Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire
Promoting human rights from Salisbury UK
February 2024
We are pleased to attach this months death penalty report covering the period mid-January to mid-February thanks to group member Lesley for the work in compiling it. It contains details from Iran, which has gone on an execution ‘spree’ to try and silence protests, Japan, Zimbabwe and China but note that it is believed to be the world’s largest executioner but details are a state secret.
February 2024
The egregious Rwanda Bill continues its course through the House of Lords. Their Lordships defeated the Government on one vote, to say that the treaty with Rwanda should not be ratified until the protections set out in it have been fully implemented. The Committee stage begins on Monday 12th February. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has commented that the Government’s plans are a “fake response” to migration issues.
The small boat numbers in January were higher than last year at 1335 – this was no doubt due to milder weather.
Ukraine
The visas offered to Ukrainian exiles following the invasion will run out next month, leaving large numbers to their own devices in seeking accommodation. On a related topic, a consultation has begun to reform the allocation of social housing; it is proposed that there be a “UK connection test”, only allowing allocations to those who have been lawfully resident here for 10 years. The increase in pressure on housing for migrants continues to ratchet up.
The question has been asked “Can criminals be denied refugee status?” The answer appears to be “Yes, but the crime has to be serious for this to apply.”
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration is looking into the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority (sic), which decides claims of human trafficking.
Open Democracy are claiming that vulnerable people including torture victims are being housed on Bibby Stockholm in a potential breach of government guidelines.
Recommended reading: Hein de Haas: How Migration Really Works (Viking, 2024)
Recommended viewing: The Visual Politics of Refugeehood | Gresham College
By Nishat Awan
February 2024
Forty and sometimes over 50, have attended half hour vigils in the Market Square in Salisbury to draw attention to the terrible events going on in Gaza. Reports of over 27,000 dead, many of whom are children with thousands more injured, some seriously, represent a terrible indictment of the state of international politics today. Just over half the buildings in the strip are demolished or severely damaged as a result of the bombing. Attempts at peacekeeping and an end to the violence have so far come to naught.
Members of Salisbury Concern for Israel Palestine, CND and the Amnesty group attend with others.
Nine vigils have now taken place and although attendance varies it seldom dips below 40. They begin at 17:15 for 30 minutes every Saturday in February (at least).
Pictures: Salisbury Amnesty
January 2024
Kenneth Smith was executed yesterday (25 January) in Alabama after serving over 30 years on death row. What brought the execution to world-wide attention was the use of nitrogen hypoxia as the chosen method. Reports seem to show that the execution was prolonged and took over 20 minutes to complete. One report said he ‘thrashed violently’ while dying. This is the first time the gas has been used to execute someone and is as a result of pharmaceutical companies, in America and elsewhere, being reluctant to supply the drugs needed for lethal injection.
The jury in his trial voted for a life sentence but the judge in the case overruled them.
This was not the first attempt at executing Smith: there was an attempt in November 2022 by lethal injection but which failed after several unsuccessful efforts to find a vein. Smith suffered considerably during and after that attempt.
Executions are declining in the USA, the only country in the Americas which still executes its citizens.
Amnesty is opposed to the use of the death penalty in all circumstances.
Sources: BBC; Death Penalty Information Center; Montgomery Advertiser; Birmingham Real-Time News
January 2024
Between 10 – 12 January 2024, David Forst, made his first visit to the United Kingdom since he was elected as UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention in June 2022.
On 23 January he issued a statement in the light of the extremely worrying information he received in the course of meetings regarding the increasingly severe crackdowns on environmental defenders in the United Kingdom, including in relation to the exercise of the right to peaceful protest.
“These developments are a matter of concern for any member of the public in the UK who may wish to take action for the climate or environmental protection. The right to peaceful protest is a basic human right. It is also an essential part of a healthy democracy. Protests, which aim to express dissent and to draw attention to a particular issue, are by their nature disruptive. The fact that they cause disruption or involve civil disobedience do not mean they are not peaceful. As the UN Human Rights Committee has made clear, States have a duty to facilitate the right to protest, and private entities and broader society may be expected to accept some level of disruption as a result of the exercise of this right“.
