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18 Dec

As an alternative to braving the dark rainy night, we tried an on-line meeting for our November meeting which proceeded without any IT hitches! We focussed on Justice for Nigeria (J4N) by watching a short You Tube video showing the level of pollution in the Niger delta and the anger and frustration of the local community. We are looking forward to welcoming MOSOP leader Lazarus Tamana and co-founder of J4N, along with Caz Dennett, another founder, to our January meeting to talk more on this subject. See our Events page for more details.

Media of the Month:

“Russian Street Musicians jailed for protest songs”. Click on the link below to hear them.

Russian Street Musicians

Case details are also on AIUK website

Russia: Street musicians jailed for a third time over anti-war songs – Amnesty International

Write for Rights

We have had two successful Write for Rights campaigns, first at St Mary Magdalene Church on December 6th. Unfortunately the weather was dreadful which meant far fewer people were in town, but about 25 cards were signed and some good conversations were had with interested passersby.

Taunton Amnesty Group also joined forces with students from Richard Huish College, a link forged by one of our members Pat. A large number of students were involved manning a stall and collecting signatures for letters and petitions for abortion rights, climate action in Ecuador and US student rights. An excellent example of direct action and awareness raising.

We hope some of you will join us for our talk on J4N on January 13th at 7.30pm – if you would like to join online, please contact us by emailing amnestytaunton@gmail.com

With best wishes to you all for a happy Christmas!

Update from our January meeting

25 Jan

Our main event for Write for Rights 2024 took place this month in Taunton Minster.  Our original December event was stymied by Storm Darroch. The January event though was really successful; not a great number of people, but some rewarding contacts, and the courtesy of a  visit from the Deputy Mayor with the Serjeant at Mace. An interesting contact was Dr Mary Young, a lecturer at the University of the West of England; she offered a workshop about international crime.

Pat hosted an earlier W4R event from her home, but feels an initiative based on contacts with local schools would be more rewarding for the 2025 event.

One further success was the Somerset County Gazette’s publication of a letter from our Taunton Group urging people to add their voices to the 2024 W4R.  Happily, Neth Nahara of Angola, one of those featured by Amnesty for 2024, was released in December.

Meanwhile we continued with one of  the mainstays of our work, writing to the authorities on behalf of those persecuted or imprisoned. We signed a letter written by Lyndsay to the Governor of Oaxaca province, Mexico and the Mexican Ambassador in the UK on behalf of Sandra Dominguez, a Mexican indigenous woman, lawyer and human rights defender who disappeared in October 2024.

Sue wrote on behalf of Nasser Zafzafi, a Moroccan arrested in 2017 and imprisoned for 20 years for peaceful protest; we all signed her letter.

Alun updated us remotely on the latest on the BK16 group in India; he will bring cards for them to the next meeting.

A talk on the Roma people in Europe by Ulricke Schmidt of Amnesty has been pencilled in for March. 

Liz has drafted a Calendar of Events for the year, outlining our own programme of meetings and projected events, relating them to Actions planned by AIUK nationally.

Media of the Month: ‘Say Nothing’ (on Disney Plus) is a drama about the Northern Ireland Troubles.  ‘7/7 The London Bombings’ is on iPlayer

The next meeting is our AGM on Tuesday 11 February.  Look out for some changes!  Do join us and have your say.

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Update from our November meeting

23 Nov

Write for Rights 2024 is on its way! AIUK writes:

‘Every year, we run Write For Rights, a campaign over November and December where we encourage you to write messages of support to people around the world who have suffered injustice, and show you how to support their campaigns for justice.’

Here’s a link to the 2024 booklet – Download the campaign booklet (PDF)

Amnesty Taunton will be at St Mary’s – the Minster Church – in Taunton on 7 December from 10.00-1.45 with leaflets and cards and information so you can take part – we look forward to seeing  you there! We are inviting Gideon Amos, MP for Taunton, to join us.

At our November meeting we heard reports on our campaigns.  Our Middle East & North Africa lead has written to the authorities on behalf of one of  the Write for Rights 2024 chosen cases, Oqba Hashad of Egypt, detained without trial in horrible conditions due to his brother’s activism.

 She updated us on Alaa Abdel Fattah, Egyptian blogger, software developer and political activist, imprisoned since 2019. Bizarrely, Ireland has deemed Egypt a ‘safe country’, expressing its confidence in the security and human rights conditions there. A chink of light is the release of Omar Radi of Morocco.

