Artists paint for human rights on Green

Six amateur artists from the University and the city took out their paint brushes and palettes to show their support for human rights around the world on College Green yesterday. The event, Arts Day, was sponsored by the University's Amnesty International chapter and was part of Amnesty International's Human Rights Week. Each of the six artists painted pictures of peace signs or other works about human rights issues. Steve Powers, a self-employed artist, spray painted a mural of the killing of Chinese students in Tienamen Square two years ago. He said that he selected this topic because he felt compelled to do so "to protect my own rights." Other artists expressed their concern about the human rights abuses of Albanians both in Yugoslavia and in Albania. Myreon Arslan, an actor and student at Philadelphia Community College, said this issue is important to him because he is the son of Albanian immigrants. He said that the ethnic problems in Eastern Europe "can't be tolerated in the 90s." "Great people [like the Albanians] don't deserve what they are getting," Arslan said. "You can't have a government that tells you how to feel, how to think and how to be." Michael Moffa, an artist who also works in The Book Store, painted peace signs to protest world-wide oppression. First-year Fine Arts graduate student Brad Choyt painted a large mural which he titled "Free Tibet." He said that Chinese government is "trying to commit genocide" in Tibet, adding that very few people realize it. Choyt said he was moved by a story he heard about a monk getting tortured and killed for saying his Buddhist prayers. "Hopefully people will become aware of the human rights violations and, in general, support Amnesty International," Choyt said. College senior Jason Soslow, a member of the University's chapter of Amnesty International and organizer of Arts Day, said that the event was created to give artists an opportunity to create a work about a human rights issue that is important to them. Members of Amnesty International were also on the Green, soliciting signatures for petitions to call attention to the murder of a 13 year-old Guatemalan child, and to the murder of a journalist and trade unionist in El Salvador. All of the works created yesterday will be shown in the Bowl Room in Houston Hall on Friday between 4 and 6 p.m.

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