Peaceful protests
During his visit, however, he learned that, in the UK, peaceful protesters are being prosecuted and convicted under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, for the criminal offence of “public nuisance”, which is punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment. He was also informed that the Public Order Act 2023 is being used to further criminalize peaceful protest. In December 2023, a peaceful climate protester who took part for approximately 30 minutes in a slow march on a public road was sentenced to six months imprisonment under the 2023 law. That case is currently on appeal, but it is important to highlight that, prior to these legislative developments, it had been almost unheard of since the 1930s for members of the public to be imprisoned for peaceful protest in the UK.
He also expressed alarm to learn that, in some recent cases, presiding judges have forbidden environmental defenders from explaining to the jury their motivation for participating in a given protest or from mentioning climate change at all. It is very difficult to understand what could justify denying the jury the opportunity to hear the reason for the defendant’s action, and how a jury could reach a properly informed decision without hearing it, in particular at the time of environmental defenders’ peaceful but ever more urgent calls for the government to take pressing action for the climate.
He also received highly concerning information regarding the harsh bail conditions being imposed on peaceful environmental defenders while awaiting their criminal trial. These have included prohibitions on engaging in any protest, from having contact with others involved in their environmental movement or from going to particular areas. Some environmental defenders have also been required to wear electronic ankle tags, some including a 10pm – 7am curfew, and others, GPS tracking. Under the current timeframes of the criminal justice system, environmental defenders may be on bail for up to 2 years from the date of arrest to their eventual criminal trial.
Such severe bail conditions have significant impacts on the environmental defenders’ personal lives and mental health and he seriously questioned the necessity and proportionality of such conditions for persons engaging in peaceful protest. In addition to the new criminal offences, he was deeply troubled at the use of civil injunctions to ban protest in certain areas, including on public roadways. Anyone who breaches these injunctions is liable for up to 2 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine. Even persons who have been named on one of these injunctions without first 2 being informed about it – which, to date, has largely been the case – can be held liable for the legal costs incurred to obtain the injunction and face an unlimited fine and imprisonment for breaching it. The fact that a significant number of environmental defenders are currently facing both a criminal trial and civil injunction proceedings for their involvement in a climate protest on a UK public road or motorway, and hence are being punished twice for the same action, is also a matter of grave concern to him.
Media derision
He was also distressed to see how environmental defenders are derided by some of the mainstream UK media and in the political sphere. By deriding environmental defenders, the media and political figures put them at risk of threats, abuse and even physical attacks from unscrupulous persons who rely on the toxic discourse to justify their own aggression. The toxic discourse may also be used by the State as justification for adopting increasingly severe and draconian measures against environmental defenders. In the course of his visit, he witnessed first hand that this is precisely what is taking place in the UK right now. This has a significant chilling effect on civil society and the exercise of fundamental freedoms.
As a final note, during his visit, UK environmental defenders told him that, despite the personal risks they face, they will continue to protest for urgent and effective action to address climate change. For them, the threat of climate change and its devastating impacts are far too serious and significant not to continue raising their voice, even when faced with imprisonment. We are in the midst of a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Environmental defenders are acting for the benefit of us all. It is therefore imperative that we ensure that they are protected.
A spokesperson for the UK Home Office, the government department that tackles policing and other elements of national security, said that “while decisions on custodial sentences are a matter for the independent judiciary, the Public Order Act brings in new criminal offences and proper penalties for selfish, guerrilla protest tactics.”
Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said: “The UN special rapporteur offers a damning indictment of the repressive crackdown climate activists in the UK face for exercising their right to peacefully protest.”