Alun reported on India and the BK16 case file; 8 are still in prison, 7 out on bail; ways of keeping in touch by post are being explored. AIUK writes: ‘The 16 detained activists have long worked to defend the rights of some of India’s poorest and most marginalized communities, including Dalits and Adivasis – India’s indigenous peoples. As poets, journalists, and advocates, they have been vocal in their criticism of government policies and therefore, have often been targets for the authorities.’

We discussed ways forward on the US State Governor Death Penalty action. We looked at possible ways of improving interaction with our own Website and blog.  We have become increasingly uneasy about the way that X under Elon Musk is developing; should we boycott it and turn to Blue Sky?

A number of suggestions for Media of the Month; first suggestion was for Alexi Navalny’s posthumous Patriot, a Memoir.

There’s no monthly meeting in December, but we’d love to see you at our Write for Rights stall at St Mary’s on Saturday 7 December from 10am-1.45pm. Our next monthly meeting will be on Tuesday 14 January 2025 at 7.30pm at the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton.  Hope to see you there!

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Update from our September meeting

20 Sep

AIUK’s Local Groups’ Newsletter for August had some interesting initiatives.  10 October is the World Day against the Death Penalty, and to launch it this year Amnesty plans to get local Groups to ‘adopt’ a chosen US State that retains the death penalty by writing to the Governor and continuing the dialogue during the coming year.

The first Monthly Action, put forward by Simon, is an Urgent Action for Belarusian political prisoner Maryia Kalesnikava. A classical flautist and political activist, she was kidnapped and arbitrarily detained for her prominent role in the 2020 election.

 She was sentenced to in 2021 to 11 years imprisonment.  She is denied any external calls, visits, letters, and furthermore, is not allowed to speak with other prisoners. According to confidential sources, Maryia’s health has deteriorated gravely.  Simon will translate our protest letters into Russian.

Our second Monthly Action was to add to the demands for freedom for Alaa abdel Fattah who has advocated for human rights in Egypt, and has been unjustly imprisoned since 2019. We made posters of keys demanding ‘Free Alaa now’ for wider publicity.

We signed postcards, brought in by Alun, for two of the eight BK16 who still remain in gaol in India. Sue is writing on behalf of ‘T-shirt protester’ Mahmood Hussein of Egypt, and of Tunisian Sihem Bensedrine, a prominent human rights defender, now in pre-trial detention.

Media of the Month: a 2024 documentary The Commandant’s Shadow. It focuses on the boyhood home life of the son of Auschwitz concentration camp director Rudolf Hoss. The cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, interned in Auschwitz, who met Hoss decades later, is also featured.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 8th October at 7.30pm in the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton.  Hope to see you there!

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Update from our July meeting

29 Jul

Some good news – Rita Karasartova of Kyrgyzstan, featured in Write for Rights 2023, has been acquitted and released – ‘We didn’t expect it at all. We were crying from surprise,’ said Rita.

In Bangladesh over 100 indigenous Bawm people have been arbitrarily arrested as part of an ongoing military operation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the south east. Accused of being terrorists there have been indiscriminate arrests. See www.amnesty.org.uk/urgent-actions/over-100-indigenous-people-arbitrarily-arrested. 

In Argentina Pierina Nochetti, a lesbian human rights activist, is facing criminal charges of aggravated damage – an Urgent Action calling on the authorities to drop these charges has been extended. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr13/7621/2024/en/

Since AIUK no longer feature monthly cases for Groups to work on we’ve decided to feature our own selection each month.  Liz wrote a letter of protest for us to sign to the Cuban Ambassador about the unjustified imprisonment of artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. She also passed on an online petition for Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi sentenced to death for singing for freedom. His death sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court, but he’s now facing new charges.

The Group is hoping to get together enough people to run a stall at the Pride Festival in Taunton on 21 September – look out for us there.

Ben updated us on the Death Penalty, with particular reference to the US, noting its politicisation – its use increases in election years.  Noted too was the fact that since 1972 in the US 200  death row prisoners have been exonerated, their death penalty convictions quashed.

There will be no meeting in August, but we’ll be back at 7.30pm on 10 September in the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton.  See you there!

