To mark International Roma Day, Taunton Amnesty are delighted to be hosting Ulrike Schmidt, Amnesty UK Country Coordinator for the Balkans, who will give a presentation:
Roma Rights are Human Rights! An investigation into discrimination and racism experienced by Europe’s largest minority.
Ulrike has led the Amnesty Roma Rights campaign for more than ten years.
We would welcome any local Amnesty supporters, members of other local Amnesty groups as well as members of other local and related groups who would like to join us.
The event will start at 7.30pm at the Taunton Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton, TA1 4EP. Free car parking is available in The Crescent Car Park, The Crescent, TA1 4EA just behind the venue.
We welcomed some new members of the committee – Liz who has taken over as Vice Chair, Andrew, our new Treasurer and Lyndsay, our new Secretary. Special thanks go to Ben, Sue and Rosanna as they step down, for all their hard work for the group over the past years and we are glad that they will all continue to be active within our group.
Updates from our local groups newsletter included news from the Niger Delta. Public proceedings have started in the Shell vs Ogale and Bille case. These two communities have experienced the effects of Shell’s oil operations in their country which have caused chronic pollution and lost livelihoods. They hope to force Shell to fulfil their environmental obligations and clean up polluted sites and provide compensation. If this is successful, it could pave the way for other communities to take action against Shell too. Meanwhile, Shell has obtained approval for the sale of its business in the Niger Delta so it’s more important than ever that they are held accountable for the damage they have caused.
We watched a short film entitled Yellow about life in modern Afghanistan. Just 12 minutes long, it was a thoughtful portrayal of the impact of the chadari and is well worth watching.
Sue brought an action for Nasser Zefzafi, a Moroccan political activist, who has been in prison for more than 20 years for speaking out for better healthcare education and employment opportunities. His health is deteriorating and we signed and posted cards calling for his immediate release.
Pat is making great progress in building links with Richard Huish College who are holding a letter writing event for Oqba Hashad – more details about this case at https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/FreeOqba.
We ended the meeting with a discussion on how we could raise our profile, particularly at local events as we are keen to attract more members and public interest. Our wish list includes a small gazebo and banners – more information on this in due course…
Recommended reading includes My Dear Kabul, a collective diary of 21 women as their lives unfold under the Taliban.
Our next meeting is on Tuesday 8 April at 7.30pm – please do come along if you’d like to find out more.
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.
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!
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 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!
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’.
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!
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!
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.
Cherry Bird, Amnesty’s Country Coordinator for India and Nepal, came to talk Human Rights in Kashmir. She reminded us that in 2020 Amnesty’s India office was closed on spurious financial grounds following critical reports from them on India and on Kashmir. She described the increasing violation of human rights, the fears of increasing ‘Indianisation’ of Kashmir. Army checkpoints are increasing, with enforced flying of the Indian flag and increasing requirements of allegiance to India. Kashmir’s attractiveness is its richness in natural resources.
We sent greetings to Alaa on his birthday. Alaa abdel Fattah, a British national, is a writer and father who is unjustly imprisoned in Egypt. He has been an advocate for human rights in Egypt, and has been detained for his human rights work. He has spent most of the last 10 years in prison, most recently for ‘spreading fake news’. He went on hunger strike during COP27 climate meeting in Egypt last year in protest at his unjust imprisonment, cruel detention conditions and denial of consular visits.
There were two cases in the Amnesty Groups’ Newsletter we looked at: ‘the cost of green energy’ as typified by resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo’s cruel disregard of its own people who get in the way of the companies accessing the new mines. And secondly (another story about Indian exploitation) the story of Umar Khalid, a Muslim human rights activist who was active in the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019; he’s now been in prison without trial for 3 years. He’s classified by Amnesty as an Individual at Risk – contact Cherry Bird for more information or actions – cherry.bird@amnesty.org.uk.
Two books for Media of the month, both critical accounts of our own Parliament: Code of Conduct by Chris Bryant and Politics on the Edge, a Memoir from Within by Rory Stuart.
There is no meeting in December but we are running a Write for Rights stall at St Mary Magdalene Church, Hammet Street, Taunton this Saturday 2 December from 10am-1.30pm, encouraging people to send 2023 Write for Rights cards. There’s a coffee shop – it’s warm and welcoming – hope you’ll join us there!
Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 9 January 2024, at 7.30pm in the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton.
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.
Amnesty International Taunton Local Group 