Successful day at this event in Salisbury

May 2025

Members of the group attended the People in the Park event in Salisbury last Saturday and reported a successful day with a lot of interest in human rights issues. This environmentally-focused community festival aims to showcase Salisbury’s green organisations, projects and businesses.

We had a petition on behalf of an environmental campaigner who has been imprisoned in Paraguay, a reminder that campaigners face real threats in some countries if they take on the powerful commercial companies who care little for the environment or indigenous peoples. The petition was willingly signed and we collected several pages. We also had a spinning wheel which stopped at a particular colour to which a question on human rights was posed. Many stopped to have a go.

We also had a handout on refugees a topic which causes great angst in the UK. The recent elections were heavily influenced by this issue and Reform won many seats promising to cure the problem. The Prime Minister was prompted to make a speech on the question which some have felt ill-judged. He said:

“Labour would “take back our borders” and warned that without tighter immigration controls, Britain risks “becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together””. (Leftfootforward.org)

It has been likened to the infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech given by Enoch Powell in 1968 and has been widely condemned. We found our handout, which gave a more balanced view of the world wide nature of the problem, was taken willingly by passers-by. See also a monthly report we prepare.

Altogether, we came away pleased with the responses we received. This is always reassuring as there is considerable media invective directed against the Human Rights Act and recently, the European Convention. All our ‘Stop arming Israel’ stickers went and we ran out of leaflets.

Thanks to group members Andrew, Fiona, Val, Eddie and Peter who took part.

Sequence of photos: Amnesty