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Join us at our July meeting

7 Jul

Our next meeting before our usual break in August is on Tuesday 9 July at 7.30pm in the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton. If you would like to join remotely via Teams, please email amnestytaunton@gmail.com

We hope to see you there! In the meantime, below are minutes from our June meeting:

AIUK’s AGM was on the 22 June, and a major part of our June meeting was devoted to a discussion of how our Group should vote on the resolutions put forward. We supported some by the Amnesty Futures Group and their spokesman Chris Ramsay. Among other things, these  laid emphasis on encouragement for local Groups, supporting the work of Country Co-ordinators and of the Individuals at Risk campaigns.

The General Election featured in the May Groups Newsletter; AIUK is calling for all parties to put human rights at the centre of the agenda – ‘to understand, value and defend human rights’.

The reports of Group activities were dominated by actions in support of Palestinians in Gaza. We signed the petition sent by the Reading Group asking the UK Prime Minister to urge the authorities in Hong Kong to release political prisoners.

Within our own Group, Alun updated us on Indian politics and the BK16 case file; eight are still in prison. Alun had prepared cards of support which we signed, and also gave us the link to an online action ‘respect freedom of expression in Jammu and Kashmir’ .

Ben updated us on the death penalty – there’s an online petition appealing for Iranian rapper, Toomaj Salehi, sentenced to death for ‘singing for freedom and posting for justice’.  Latest update on this: a re-trial has been ordered.

Book of the Month: one of our group recommended Rory Stewart’s Politics on the Edge – a Memoir from within  – ‘uncompromising, candid and darkly humorous’.

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May meeting report and activities

24 May

Simon Cosgrove of the charity Rights in Russia came to our May meeting and talked at length about their aims and experience and rights in Russia today. A quotation from their website sketches the background:

‘Rights in Russia is a community of people committed to supporting the protection of human rights in the Russian Federation. The mission of Rights in Russia is to provide information about human rights in Russia and to support the work of human rights organizations based in the Russian Federation. We believe the voices of Russia’s human rights defenders should be more widely heard internationally, both by civil society and by governments. We wish to address a continuing shortage of accurate information in English about human rights in Russia.’

They’ve recently launched a new project, very familiar to Amnesty members, of writing letters of support to political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. These need to be in Russian, so they’ve established a group of translators to facilitate this. Contact http://www.rightsinrussia.org for further information.

In the rest of our meeting we signed cards prepared by Alun to BK16 prisoners in India and a letter Sue had written to the Public Prosecutor in Cairo about the detention without trial of 26 year old student Oqba Hashad.

On Saturday 11 May the group ran an Amnesty stall at the Taunton Eat Festival in the town centre.  Very busy (and good weather!). We had petitions for visitors to sign for Russian Alexei Gorinov, imprisoned for protesting about the war in Ukraine, and Alaa Abdel Fattah, former hunger striker, former hunger striker, well known to us as the dual English/Egyptian national imprisoned for his human rights activism.

Our next meeting is at 7.30pm on Tuesday 11 June in the Quaker Meeting house, Bath Place, Taunton.  We’d love to see you there!

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Report from our February meeting

1 Mar

The February meeting began with our AGM, all officers being re-elected unopposed. 

The Chair gave an overview of the year’s activities, speakers and campaigns. North Africa and India have been prominent, with a new initiative on Zimbabwe and ongoing support of the Middle East & North Africa, Football Welcomes and the Death Penalty. We had speakers on Kashmir and Zimbabwe, and a talk on a fund-raising climb of  Kilimanjaro for AI by a student whom we sponsored.   We held three Write for Rights events in December.

The Secretary reported the perennial problem of access to the local press: the County Gazette has discontinued reports from local societies, and AIUK no longer presents Actions in a readily publicisable form. Suggestions for using other outlets, and our own experience of the Letters page may point a way forward.

Suggestions were made for broadening our appeal, perhaps using email to circulate those on AIUK’s local lists, and promoting hybrid meetings using Teams if this can be done without jeopardising our successful monthly meetings.

Our regular monthly meeting followed.  The Groups’ Newsletter urged us to sign a number of AI petitions: for human rights defender Rita Karasartova of Kyrgyzstan;  for freedom of expression in Jammu Kashmir; for justice and reparation in Peru after brutal repression of protests; for freedom of expression in Bangladesh before recent elections, and for charges against our adopted Zimbabwean prodemocracy activist Makomborero Haruzivishe to be dropped.

We were reminded of priority campaigns for AIUK:  Ending Israeli Apartheid, and Protect the Protest – a call on the Home Secretary to scrap anti-protest laws.

