Protesters Want Gates Foundation To Stop Investing In Private Prisons
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| Immigrant rights activists protested the Gates Foundation for their support of notorious private prison company GEO Group. (Photo: Alex Garland via Presente.org) |
RESIST! CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND PRISONS, PETITION
By Lornet Turnbull, /seattletimes.com
April 13th, 2014
By Lornet Turnbull, /seattletimes.com
April 13th, 2014
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Above: Protesters outside of Gates Foundation urging divestment from private prisons, from Seattle Times
Demonstrators protest outside the headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Thursday, demanding the philanthropic organization dump its investments in a company that runs private prisons.
On Thursday, about two dozen immigrant-rights advocates and other demonstrators gathered outside the foundation’s offices, demanding it dump its investments in one of the nation’s largest operators of private prisons.
Specifically, they want the Gates Foundation — whose co-chairman, Bill Gates, has been a steadfast supporter of immigration — to divert the $2.2 million that its trust invests in The GEO Group.
The world’s largest operator of private prisons and detention centers, GEO runs 59 facilities across the country, including the 1,500-bed Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.
“This isn’t just a moral argument,” said William Winters, senior campaign adviser with the Latino advocacy group Presente.org, which organized the protest.
“If the Gates Foundation wants to have the effect in the world they say they want to have, then investing in private prisons is the antithesis of that.”
Organizers said they staged the demonstration after getting no response to a letter they Protesters Want Gates Foundation To Stop Investing In Private Prisons | PopularResistance.Org: