April was Amnesty UK’s ‘Football Welcomes’ month: ‘Our Football Welcomes programme celebrates the contribution players with a refugee background make to the beautiful game, and the positive role football can play in bringing people together and creating more welcoming communities.’ One of our members approached Taunton Town on the subject and got a wonderfully positive result from the club’s Rob Wenham. He’s anxious for more community involvement and plans to work on this with Taunton Welcomes Refugees.
We were reminded too that June 14-22 is Refugee Week, something to remember at a time when the Government is proposing a fatal dismembering of the UK’s asylum system.
This month’s speaker was Owen Collins of the Cardiff Group who is standing as a candidate for AIUK board; it was useful to put to him our thoughts about how local groups could be better supported by the Board.
We were asked to put our names to a number of petitions and letters – on UK nationals held in Iran, on the persecuted Uyghur peoples in China and on a Russian journalist, Elena Milashina, a reporter for the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta, who is now facing death threats for her articles.
We received reports on the Death Penalty (the situation is improving in the US) and the situation in Morocco. Amnesty Feminists reported the freeing of Saudi Women’s Rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, but under harsh parole conditions. In India, under the rule of Nahendra Modi, little has changed for the BK16 group. An article by writer Arundhati Roy in the Guardian, ‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’, was recommended.
Our next meeting, still online, will be at 7.30pm on Tuesday 8 June – all are welcome. Email amnestytaunton@gmail.com for further details.
Amnesty International Taunton Local Group 