Tag Archives: take action

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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Latest meeting report

1 Dec

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.

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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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Report from our September meeting

29 Sep

We based the first part of our meeting on the Amnesty Group Report for August. This updates us on the activities of other Groups and alerts us to current actions within AIUK. 

There is concern over El Salvador, where a State of Exception – in effect a state of emergency – has run since March.  Over 60,000 people have been imprisoned and more than 150 have died in custody.  There’s an online Amnesty petition demanding their government should end the state of exception and respect the human rights of all their citizens – this can be found on the AI website. 

There was a debate earlier in the month in the House of Commons about British Nationals detained abroad – Alaa Abdel Fattah in Egypt,  and Morad Tahbaz and Mehran Raoof in Iran – we are anxious to keep our MPs briefed and working on these cases.

Our plans for Write for Rights in December were discussed – we’ll probably aim again, if it’s possible, for St Mary Magdalene Church in Taunton.

Sue, our Middle East & North Africa lead, wrote a detailed letter (signed by all) protesting about the prolonged detention in inhumane conditions, and the 5 year imprisonment, after an unfair trial, of  Egyptian Badr Mohamed. The reason? Involvement in an alleged protest in 2013 when he was 17.  She also wrote to the Algerian authorities about Slimane Bouhafs, an Algerian activist kidnapped from Tunisia and brought back for trial in Algeria. He has been imprisoned for 3 years.

Alun re-capitulated the sorry story of the BK16 in India.  The Minehead Group held a vigil for them earlier this month.  Cherry Bird, Minehead Group and South Asia Co-ordinator, keeps us up to date with South Asia briefings.

Media of the Month – several suggestions here:

Bringing Down Goliath: How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful – Jolyon Maughan KC  

Emergency State: How We Lost Our Freedoms in the Pandemic and Why it Matters – Adam Wagner

The Last Colony – Philippe Sands – about the British Indian Ocean Territories

Homelands – A Personal History of Europe – Timothy Garton Ash

Living Next Door to Putin – A two part piece on BBC1 by Katya Adler, Europe Editor.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 10 October, 7.30pm as usual at the Quaker Meeting House in Bath Place.  Do join us there!

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Update from our June meeting

20 Jun

An unusual meeting: we were expecting an online talk by Carla Torres, the Country Coordinator for Zimbabwe, as we have adopted the case of Zimbabwean Makomborero Haruzivishe, an Amnesty Individual at Risk.  At the last minute we learnt that Makomborero himself was also joining online. Fearful for his safety, he has recently left Zimbabwe and is living as a refugee in the UK.

He talked at length about his own experiences as a front line Human Rights activist and the state of affairs in Zimbabwe. Despite the 2017 coup ousting Mugabe, a military dictatorship is now in power, and corruption, killings and arrests are rife. Makamborero was elected to represent the National Union of Students; he was arrested and expelled from the University two weeks before graduating. 

Speaking out against corruption, he organised country-wide protests but was abducted and imprisoned.  He finally left the country during 2022.

What can we do?  It looks a difficult task, but Carla recommended keeping up a series of smaller actions: writing to the local press, trying to involve MPs and Parliamentary Groups.

The next big event for the Taunton Group is the Pride March in Taunton on Saturday 22 July.  Members of the group will take part and run a stall in Vivary Park.

We discussed a number of issues covered by the May Local Groups Newsletter, particularly Refugee Week, from 19-25 June. Its theme is Compassion, and the Museum of Somerset is running events to celebrate it on Saturday 24 June.  A diary clash here, since the Minehead Group is celebrating its 21st birthday that day with a concert in St Andrew’s Church, Minehead at 3pm.

We signed a letter to the Moroccan authorities on behalf of Mohamed Ziane, imprisoned human rights lawyer and an ex-Minister.  We signed cards of encouragement to more members of the BK16 group in India.  We were encouraged to write Father’s Day cards to Alaa Abdel Fattah, still in prison in Egypt.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 11 July at 7.30pm in the Friends Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton.  Do join us to hear more about our work, and for lively discussions!

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Report from our November meeting and Write for Rights

1 Dec

Cherry Bird, AIUK’s Country Co-ordinator for South East Asia, gave a talk on Sri Lanka, a once peaceful and prosperous country now mired in conflict. For decades there have been tensions between the majority Sinhalese, Buddhist population and the Tamil minority who are mainly Hindu.  The Tamils are poorer and have felt excluded – remember the Tamil Tigers?

