Tag Archives: torture

The EU Torture Trade: Sale Must End Now

13 Nov

stick_web_final_0Struggling to keep a crowd in check with your ordinary truncheon? This spiked baton delivers maximum impact with virtually no effort! And thanks to loopholes in EU laws, you can trade in an array of gruesome torture equipment like this right here in Europe.

Sign the petition calling on the EU to fix the flaws that allow people to profit from torture.

 

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Urgent: China – Do not send refugees back to North Korea

15 Aug

Four families, including a one-year-old baby, fled to China to escape the tyranny of North Korea.  Now China might send them home where they could face torture, labour camps and possibly death.

They have already been taken to a detention centre on the border with North Korea.

North Korea is in a category of its own when it comes to human rights violations. It is a totalitarian state where tens of thousands of people are enslaved and tortured.  All forms of freedom of expression are repressed and anyone attempting to assert their rights is crushed.  No one is safe from arrest and imprisonment

Call on Chinese authorities to let them seek asylum in China or another country, or travel onwards to South Korea.

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Action against the death penalty: Stop execution of Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi

15 Jun

At the June meeting of Amnesty International Taunton group, members wrote to Iraqi authorities on behalf of father-of-two Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi.

He is detained in Kadhimiya Prison, northern Baghdad, following his conviction for killing an Iraqi army officer in 2008.

He is at imminent risk of execution and his case has now been forwarded to the President’s office, which has the authority to ratify the sentence, commute it or grant a pardon.

During his trial, Osama Jamal ‘Abdallah Mahdi withdrew “confessions” extracted from him under torture, but this was not accepted by the court.  Witnesses confirm that he was at work at the time of the killing, 120km from where it took place.

Click here for details of how you can to write to the Iraqi authorities, asking for this execution to be permanently halted and the allegations of torture investigated.

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Read all about our May 2014 local group meeting

20 May

This month we invited Rebecca Pow, the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Taunton Deane, to discuss her position on the human rights issues that concern Amnesty.   Although Human Rights issues were not a familiar topic to Rebecca, she did express interest in Amnesty’s work on Women’s Human Rights and was able to tell us about the Conservative party’s position on issues such as repealing the Human Rights Act and reducing the influence of the European Court of Human Rights. 

Mahdi Abu Dheeb

Mahdi Abu Dheeb

Mahdi Abu Dheeb, President of the Bahrain National Teachers’ Association, is the subject of this month’s appeal. For normal Union activities he was arrested, thrown from a second floor window, beaten up and held incommunicado for days. He’s now in prison serving a 5 year sentence. His plight links to one of Amnesty’s main campaigns this year, “Stop Torture”.  As well as writing on his behalf, we sent appeal cards  to the governments of other victims: a sudden tidal wave of cards and letters undoubtedly has, at the least, an unsettling effect on such regimes.

We meet at 8pm on the second Tuesday of the month in the Silver Street Baptist Church.  All are very welcome.

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Stop execution and flogging of pregnant mother in Sudan

17 May

27-year-old Meriam Yehya Ibrahim is being held in prison with her 20-month-old son and is heavily pregnant with her second child.  

Meriam was first arrested in August last year because her husband is Christian. One of her relatives had claimed that Meriam was committing ‘adultery’ for marrying outside of Islam, and reported her to the authorities.

When Meriam appeared before the courtroom in Khartoum, Sudan, on 15 May and refused to renounce her Christian religion, the judges sentenced to death by hanging for ‘apostasy’. She has also been sentenced to 100 lashes for being married to a Christian man.

Meriam has committed no crime. She is a prisoner of conscience and should be released immediately.  

Please follow this link to send an email to the Sudanese government, or write to the following addresses:

  • Minister of Justice Mohamed Bushara Dousa, Ministry of Justice, PO Box 302 Al Nil Avenue, Khartoum, Sudan  moj@moj.gov.sd
  • Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Ahmed Karti, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PO Box 302, Republic Street, Khartoum, Sudan Fax: + 249 183 772941
  • Minister of Interior Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamed mut@isoc.sd

 

 

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Call for justice for the family of Darius Evangelista

8 Feb

Darius EvangelistaIn March 2010, Darius Evangelista was arrested in Manila on suspicion of theft. Fellow detainees saw him brought back to their cell badly injured, before being taken from the police station. They never saw him again.

In August 2010, a video was broadcast on national television of a naked man crying out in pain on the floor, while a police officer beat and abused him. Darius’s wife is convinced that the man in the video is her husband as she recognised his tattoos. It’s the last time she saw her husband alive.

No one has been brought to justice for the torture, enforced disappearance and possible extra-judicial execution of Darius Evangelista.

What you can do to help.

1. Write to the Chief of Philippine National Police calling for justice for the Evangelista family.  Address: PDG Nicanor Bartolome, PNP National Headquarters Camp General Crame, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

2.Send a message via Facebook on the Philippines Police Chief’s Facebook page.

3. Send a message of support to the Evangelista family.  Address: Margie Evangelista, c/o Center for International Law, Unit 1904 Antel Corporate Center, 121 Valero Street, Salcedo Village, Makati City, Philippines

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Free the Guesthouse Six

20 Aug

Ding HongfenSix human rights defenders in China are being detained by authorities after freeing activists who were being illegally detained in a guest house.

Three are now missing, their whereabouts unknown. One (Ding Hongfen, pictured) has already been subjected to torture.

Please click here to send an email to the Chinese authorities and ask them to release the activists immediately.

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