Urgent action: North Korea


TV producer held for 50 years

Hwang Won, a former TV producer from South Korea, was not allowed to return to his home country after arriving involuntarily to North Korea on a hijacked plane on 11 December 1969.  Despite repeated requests from his family, the North Korean authorities have refused to disclose information regarding Hwang Won’s vital status or whereabouts for the last 50 years.  South Korean authorities must call on the North Korean authorities to provide accurate information on Hwang Won, who will turn 82 this year.

It is almost unimaginable that someone should be in prison for half a century and there would be concerns about their ability to cope with life outside.  The Salisbury group has campaigned for human rights in North Korea and we are hopeful that, with a seeming desire for the regime to engage with the world outside, things might change.

Details are as attached

North Korea Urgent Action (Word)

 

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Asmaa al-Omeissy: Yemen


Asmaa al Omeissy is facing execution by a Houthi court in Yemen

Asmaa is 23 year old mother of two who was sentenced to death by the Houthi aligned Specialised Criminal court in Sana’a, Yemen.  She is expecting the final verdict in a few days on 4 February.  There is good evidence that she was tortured in prison and that conditions in prison are dire.  She was denied access to a lawyer.  She is separately sentenced to 100 lashes for an ‘indecent act’ because she travelled in a car with co-defendants to whom she was not related.

Amnesty is organising a campaign on Twitter and if you are able to take part that would be helpful for her cause.

A suggested tweet :

  • Asmaa al-Omeissy is the first known #Yemenis #woman on death row on ‘state security’ charges.  Her conviction came after a grossly unfair trial and the court rejected her appeal on 3 December.  #saveAsmaa

We suggest the following targets to add to your tweet:

  • Houthi representatives at the peace talks: @aleji77 @abdusalamsalah
  • special envoy: @ose-Yemen
  • Omani Ambassador to the UN :@oman_un

If you want to join the local group you would be very welcome.  Keep and eye on this site or on Facebook for one of our events and come along and make yourself known.

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Human Rights Act under threat again?


Government minister gives equivocal answer

January 2019

The threat by the current Conservative government to do away with the Human Rights Act (HRA) has lain dormant for some time due to the considerable time being devoted to the Brexit negotiations.  However, it reared its head again this week when a House of Lords EU Justice subcommittee asked a government minister for reassurance that it (the government) will not repeal or replace the act.

The Parliament Website has the following piece:

The House of Lords EU Justice Sub-Committee wrote to Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice David Gauke in December regarding the rights of citizens post-Brexit.  The Committee sought an explanation for the dilution of the Government’s commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Last week the Committee received a troubling response.  While again pledging an unchanging commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms, the letter from Edward Argar MP, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, ended with reference to the Government’s intention to revisit the Human Rights Act once the process of leaving the EU is concluded.  18 January 2019 [accessed 22 January 2019 our italics]

This is very troubling.  The hostility of many ministers and politicians to the HRA is well known and echoes the frequent stories and campaigns in the tabloid press.  It is seen by some as a threat to our way or life and to giving terrorists and criminals a ‘get out of jail card’.

On the contrary, it is in our view, one of the most important pieces of legislation in the last 20 years.  It has shifted power away from the state and given ordinary people a means to challenge faulty decisions.  The Hillsborough enquiry is a recent example and would not have happened without it.  As an Amnesty spokesperson put it:

The Human Rights Act has been central to the vital pursuit of justice in this country for the last 20 years.  It is the unsung hero of UK life, holding powerful people and institutions to account when ordinary people are let down.  It is deeply concerning that the Government refuses to acknowledge that reality.

The Human Rights Act is a critical safety net for everyone in our society.  Any attempt to dilute or remove the essential protections the Human Rights Act provides should be categorically ruled out.

They are mounting a petition which you can take part in if you wish.

If the act is abolished, all that will happen is that we go back to the bad old days of people having to beat a path to Strasbourg to get justice.

Sources:  Amnesty, Rights Info, Parliament Website

If you live in the Salisbury or South Wilts area and would like to join us, you would be very welcome.  Keep and eye on this site or on Facebook @salisburyai for one of our events and come along and make yourself known.

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Forthcoming events


We have a number of events being planned and this is a brief summary for members and supporters.

