.

My son is now 13 and even though he was moved to the other side of the country at age 6 — we keep and grow the warmth and love a parent and child should have. Six weeks together this summer – imagine that! In jail I will certainly remember these moments. Moments we should all be able to take for granted and never lose.”

As Coordinator I get a lot of your email and phone calls. Not being able to see your kids for years! Having children that are now alienated and all you can do is hope & pray for something better in the future. To those of you who had written/called me, I will also remember the indignity and tragedy you have been through. It certainly gives me the motivation to see this through and have hope for a positive outcome.”

Please join the international family law reform community in supporting John Murtari.

If you can, please attend the demonstration in Syracuse. If you can’t make it to New York you can demonstrate in front of your state or county child support agencies, other government buildings like state capitals, or television and radio stations.

If you are not in America, please demonstrate in front of the U.S. Embassy in your country on Wednesday, August 9, 2006.

Please send me photos of all demonstrations and I will make a collage, photo album, or flickr show and distribute it back to everyone. Include names of demonstrators, if possible, and locations.

Purple Ribbon Campaign in support of John Murtari
Please tie purple ribbons around trees in support of John. This can be done in front of child support agencies, politician’s offices, television stations, or other high traffic areas. Cover your town in purple. You can also put purple armbands or headbands on statues, especially patriotic statues. If you can, leave posters of the photo attached with a link to A
Kids Right or your local family law reform group. Once you do this, please send me photos, with location, and I will make a slideshow of these also.
Be sure to call your local radio and television stations too; see if they’ll check it out. Get a few people to call and ask, “What’s up with all of those purple ribbons?” You can also wear purple armbands and if anyone asks why, hand them a poster.

God bless you all. John says, “Thank you.”

Teri Stoddard
[email protected]
Call tollfree: 877-635-1968 ex 212
(ignore the messages, it’s John’s business phone)