Press Release

For Immediate Release: 25 January 2004
Please Forward to Editors
NOTE: Melendez is fluent in English and Spanish

CITIZENS UNITED FOR ALTERNATIVES TO THE DEATH PENALTY (CUADP)

CONTACT: Abe Bonowitz: 561-371-5204
E-mail: abe@cuadp.org

DEATH ROW SURVIVOR, ACTIVIST ON SPEAKING TOUR IN TEXAS

Juan Roberto Melendez Colon, who survived almost 18 years in Florida's death row for a crime he did not commit, will be speaking in three Texas cities this week along with Abe Bonowitz, a leading anti-death penalty activist and director of the national group, Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CUADP). The two are en route from Florida to Washington State where they will be joined by murder victim family member Bill Pelke, director of the victims rights group Journey of Hope ...From Violence to Healing, for a speaking tour that will take them down the west coast, to Alaska, and then back across the United States over the next three months. The tour centers around March 1st, which is International Death Penalty Abolition Day, the anniversary of Michigan becoming the first English speaking territory in the world to abolish the death penalty (see http://www.cuadp.org/abolitionday.html ).

Biographical Information and background is at: www.cuadp.org/abdaytour04/SpeakerBios.htm

Texas Schedule:

January 26 - Austin
January 27 - Houston
January 28 - San Antonio

The Public Is Welcome at ALL EVENTS

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JANUARY 26 - AUSTIN

3:30 p.m.
American Constitution Society at UT Law School Eidman Courtroom 727 E. Dean Keeton St., Austin
CONTACT: Amanda Tyler, artyler@mail.utexas.edu or (512) 789-0209

AND

6:00pm
Meet & Greet at D'Ann's Place:
The Old School 1604 E. 11th Street, Austin
CONTACT: 512-476-2917.

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(The speakers will present in a local middle school in Austin before heading to Houston on the 27th. Contact Abe at 561-371-5204 for details on that event.)

JANUARY 27 - HOUSTON

7:30pm
LIVE MEN TALKING!
Featuring Abe Bonowitz and Juan Melendez
An event open to the public at:
the new Guinan Hall, at the University of St. Thomas 1303 Sul Ross
CONTACT: Dave Atwood at dpatwood@igc.org
Sponsored by CUADP, TCADP, the ACLU of Texas and others.

***

JANUARY 28 - SAN ANTONIO

12:00pm to 1:00pm
"Innocence and the Death Penalty."
Anna Everett Lecture Hall in the Nursing Building on the campus of
the University of the Incarnate Word.
CONTACT: Roger C. Barnes, Sociology Department: 210-829-3976

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SENT BY:
 
Abraham J. Bonowitz
Director, CUADP

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