I Welcome 

At the Methodist Church in Salisbury we have part of the series of photographs taken by Magnum photographers on display.  These show the life of refugees in camps around the world.  On until early February.  Please check opening times on their website

Refugees

still on the subject of refugees, there will be a coffee/mint tea morning at the Methodist Church on Saturday 2 February 10:30 till noon in support of Salisbury Syrian refugee families.  You will be able to do both these events at the same time

Refugee vigil

being organised for March/April.  Keep an eye on this site or Facebook for details

Cathedral Evensong – date TBC

Arts Centre Film

This will be a screening of The Breadwinner on 8th March 2019.  This film is set in Taliban controlled Afghanistan and concerns a girl dressing as a boy so she can feed her family.  Further details nearer the time or from the Arts Centre

Market Stall – 8th June 2019

Refugee Week – 17th-23rd June 2019

Joining.  If you live in the Salisbury/Amesbury/Wilton area you would be welcome to join us.  Human rights are under threat as never before and the situation in the UK is not fully assured.  Some want to abolish the Human Rights Act.  The best thing is to make yourself known at one of our events.  It is free to join us locally but if you want to join AIUK there is a membership fee.

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January meeting minutes


Minutes of the January meeting are now available thanks to group member Lesley for preparing them. The group discussed recent actions and future activities. These include the film The Breadwinner on 8 March; the market stall on 8 June; Refugee week from 17 – 23 June and the photo exhibition currently on at the Methodist Church (Free).

If you would like to join the group you would be very welcome.  Best thing is to come to an event we are running and make yourself known.  

January minutes (Word)

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Death penalty report


The latest report for the December – January period is now available thanks to group member Lesley for doing the research. The usual suspects feature: Saudi Arabia; USA; Pakistan and Belarus with the addition of Gaza this time. Remember that China is the world’s largest execution but the data is a state secret.

December January report (Word)Download

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Refugee exhibition


‘I Welcome’ photos on display at the Methodist Church

The plight of refugees entered the news again this year with the attempts by them to cross the Channel in small boats. This prompted the home secretary Sajid Javid to declare that a ‘major incident’ had occurred and he received considerable favourable coverage from the tabloid press. About 221 attempted the crossing between the beginning of November 2018 and the end of December. This compares with the hundreds of thousands who have entered Italy and Greece. To compare the 221 attempts to cross since the beginning of November with the hundreds of thousands who have entered other European states and calling it a ‘crisis’ is absurd.

The Daily Express for example, under a headline ‘Migrant Crisis’ quotes a former home office chief as saying that ‘Britain faces a humanitarian crisis unless it sends back migrants’.

As Roy Greenslade discusses in the Guardian:

For the past couple of weeks, in a period we like to call the season of goodwill, Britain’s newspapers and broadcasters have been reporting on the arrival of desperate men and women on our shores as if they are criminals unworthy of charity or understanding

Guardian 7 January 2018

The Refugee Council regrets the action Sajid Javid took and his reported doubts that these were genuine asylum seekers and that they should be deterred from crossing to make it harder to claim asylum. In response to these comments, Dr Lisa Doyle, Director of Advocacy at the Refugee Council, said:

The comments made by the Home Secretary today are deeply concerning. The outcome of an asylum application cannot be pre-judged before it has been made and must be processed on its individual merit, irrespective of how that person reached the country. Let us not forget that we are talking about people who are in desperate need of protection, having fled countries with prolific human rights abuses. What is more, we are hearing time and again that the conditions in France do not make people feel safe, with migrant camps being razed from the ground and people experiencing violence from the authorities. It’s a shame that the Home Secretary seems to need reminding that seeking asylum is a right and the UK has an obligation to assess claims fairly and grant protection to those who need it.

Refugee Council 2 January 2018 [accessed 7 January]

Immigration, asylum seekers and refugees raise considerable passions in the country and it was a key issue behind the 2016 Referendum. It is likely that many people voted in favour of leaving the EU because they believed it would end immigration of all kinds into the country.

The Salisbury group has mounted a photographic exhibition in the Salisbury Methodist Church during January featuring award winning pictures of refugees in various locations around the world. There are around 40 million internally displaced people and 25.4 million refugees according to UNHCR. The images show some of the desperate situation many of these men, women and children live in.

Part of the exhibition at the Methodist Church

We are grateful to the church for letting us use their space for these photographs.

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December minutes


December 2018

Minutes of the December meeting are attached thanks to group member Lesley for compiling them.  A full meeting with both past and future activities discussed.  At the end of the minutes you will find details of future events with dates. 