We discussed a letter from Chris Ramsey, ex-SW regional rep,  about Amnesty Futures, a group anxious to get back to campaigning on worldwide Individuals at Risk rather than disproportionately increasing the scale of work and deployment of resources on thematic UK-focused human rights issues. He will be addressing our March meeting to further clarify concerns about and hopes for AIUK.

Our Middle East lead had written to President al-Sisi about the detention and torture of Anas al-Beltagy, the son of an Opposition politician.  Our India lead will be writing to the Indian High Commissioner about two members of the BK16 who are bailed but still in goal.  Meantime another member is hoping to organise a speaker on Russia.

There is an Eat Festival in Taunton on 11 May – we are hoping to have a publicity stall at this.

Our recommended Media of the Month is Jon Ronson’s BBC podcast series ‘Things Fell Apart’ – human stories from the history of the culture wars.

Our next meeting is at 7.30pm on Tuesday 12 March at the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton. Newcomers are always welcome!

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Report from our January meeting

21 Jan

Write for Rights being the stand-out event in December we took stock of how we had got on, with the feeling that we needed to reach outside our core audience to draw more people in. Hence the promotional visit to the Taunton campus of Bridgwater Tech, although slow going, seemed a good place to proselytise in the future. More school events for 2024 would be good.

Future December visits to Taunton Minster – St Mary’s –  need to attach to some other event for maximum impact.  We took part in the Christmas Tree Festival in Buckland St Mary – not an obvious place but hopefully we reached out to a few unfamiliar people there.

Meantime we plan for a stall at the Taunton Eat festival in May.

We heard reports of members’ work on campaigns.  Sue had written on behalf of prominent Write for Rights activist Chaima Issa of Tunisia, urging the quashing of her spurious military court conviction, and also on behalf of Tunisian MP Abir Moussi. According to her defence lawyer, she faces charges including “attempting to change the form of government”, “inciting citizens to arm themselves against each other” and “provoking disorder on Tunisian territory”.

Ben gave us quick overview of the death penalty in the USA. It seems to be in a state of some disarray, with more legal challenges and mistakes in attempts to carry it out.  The practicalities of it are becoming less and less tenable – witness the case of the botched execution attempt of Kevin Smith, on death row since 1988, his execution now scheduled for later this January.

Alun updated us on India & Kashmir with special reference to the BK16: 8 of them in prison (2 granted bail) and 5 out on bail; he will write a letter for them to the Indian authorities on the Group’s behalf. The Indian government must end the repression of rights in Jammu and Kashmir.

Our must-be-seen media this month is the ITV drama Mr Bates v the Post Office detailing the outrageous behaviour of the Post Office over the Horizon scandal.

The meeting next month includes our AGM; it’s on Tuesday 13 February at the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton.  Do feel free to join us – all are welcome.

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Report from our October meeting

20 Oct

There’s a focus this month in the AI Groups’ Newsletter on ‘protecting the Protest in South Asia’ where the right to protest is increasingly under threat – in India, in Bangladesh, in Afghanistan. One particular case is highlighted: #FreeKhadij – Khadijatul Kubra (Khadija) (pictured) has been in detention under the Digital Security Act, for a year. Khadija is a 19 year-old university student charged for hosting a webinar where a guest made remarks that were critical of the Bangladesh government.’ Sign a petition here.

Letters of all sorts:
Our lead on the Middle East and North Africa has written to the Tunisian authorities about the detention of former Justice Minister Noureddine Bhiri and about Jaouhalben Mbaruk, who is on hunger strike with five other detainees.

Our Death Penalty lead pointed us to an online petition for Rocky Myers of Alabama, held on death row for 27 years. He’s a black man against whom all the odds are stacked, down to a biased judge and incompetent legal representation.

Our lead on Zimbabwe and Afghanistan has been working at getting back-up from AIUK; there is information and access to petitions and actions.  One source is Cherry Bird’s South Asia newsletter, with its shocking account of the deterioration in life today of women and girls in Afghanistan, drawn from Amnesty reports, and their urging of how international pressure can be exerted.

Various choices for Media of the Month: Burmese Days, a novel by George Orwell on the darker side of the British Raj; ‘Ultra-Processed People’ by Chris van Tulleken about the food industry, and ‘Painkiller’ on Netflix about how the Sacklers cynically created the US Opioid epidemic.

Our next meeting will be at 7.30pm on 14 November at the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place – hope to see you there! We hope Cherry Bird will join us to talk about Kashmir.

STOP PRESS Our letter about the Government’s demonising of refugees made it as the lead  on the County Gazette’s letters page, 19 October.

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