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.
We wrote to the State Governor, Jacques Wagner and to Joaquim Barbosa, President of the National Council of Justice calling on them for a fair and timely investigation into these killings, and support for Jorge Lazaro and his family.
We were pleased to get a letter from Rebecca Pow MP supporting our stall on Castle Green on 16 July, highlighting the issues of Female Genital Mutilation and Early Forced Marriage, with particular reference to Burkino Faso and Sierra Leone. The event was very successful, raising £178.90 in donations from the public; this has since been doubled by the UK government and so the sum of £357.80 has been sent to Amnesty International UK to support its work in this area. We are very grateful to everyone who made donations and also signed a petition concerning these issues.
We remembered Jo Cox MP, a supporter of Amnesty, murdered in a hate crime last month, and wrote to our local District Councils urging them to make a stand against recent rises in racism and xenophobia.
There is no meeting in August so our next meeting will be Tuesday 13th September at the earlier time of 7.30pm at the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton. We look forward to seeing you there.
Amnesty International Taunton Local Group 