“The UK Government seems more intent on creating a climate of fear than tackling the climate crisis.“
The full report can be accessed here: Aarhus_SR_Env_Defenders_statement_following_visit_to_UK_10-12_Jan_2024.pdf (unece.org)
Sources: CNN; Guardian; UN, Mail on Line. [There does not seem to be a report on this in the Daily Telegraph]. All accessed 25 January 2024
January 2024
We are pleased to attach the minutes of our last meeting held on Thursday 11th January with thanks to group member Lesley for preparing them. They give details of forthcoming activities. New members are always welcome and perhaps the best thing if you are thinking of joining is to come to one of our events and make yourself known. It is free to join the local group but if you wish to join Amnesty International UK there is a fee.
January 2024
Refugees and in particular, those arriving via small boats across the Channel, continue to cause considerable concern among the political classes and in the media. Overtaken in the past few days by the Post Office scandal, the matter will burst back into view next week when the Rwanda bill comes back to the Commons.
The total number of “small boats” arrivals in 2023 was 29,437 which was 36% lower than the figure for 2022. Bad weather in the latter part of the year has been a factor. Border Force expect the numbers to rise again in 2024. 20% of the arrivals were from Afghanistan.
On claims, of the 40,000 arrivals between July 2022 and May 2023, 90% applied for asylum. The PM’s claim to have removed the legacy of pre-2022 cases is questionable. The Office for Statistics Regulation is investigating.
The Times reports that Home Office officials can’t clear the rolling asylum backlog, because more than 50,000 claims are for people who are in the U.K. but barred from permanent settlement under new laws passed last year. The paper calls it “indefinite limbo.”
The statistics summary states that of “the 112,138 initial asylum decisions made between January and 28 December 2023, 35,119 were non-substantive decisions”. This includes withdrawals, and it seems reasonable to conclude that the vast majority of those 35,119 decisions were withdrawals given that the statistics to the end of September 2023 showed that 18,709 applications had been withdrawn since June 2022, most of these in 2023. It has been clear since last year that the government was using this as a tool to artificially reduce the number of cases.
This means that over 31% of ‘decisions’ that were made in 2023 were probably withdrawals. These are people who are still here and a large proportion of them are likely to be refugees. All that has been achieved by removing them from the asylum system is an increase in the likelihood of them being subject to exploitation, as people who are left outside the system are far more vulnerable to this.
A report in the i (paywall) shows what has been happening with the withdrawal of asylum claims, Apparently those decision makers who met targets received gift vouchers and those who didn’t were subjected to performance management. In the meantime, those on the receiving end include people who do not speak English as well as those who were living in Home Office accommodation but have been accused of absconding from it.
In Parliament, the Safety of Rwanda Bill returns to its final debate stage next Tuesday and Wednesday (16th and 17th January), when there will be a large number of amendments, the majority of which will fail. The bill will be considered by a committee of the whole house, meaning all MPs can contribute to the committee stage debates which are normally limited to members of a bill committee, and these are the debates where Tory right-wingers will try to toughen the bill. For example, they may try to remove the clause in the bill allowing individuals to appeal against deportation, or to include provisions saying ministers should ignore European court of human rights injunctions stopping deportations flights. Tory centrists may also try to amend the bill to tighten the requirement on ministers to obey the European convention on human rights.
To end on some good news, the Dorset Echo has a report that some of the asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm have started working with local charities, particularly those concerned with the homeless. Being prevented from working has left them with lots of spare time and many of them have experience of charitable work in their former lives.
Andrew Hemming
January 2024
We attach the latest monthly death penalty report around the world for the period mid December 2023 to mid January 2024 thanks to group member Lesley for its preparation. We note as usual that there is no information from China – believed to execute more of its citizens than the rest of the world combined – because the information is a state secret. It is noted that in 2023, the USA was the only G7 country to execute people with Texas the state carrying out most executions.
Meeting this afternoon at 2pm in Victoria Road. All supporters welcome.
December 2023
The local group went out last evening and toured several streets carol singing. We were supported as ever by the Farrant Singers who sang the carols for us. This has become a tradition and it is in its twentieth year. We are extremely grateful to the Farrants and some of the residents of the streets we toured came out to enjoy the singing.
Underneath the lamp post pic: Salisbury Amnesty
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 