Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire
Promoting human rights from Salisbury UK
The meeting took place tonight with a speaker from South Korea. A full report will appear soon.
#stoptorture And a reminder that we are running a stall on Saturday 15th in the Market Place to highlight the issue of torture around the world. If you can come along and sign or better still, help for an hour that would be great. It will be the first outing of the torture wheel based on the Philippine’s security services wheel used to decide on how they are going to torture a suspect.
Amnesty group makes YouTube video. The #Salisbury group of Amnesty International broke new ground today when they prepared
a short YouTube video clip to highlight the appalling situation in the North Korean prison camps. Fifteen members held up cards which spelled out the message ‘Close the Camps’ to mimic the huge displays which take place in Pyongyang. It was part of a morning spent collecting signatures which unfortunately had to be curtailed because of the heavy rain which made it impossible to continue. Despite this, in the hour or so we were able to operate, 84 people signed.
Jooil Kim (pictured) an escapee was able to attend and take part and we were pleased to have a member of the South Korean Embassy come and sign as well.
Thanks for all who came and made this a success and especially to Karen (and husband) who did all the work preparing the cards. Now watch the video …!
UPDATE: revised YouTube video
UPDATE II: link to a newspaper interview with Joo il Kim
Link to the New Malden North Korean site
Jonathan, Fiona and Andrew went to Bishop Wordsworth’s school last month for the annual #Citizenship Day, an event for Year 12 students from the Bishops Wordsworth School and South Wilts Grammar. More than 50 students opted to attend our sessions – about the same number as last year – choosing over other charities, pressure groups and political parties.
Three sessions were held and following an introduction by Andrew, Jonathan got them to work thinking about human rights in general and Fiona finished with a “what you can do” chat. To judge from talking to other presenters, ours was probably one of the more interactive sessions, and the students seemed to respond well, overcoming a natural reticence. Groups had interesting thoughts about what rights consisted of, and one group even came up with a definition, although knowledge of Magna Carta was surprisingly spotty.
We hope some will take up the essay challenge and a good number of forms were taken away. Feedback has been positive, and we are hopeful of encouraging the students to take up Amnesty causes for themselves.
We have several events in the next couple of weeks and anyone free to help will always be welcome.
October 2014
Update: See this Human Rights Watch blog: http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/31/dispatches-rare-victory-justice
A victory was achieved today in the long running battle by Abdul-Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar to get justice and redress for being tortured in Libya.
Belhaj was a Libyan politician who was allegedly abducted and secretly flown to Libya where he was tortured by General Gaddafi’s security forces. He has brought the case against the former foreign secretary, Jack Straw and Sir Mark Allen, the former head of counter terrorism at MI6. After the collapse of the Gaddafi regime, papers were discovered in Libya which implicated the British security services in the torture of Belhaj and his wife.
In December 2013, the High Court struck out the civil lawsuit brought by the claimants, holding that since the claim called into question activities of a foreign state on its own territory the act of state doctrine precluded the court from hearing the case. The Court rejected the UK Government’s argument that state immunity (a principle of international law by which a state is protected from being sued in the courts of other states) operated as a bar to the claim.
Judge Mr Justice Simon found “with hesitation” that the case could not go ahead and expressed his concern that “what appears to be a potentially well-founded claim that the UK authorities were directly implicated in the extraordinary rendition of the claimants, will not be determined in any domestic court; and that Parliamentary oversight and criminal investigations are not adequate substitutes for access to, and a decision by, the Court.”
In February 2014, the claimants were given permission to appeal the ruling on the act of state doctrine and the UK Government cross-appealed contesting that, in addition to the act of state doctrine, state immunity also precluded the claims from being heard.
On Monday 30 June, the NGOs Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, JUSTICE and REDRESS filed written interventions jointly in this case, which may set an important precedent for future claims brought by torture victims.
In the Court of Appeal’s decision it noted, among other things, the changed nature of public international law which has expanded to include the regulation of human rights … It went on to observe that ‘unless the English Courts are able to exercise jurisdiction in this case, these very grave allegations against the executive will never be subjected to judicial investigation.’
Andrea Coomber of Justice said that the Government’s case would fundamentally undercut the international rule of law and undermine the global commitment to remedies for victims of human rights violations.
Part of the Government’s case was a fear of embarrassing the United States who had colluded with MI6 in the alleged abduction.
It is frequently stated that the British Government does not carry out torture and we have signed the relevant treaties to that effect. Rendering people to countries to, in effect, subcontract this evil process is unacceptable.
The government is considering whether to appeal.
Sources
Brick Court Chambers, http://www.brickcourt.co.uk
The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk
Redress (see link at bottom of this blog)
Reprieve (ditto)
Amnesty International (ditto)
We have re-launched the #essay competition this year and invited members of the 6th forms in the #Salisbury area to contribute. A pdf of the full entry details is here:
The competition details have been sent to the following schools with around 50 copies of the entry leaflet:
Bishops Wordsworth
Burgate School
Godolphin School
South Wilts Grammar School
Sarum Academy
6th Form College
St Mary’s School, Shaftesbury.
The title of the essay is either:
Discuss the relevance of Magna Carta today or
Should the Human Rights Act be abolished?
Closing date is 30 November. There are three money prizes: £60; £30 and £15. We look forward to receiving the essays.
We held a stall in the Library tunnel on Saturday 11 October in aid of the #stoptorture campaign and in particular, to highlight the case of
Moses Akatugba in #Nigeria. He was arrested for allegedly stealing mobile phones, shot in the hand and tortured by the Nigerian Army. He has been in prison now for eight years and is on death row awaiting execution. Torture is routine in Nigeria and it is reported that police stations even have a ‘torture officer’.
We collected 189 signatures in three hours which is a good haul for a difficult subject which has received next to no publicity. We shall be sending the cards in two batches to the Governor of Delta state in Nigeria where Moses is being held. We have sent a report of the signing to the Nigerian Embassy in London (see under Update below).
If you would like to know more about this case then you can find it here: Nigeria fact sheet
We are grateful to all those who stopped to sign a card. The great majority of passers-by did not to sign it has to be noted for
reasons that are never clear or revealed. 155 countries around the world have signed the UN protocol against the use of torture but according to Amnesty International figures, it is still practised in 141 of them. In other words, they sign treaties to end it but continue to use it.
Thanks to all the Salisbury Group’s team for taking part and their help in making this a success: Michael; Jonathan; Andrew; Lesley; Peter; Fiona; Eddie; Cynthia; Tony and Karen.
UPDATE 13 October Nigerian Embassy letter
An interesting decision was made by the courts this week that Prince Nassser bin Hammed Al-Khalifa (pictured) is liable for prosecution for his alleged role in the torture of FF a torture survivor from the kingdom. Up to now the prince has claimed immunity. The case is important because several of the gulf states regularly use torture yet prosecutions never happen because of claimed immunity.
This is an embarrassment to the UK government as it has welcomed members of the ruling family to
Downing St and is keen to promote greater ties with the kingdom. Indeed the New Statesman remarked that ‘the more desperate the situation in Bahrain becomes, the closer Britain ties itself to the ruling family.’
Behind it all is an arms deal of £1bn for the sale of Tornado jets.
The full story is on the Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (sic)
This is the monthly death penalty report thanks to Lesley.
General
Hoxton, London. Condemned by Amnesty as ‘in appallingly bad taste’, the owners initially issued an apology but later withdrew it, saying ‘all over the world there are attractions that have the potential to offend’Death Penalty Statistics for 2013
Urgent Actions
Campaigning
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 