PRESS RELEASE: Protesting Father to Have First Meal in Four Months
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=76904
Parent Activist Murtari to Be Released From Prison; Protesting Father to Have First Meal in Four Months
11/30/2006 10:58:00 AM
To: National Desk
Contact: Teri Stoddard of AKidsRight.Org, 925-628-1206 or teri@akidsright.org
SYRACUSE, N.Y., Nov. 30 /U.S. Newswire/ — Family rights activist and AKidsRight.Org’s founder John Murtari will be released from prison Friday after spending four months incarcerated for “willful” failure to pay child support. Murtari denies the charge, saying support was calculated with a salary he no longer had, and travel expenses to see his son exceed the amount ordered after the courts allowed his ex-wife to move their son across the country.
Inspired by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Murtari embarked on a peaceful protest July 31, the day he reported to serve his 6- month sentence. For 10 days Murtari had no food or water. Medical personnel tried to tempt him with candy, and threatened not to intervene. He lost 27 pounds and suffered dehydration, low blood sugar, low blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat before prison officials gave him a feeding tube.
Murtari’s pleased he’s been able to expose the need for family law reform on television, radio and in newspapers. He says he’s received over 100 letters while in jail. A rally was held in Syracuse with attendees from as far away as Canada, and he was interviewed for the documentary Support? System Down.
Members of AKidsRight.Org are asking for Congressional hearings and passage of a Family Rights Act. “Mothers, fathers, grandparents, families dealing with Children’s Protective Services, they all describe the same problems with family courts,” says Teri Stoddard, blogger on the worldwide family law reform movement. “There is no due process; parents are losing custody without proof of wrongdoing, without even a trial by jury. And the whole child support system is a disgrace, driving some parents into poverty and others out of their children’s lives.”
Murtari will continue his attempts to get a meeting with Sen. Hillary Clinton for local parents. When asked what comes next he replied, “We’re planning another rally, in front of the Federal Building in Syracuse, for mid-February. Every family that’s been hurt by current family law, every parent or grandparent who grieves for a child ’stolen’ by the family courts, should attend.”
Murtari says he plans on doing some “restaurant hopping” when he’s released, and will be on a plane to see his son within days.
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For more information visit http://www.akidsright.org
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