This month we invited Rebecca Pow, the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Taunton Deane, to discuss her position on the human rights issues that concern Amnesty. Although Human Rights issues were not a familiar topic to Rebecca, she did express interest in Amnesty’s work on Women’s Human Rights and was able to tell us about the Conservative party’s position on issues such as repealing the Human Rights Act and reducing the influence of the European Court of Human Rights.
Mahdi Abu Dheeb
Mahdi Abu Dheeb, President of the Bahrain National Teachers’ Association, is the subject of this month’s appeal. For normal Union activities he was arrested, thrown from a second floor window, beaten up and held incommunicado for days. He’s now in prison serving a 5 year sentence. His plight links to one of Amnesty’s main campaigns this year, “Stop Torture”. As well as writing on his behalf, we sent appeal cards to the governments of other victims: a sudden tidal wave of cards and letters undoubtedly has, at the least, an unsettling effect on such regimes.
We meet at 8pm on the second Tuesday of the month in the Silver Street Baptist Church. All are very welcome.
Amnesty International Taunton Local Group 
Comment on this post