United Nations water rapporteurs to visit Detroit

United Nations special rapporteurs from Geneva “are coming [to Detroit] to conduct a ‘fact-finding’ mission relative to these mass water shutoffs,” announced Maureen Taylor, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization leader, in an email to activists on Sept. 24. The three-day mission, beginning Oct. 18, will include a bus ride to neighborhoods to hold discussions with residents who have had their water shut off by the city and a town-hall meeting/tribunal.

Taylor stated: “We are asked to offer a meeting with city officials, the mayor, the City Council, and any elected officials able to join the group. … HUD [the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development], HHS [Health and Human Services], EPA [the Environmental Protection Agency], and the local political machines are to be invited (the mayor’s call), and the focus is that our special guests will share with them what other nations have done when economic conditions are unfavorable. They will set aside two hours after these meetings to take interviews with the press.”

For more information on the U.N. visit to Detroit regarding the mass household water shutoffs being implemented, visit moratorium-mi.org.