If you are living in the Salisbury/South Wiltshire/North Dorset area and wish to join us you would be welcome.  The simplest thing is to keep and eye on this site or Facebook or Twitter (salisburyai) and come along to an event and make yourself known

December minutes (Word)Download
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Yemen: slender hope


Peace talks in Sweden offer slender hope for peace in Yemen

We have be writing blogs about the war in Yemen for over three years now going back to the time when it was referred to as the ‘forgotten war’.  The group wrote to our local MP to raise concerns about war crimes and we received the usual bland reply from a FCO Minister Tobias Ellwood and a covering note from Mr Glen saying:

However, the government recognises that its abolition is not a matter of mere legal reform but would require a seismic societal shift.  It has therefore taken an approach which it feels is most constructive – engaging behind the scenes rather than inflaming the situation and triggering a backlash through outspoken public critique.

Mr John Glen MP, July 2015

This ‘behind the scenes engagement’ has not yielded anything of any value and indeed, while the slaughter has increased, British arms sales have also increased adding to the misery of this country.  It is now estimated over 10,000 have been killed, over 3 million have had to flee their homes and nearly 14 million Yemenis are in fear of starvation.  

Over the past 3 years or so, we have reported on critical select committee reports, newspaper revelations about our involvement and trips by our royals, the Foreign Secretary and the prime minister to Saudi Arabia to help promote arms sales.  It was originally argued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that we had a tough regime to control arms sales to regimes where human rights were ignored.  The shear weight of evidence of violations by Saudi Arabia, both with its own citizens and in Yemen, makes this statement hollow. 

The previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has written about the conflict in an article in the Guardian saying that the British government is complicit in the death of thousands in the war through its continued sale of arms.  He refers to a recently published Christian Aid report pointing to the absurd position our government is in, namely giving half our aid to states and regions affected by chronic violent conflict and at the same time, half our arms sales go to states where military force is used against its citizens.  As Dr Williams puts it:

It’s as if we are creating, or at least helping to maintain, the very conflicts whose terrible effects we then spend money of mitigating

Britain’s direct complicity in the war in Yemen must end.  Rowan Williams 14 December 2018 The Guardian 

The CA report comments on the ambivalence – some might say hypocrisy – of the British government’s position:

The double standards are most stark in relation to the UK’s complicity in the conflict in Yemen.  On one hand, the UK is leading calls in the UN for a peace agreement, and is the leading financial supporter of humanitarian aid to Yemenis and the UN Special Envoy’s peace-making endeavours.  On the other, it is promoting significant new arms sales to the government of Saudi Arabia and actively supporting military operations of the Saudi led coalition in Yemen.  This has included attacks that may amount to war crimes.

Christian Aid: For Yemen’s sake: stop selling arms, 13 December, 2018

As events in Yemen got worse and the death toll rose, Britain actually increased its sale of arms to Saudi according to a Sky News report.  Despite credible reports of bombing of civilian facilities including schools, hospitals, weddings and funerals, we went on with our arms sales and provided RAF personnel to advise the Saudis.  

The UK government is in something of a bind however.  The extent of our arms sales to the Saudis is such that scaling them back would be extremely difficult in terms of the economic impact on parts of the country which depend on them.  With Brexit looming – whatever the outcome – we will need all the business we can get.  Dr Williams’ plea to stop sales to certain countries is unlikely to receive more than a polite hearing therefore.  

This is a crucial moment for the UK as it looks to redefine its relationship with the EU and the wider world.  The UK Government, as one of the world’s largest aid donors, largest arms exporters and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), is a global leader on war and peace.  There is much to celebrate about the UK’s role in aid and development, in responding to climate change, upholding principles of multilateralism, supporting the UN Peacebuilding Fund, and committing to 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) for aid.  Yet undermining these peacebuilding efforts are some stark double standards fuelling war instead.  Such as the fact the UK is currently on track to become one of the world’s biggest arms dealers, exporting the majority of its arms to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  If the UK Government is really committed to peace, Christian Aid calls on them to address these stark double standards and champion international law and peace in its foreign and aid policies. 

Christian Aid, ibid

We hope the peace deal agreed in Sweden will hold and yield results.  

Sources: 
The Guardian, CAAT, Sky News, Christian Aid, Amnesty International 

If you live in the Salisbury area, you would be welcome to join us. It is free to join the local group and the best thing is to keep an eye on this page, or Twitter or Facebook as you prefer, and come along to the next event and make yourself known.  


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