The Civil War  lasted for 25 years, with a draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act enacted in 1979. Amnesty is concerned at the very high number of disappearances – estimated at 60,000.  More recently the country has been ruled, in turn, by the Rajapaska brothers, described as muscular populists. Their time has now passed (one has fled the country) and a new president elected – Ramil Wickremesinghe. He has a lot to sort out.

Cherry reminded us that there’s a Regional Conference in Exeter next March – details to follow.

Members updated the meeting on appeals for a number of political prisoners, most prominently Alaa Abdul Fattah, imprisoned in Egypt and on prolonged hunger strike which has come to a head during the COP 27 conference.  His fate is still uncertain.

As usual our own country co-ordinator for the Middle East and North Africa had been busy: she has written for Moroccan Rida Benotmane, charged with putting up critical Facebook posts. Another Moroccan, Fatimah Kassim is in solitary confinement and has now gone on hunger strike. Mohammed Ben Lima of Algeria has been sentenced to death in absentia, but is now being extradited by Spain.

Cherry made the point that writing to Embassies is an effective way of communicating.  Amnesty’s programme on Kashmir is about to be re-launched. What pressure can be brought to bear on India for their human rights violations in the area?  The UK has trade agreements with them.

Write for Rights

November/December bring us round to Amnesty’s annual letter writing campaign, Write for Rights.  We will have a stall in St Mary Magdalene Church in the town centre from 10am-2pm on Saturday 10 December, which, most appropriately, is Human Rights Day. We will break from 12.30 to 1.30 when the church has a lunchtime concert, Opera Muses.

There’ll be no other December meeting – it would be good to see you on Saturday 10 December, when we’ll have information about this year’s Write for Rights cases.  Come along and write a card to a prisoner of conscience.

Next meeting at the Quaker Meeting House will be Tuesday 10 Jan at 7.30pm.

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Report from our September meeting

27 Sep

Garry Ettle, AIUK’s Country Coordinator for Israel and the Occupied Territories, gave us an online talk – ‘End Israeli Apartheid’. Amnesty has recently published a detailed report on this topic, Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians, and is promoting this as one of its current campaigns.

‘Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, successive governments have created and maintained a system of laws, policies, and practices designed to oppress and dominate Palestinians. This system plays out in different ways across the different areas where Israel exercises control over Palestinians’ rights. However, the intent is always the same: to privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians.’

There are four ways the Israeli authorities enact this system: by fragmentation, dispossession, segregation and deprivation. Garry gave many examples of how this plays out and ran some troubling illustrative video clips of Palestinian repression.

 The aim of AI’s campaign is to increase general awareness, stimulate recognition and foster action.  There needs to be far greater public awareness to put pressure on not only Israel but our own government. There is an online petition you can sign here.

Some of our members are still away and couldn’t report, but we heard reports on the Death Penalty and an update on the human rights situation in India. The crackdown on Amnesty in India continues. The case of the BK15 has been our particular concern; we continued to send  cards, prepared by one of our members,  to some of the BK group.

An update on dual national British/Egyptian Alaa Abdelfattah, long a prisoner of conscience, gave a worrying picture.  Prominent since the events of the Arab Spring in 2011, he has been on hunger strike for months; he has told his mother he expects to die in prison.  Amnesty is currently encouraging members to write to their MPs on his behalf.

Media of the month – the 2017 The Viceroy’s House, available on Netflix, was recommended; it tells the story of the last days of the British Raj, the Mountbattens and partition.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 11 October at 7.30pm in the Friends Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton.  All are welcome!

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Report from our April meeting

22 Apr

At our April meeting our first thoughts were again with the Ukraine crisis. ‘Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a manifest violation of the United Nations Charter and an act of aggression that is a crime under international law’ said Amnesty, as it called for all those involved in this crime to be held accountable for these violations.

There were online petitions and actions to take (see the April Local Groups newsletter or amnesty.org.uk for this and all other actions mentioned), and a call to the UK government, among other things, to fulfill its commitment to provide sanctuary to 200,000 Ukranian refugees in the UK by providing safe travel routes and a temporary visa waiver.  Currently the Government’s  ‘Homes for Ukranians’ scheme is not going smoothly.

This is a concern which fed into our discussion of the Nationality and Borders Bill, recently given a rough time in the House of Lords, where the Government has lost 12 of 13 votes taken. Amnesty describes it as a ‘piece of legislative vandalism which will wreck the UK’s asylum system, undermine international law and criminalise people for attempting to reach a place of safety’. The Commons is ignoring the Lords’ amendments.

