Respected Mayor Birney and Council Members Carson, Padhye, Andersen, Khan, Fields, Forsythe and Kritzer:

We, the undersigned, are writing to you to show support for the Alliance for Persecuted Peoples Worldwide (APPWW).

APPWW’s mission is to shine a light and bring attention to the issues of people who are oppressed and persecuted due to their skin color, religion, race, sexual orientation, or gender. There are thousands of families amongst us who come from such oppressed and persecuted backgrounds and struggle to heal and have their voices heard. 

Earlier in January the current leaders of APPWW bravely spoke in support of  the over 30,000 persecuted refugees that the Government of India recently fast tracked citizenships for. These oppressed and persecuted people are religious minorities ( Christians, Jains, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis ) from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who fled those countries and were languishing in refugee camps in India for decades.

You heard some very personal and heart wrenching stories from speakers at the meeting on August 18. These speakers represent the refugees and asylees from Baluchistan, Sindh, Kashmir and many such  places where they have no voice. They shared with you how they faced persecution, fled their homelands and have made the United States their home. Some of them still have their families back home and go to bed every night worrying about their safety.

It is very depressing to see the humanitarian work that APPWW is doing, being unfairly attacked and maligned over inaccurate and incomplete information about the organization’s mission and leadership. Instead of deliberating over whether organizations such as APPWW be condemned, we ask that as elected leaders you support and encourage them.

APPWW’s leaders are being unfairly punished and blamed for some vile tweets. They have condemned the hurtful and inappropriate tweets made by one of their previous board members and not been associated with this person  since May 28th. Please click here to read their official statement on this matter.

APPWW is a new organization that is working with all people who call the United States home and gives them a voice, be they the Native Americans, African descendants of the United States enslaved, the people of Baloch and Sindh, the Sikhs in Afghanistan, the Pandits of Kashmir, the Uyghurs in China or the Yazidis of the Middle East.

APPWW strives to bring representation for these people through town halls, discussions and forums. These initiatives help us hear from the members of such oppressed communities who live amongst us, learn and understand how they can be helped and drive the changes needed to help them and the next generations heal and move forward. 

If not for organizations like APPWW Americans and our local communities will never even hear about the plight of millions of such people. As Americans it is our duty to provide and encourage more platforms like APPWW, not stifle them.

We request you to consider the plight of the oppressed and persecuted being given a platform and a voice and not allow this misguided resolution to condemn APPWW pass.