Taunton Welcomes Refugees! This message underpinned the talk given by Chris Waddilove of Citizens UK. He spoke about his organisation, and then went on to talk of refugees in Taunton. The town is currently hosting four Syrian Refugee families, helping them through a joint collaboration, funded by a UNHCR resettlement scheme.
The families have been settled in privately rented accommodation, and are helped on the same footing as the Troubled Families Project, backed up by local volunteers: EFL teachers, general language support work, and help with such day to day things as transport, DIY and, most importantly, friendship.
We discussed our Write for Rights day, held on 10 December, Human Rights Day, in St Mary’s Church, Taunton. We were welcomed by the Vicar and Churchwardens at their Coffee Morning, and encouraged those passing through to sign cards for Prisoners of Conscience. On the same day we formally handed over a donation of books on Human Rights issues to the Public Library in Paul Street.
We heard reports from members working on the Death Penalty and on Women’s Human Rights – International Women’s Day is on 8 March. We wrote letters of support to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, jailed for 5 years in Iran with no valid trial. We received worrying reports about the treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). A group of Nobel Prize winners have written in protest about this to their fellow laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a leader in the Myanmar Government.
Our next meeting is at 7.30pm on Tuesday 14th February at the Friends Meeting House, Bath Place. All are welcome!
The highlight of our November meeting was a talk by Federica Smith on the organisation she founded 18 months ago: RAFT – Refugee Aid From Taunton. By ingenuity, persistence and learning as they go, RAFT has sent aid to, among other needy places, Syria, Uganda (for Sudanese refugees), and the Ukraine. Their next shipment is to Lebanon.
Amnesty’s new global campaign ‘I Welcome Refugees’ has been launched. Susan Mew of the Minehead Group presented an introduction to its aims, and to the complexities of understanding the issues involved.
Our next monthly meeting is on 
Matsumoto Kenji of Japan has been on death row since 1993 – twenty three years. Appeals on his behalf have been turned down; he could be executed at any time.
Brazilian Jorge Lazaro has seen two of his children, Ricardo and Enio, murdered in the last 5 years and has been fighting for justice ever since. Ricardo and Enio were young black men. Every year thousands of young black men are murdered throughout Brazil – killed by military police, by death squads and militias with links to the police.
Amnesty International Taunton Local Group 