Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire
Promoting human rights from Salisbury UK
June 2023
We are pleased to attach the minutes of the group meeting which took place on 8 June 2023 thanks to group member Lesley for compiling them. They contain reports on the refugee situation and on the death penalty as well as details of forthcoming events.
May 2023
We are pleased to attach a copy of the minutes of the May meeting, thanks to group member Andrew for compiling them. They contain details and links to current activities and concerns including immigration, the current laws being processed through parliament to limit campaigning activity and the forthcoming talk about apartheid in Israel . The People in the Park event took place after the meeting.
April 2023
We are pleased to attach the minutes of the April meeting thanks to group member Lesley for producing them. It contains a number of activities and reports of interest. We shall be holding our annual fund raising stall in the market place this Saturday 23rd and if members and supporters have any thing to sell that would be appreciated. Bric-a-brac is popular, good books, china and pottery are also wanted. No electrical goods.
It will also be an opportunity to make yourself known if you are interested in joining us.
March 2023
It was good to get back to having a conference after a two year hiatus because of Covid. It was extremely well attended with over 60 people coming from all over the region including Penzance in the west and ourselves and people from Southampton in the east. To open, there was a video from Agnès Callamard, the Secretary General of Amnesty International.
Among the speakers was Tom Davis who addressed the subject of protecting the protest. A series of bills have been introduced by the present government, some in advanced stages of enactment, which individually and collectively will have a serious effect on the rights of citizens to protest. There is no direct right to protest but it is inherent in the right of free speech and the right of assembly. It is sometimes forgotten that the protests of people in the past have brought much needed social change to our nation. Women would not have the vote without it; workplace laws would not have happened without it. The riots after the Peterloo massacre brought change and the Great Reform Act. Throughout our history there has been protest, sometimes violent, in an attempt to force change.
Recently, Extinction Rebellion have mounted a series of protests in their campaign to promote more attention to climate change and, in their view, insufficient and inadequate action by the government to tackle it. Many have objected to the inconvenience their actions have caused. Almost certainly, the succession of bills have had as a focus, giving police the means to frustrate these protests. For example, introducing the crime of ‘locking on’ to make it an offence to glue oneself to the pavement or link arms. Have we forgotten that the suffragettes chained themselves to railings?
Tom said the Public Order bill, currently weaving its way through parliament, was “deeply, deeply, concerning”. The police will be able to prevent people from attending protests in certain circumstances. The intention appears to be to so limit the ability to protest to those which no one notices. It is disappointing to note that Sir Keir Starmer is supporting some of the measures.
It seemed appropriate that another speaker was a journalist from Nicaragua. She is currently at the University of York, but were she to return to her country she will be arrested. Nicaragua is the only country in the Americas which has no newspaper she said. All have been shut down by the government. Daniel Ortega runs a brutal regime, any protest results in arrest and long sentences. The prisons are dangerously overcrowded and violent. The Pope recently described the state as a dictatorship resulting in Ortega cutting off diplomatic relations with the Vatican.
Photos show a quick demonstration in front of the Cathedral and people getting ready for the conference at the Mint in Exeter. Photos: Salisbury Amnesty
All praise to the Exeter group of Amnesty for hosting and organising this event.
March 2023
These are the minutes of the group’s meeting in March thanks to group member Lesley for preparing them. There are a number of forthcoming events at which anyone thinking of joining us could make themselves known. Of special note is the annual market stall so if you have items which you can donate that will be appreciated.
NOTE: there is an error under ‘matters arising’ – 15th May should read 15th March that is this Wednesday.
This is a short list of some of our forthcoming activities. Fuller details will be in the minutes which will be posted up in the next few days. These are all events where, if you’re thinking of joining us, it would be a good chance to come and say hello. It is free to join the local group but to get the full benefit of Amnesty then there is a fee to join AIUK in London.
We look forward to seeing at one or more of these events.
February 2023
We are pleased to attach the minutes of the group meeting held in February 2023 with thanks to group member Lesley for producing them. The next event is the coffee morning at St Thomas’s Church in Salisbury on Saturday 18 February, 10 until noon and this would be a good time to make yourself known if you were thinking of joining us. This is an important time in the UK for human rights with the government keen to reduce rights and rid itself of the Human Rights Act (see an item in the minutes for more detail).
We are pleased to attach a copy of the group’s January 2023 meeting minutes, with thanks to group member Lesley for producing them.
We are pleased to attach the minutes of the group’s November meeting with thanks to group member Lesley for the work in compiling them. They contain a lot of interesting material including information about future events, planned or actual, as well as reports on refugees and the death penalty.
Note that the next meeting is December 8th at 2pm. We welcome new members and we hope to see returning ones now that we have shifted to an afternoon slot. We remain concerned about the range of bills and laws the government is planning to pass which will limit our rights to protest and its increasingly authoritarian tone. Refugees remain a live issue receiving much coverage in the media particularly about the boat crossings but who fail to mention the full facts.
October 2022
We are pleased to attach the minutes of the group’s October meeting thanks to group member Andrew for preparing them. The next meeting will be on 10 November at the new time of 2pm (14:00) in Victoria Road.
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 