A problem for AIUK is that its planned campaigns for 2022 are in danger of being squeezed out by the Ukraine crisis, but we discussed moves to end Israeli Apartheid and the campaign to save the Human Rights Act (threatened by the so-called British Bill of Rights).

One piece of wonderful news was being able to welcome back Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori from Iran – news somewhat damped by the continuing arbitrary detention of Morad Tahbaz and Mehran Raoof – we were urged to continue lobbying for them.

Two new cases to act on: Marfa Rabkova, a volunteer network coordinator for the Belarus human rights group Viasna, detained since September 2020 for exposing the Belarusian police’s brutality against peaceful demonstrators after the disputed Presidential election in that year. She faces a possible 20 year goal sentence – we’re asked to write to her and to the authorities.

Secondly, imprisoned French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hammouri, a field researcher for Palestinian NGO Addameer, persistently harassed by the Israeli authorities since 2002.  A guide was provided for actions to help his case.

The Taunton Group is continuing a rolling action of letters for imprisoned Egyptian housing officer Ibrahim Ezz El-Din.  Our North Africa co-ordinator had written a series of protests about Egypt’s breaking of its own laws in handling his case – photographed for display on Twitter and our own blog.

Some members ran a Football Welcomes Refugees stall at Huish Tigers youth matches this month – lots of  positive interest from leader Gavin and uptake of stickers and badges.

Our India co-ordinator brought in cards to send to imprisoned members of the BK15.  We had an update on the Death penalty and discussed future stalls and publicity

Our chosen Book of the Month is The Conservative Human Rights Revolution by Marco Duranti; it gives an account of post-war Human Rights and the ECHR, driven by conservatives concerned about controlling left-wing politics.

Join us for our next meeting at the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place in Taunton – second Tuesday of the month at 7.30pm.

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Report from our March meeting

19 Mar

The mood of our March meeting was inevitably dominated by the conflict in Ukraine. The situation is moving so fast that the comments made by AIUK at the beginning of the month have been overtaken by further developments in this human tragedy.

Internationally AI has formally declared a Crisis Response; an Urgent Crisis Coordination Team on Ukraine has been established, with work under way on the human rights situation and refugees, but also on evidence gathering, advocacy and security planning.

The invasion of Ukraine is a clear violation of the United Nations Charter and an act of aggression under international law. When the Local Groups newsletter came out at the beginning of the month Amnesty was verifying the use of cluster munitions in a strike on a nursery;  since then such acts have been repeated again and again.

The Ukraine crisis has highlighted Amnesty’s concerns with the Nationality and Borders Bill.  The Government claims it will break the business model of people smugglers, but instead of targeting them, this bill targets their victims.  It fails to provide safe and legal routes into the UK, meaning more and more people seeking asylum will be forced, out of desperation, into the hands of smuggling gangs.

We discussed the campaign, initiated by two of our group, for imprisoned Egyptian housing worker Ibrahim Ezz el-Din.  A blitz of daily letters to officials, to him and to his family is planned for the next three months – see here for more details of how you can help.

The Government’s consultation period on planned changes to the Human Rights Act has now ended.  Some members submitted their comments, and wrote to Taunton’s MP, Rebecca Pow, amid concerns that the proposed reforms will gut the Act and limit not only what rights are but who gets them.

We heard reports from our co-ordinators on North Africa, India and the Death Penalty.  A letter was sent to the President of the Tunisian Republic on behalf of former Tunisian MP Yassin Ayari imprisoned in absentia for criticism of the regime. 

Our Media of the Month is ‘Munich – the Edge of War’ a Netflix drama about the 1938 Munich Conference based on the novel by Robert Harris.

Meetings are now firmly back in person; the next will be on 12 April at 7.30pm at the Quaker Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton. All welcome!

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Ibrahim Ezz el-Din

11 Mar

An Appeal to our Amnesty Supporters

Taunton Amnesty Group have taken on the case of Ibrahim Ezz el-Din, a young Egyptian researcher specialising in housing at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedom. He was arrested in June 2019 and was ‘disappeared’ for 167 days until November 2019. He alleged he had been tortured. Charges were made with no evidence and in January 2021 a judge decided to release him. He was sent to a police station awaiting release where he was interviewed by the state security force (NSA) who decided to charge him with new offences. He is back in prison. This pattern is common in Egypt. He had twice attempted suicide but has been refused medical help.

Our first action as a group is to attempt a 3-month blitz of letters, each volunteer agreeing to write a letter (rather than an email), on the same day each month, for 3 months (3 letters in all). WOULD YOU HELP US? We would like to cover every day of the month with a letter. Please click here for more details or contact us at amnestytaunton@gmail.com

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