We are pleased to attach the minutes of the last meeting thanks to group member Lesley for preparing them and thanks to group members for their contributions. Rather longer than ordinary minutes, they contain reports on the death penalty, the situation with refugees and immigrants, statistics and a report on the state of rights in the UK a sad addition to what we report on.
Throughout August the Salisbury group took part in the national campaign to highlight the plight of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang province in China. We reported on the extreme measures used by the Chinese to repress the culture, language and religion of this population and the imprisonment of around a million as part of a process of ‘re-education’. We also noted the vast programme of forced labour particularly of cotton much of it finding its way its way into high street clothing with seemingly little concern by our retailers.
The group held a brief photo opportunity today to highlight the Uyghurs and to keep them in the public eye.
A recent report by Global Rights Compliance suggests we may have been a bit ‘narrow’ in focusing on cotton as the latest 5 year plan for the region in which it is explained:
“The Plan’s overriding priority is to position China at the “forefront of global science and technology”, by eliminating critical technological dependencies and ensuring that its development trajectory cannot be disrupted by external pressure or supply chain coercion.
“This self-reliance shift ultimately relies on material foundations. The success of these goals depends on securing reliable access to raw materials at scale. The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang) is central: the region holds the majority of China’s beryllium reserves, a material with no substitute in semiconductor manufacturing, and provides the cheap coal-based energy that makes energy-intensive mineral processing”.
This suggests the process of repression will continue because this dominance relies not just on the material itself but its processing. This will also need forced labour to achieve.
There are signs that politicians are beginning to worry about the ‘China threat’ which is on several levels. Our concern is with the rights of a people who are not Han Chinese, who are routinely persecuted and the fruits of their persecution finds its way into products we buy in the West.
We are pleased to attach our minutes and newsletter for September thanks to group members Lesley for compiling them and Fiona and Andrew for their contributions.
Somewhat longer than previously reflecting two months and also because a lot has been happening on the death penalty front. The piece on refugees is interesting because it reflects the fact that the numbers of boat crossings is down. The item on UK rights discusses some dubious legal decisions around Palestine Action cases where protestors have been locked up and some imprisoned for terrorism offences whereas masked protestors in Dover and Portsmouth haven’t.
There are some details of the Uyghur campaign last month which was extremely successful for us.
Lots of interest in this month’s minutes and newsletter
July 2026
We are pleased to attach our July minutes and newsletter with thanks to several group members for their contributions. There are pieces on the refugee situation which continues to resonate in the British political scene but often with little attention to the facts. Few would know from the media and politicians that the number of boat crossings have declined for example.
As we have pointed out in a previous post, we now report on British human rights following successive government’s introduction of ever more restrictive laws on assembly and protest.
There is a summary of the death penalty noting that the Restore party wants to see the penalty brought back in the UK. This coincided with the conditional pardon offered to Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain.
There is a report on social media statistics noting that views to this site are at significantly higher level than last year but that most come from outside the UK. High numbers from China are a surprise but very welcome.
There is no meeting in August and the next time we meet is on September 10th.
If there is one thing which is guaranteed to excite tensions and rouse passions at the moment is the whole question of refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers. Election campaigns seem to revolve around this topic and only recently, mobs attacked homes in Belfast and Southampton to burn out such people with fire bombs. Parties vie with one another to demonstrate their toughness against them and Andy Burnham – decisively voted into parliament again two days ago – is quoted as being supportive of the home secretary Shabana Mahmood in her desire to introduce yet more controls.
Alongside these passions is a degree of mis and disinformation. For example, there is a degree of fixation over the Channel crossings which loom large in the tabloid and right wing media universe. They loom much larger in the imagination than the actual numbers justify. They are seen as remorselessly increasing when the opposite is the case. Which is why the group decided to mount a short quiz in Salisbury market.
The results were modest. Around 23 people stopped to engage. The majority walked by. We can never know of course but it may be because the whole topic of refugees is so distasteful they do not wish to spend their precious time on it. They may feel that their knowledge of the subject is pretty sound. We cannot know.
Those that did stop did pretty well (as you can see from the photo on the left) with most getting the answers right. They knew that numbers were falling; they knew that the numbers coming by boat were a small proportion of the whole and they were aware that they could not work without a visa.
The latest minutes are available thanks to group member Lesley for the work in preparing them. More than just minutes, they contain a lot of interesting material on the death penalty, the increasingly worrying state of rights in the UK, immigration matters and statistics concerning our website and other social media activity.
We shall be in the Cheese market this Saturday 20th June from 9 am with our refugee quiz. This is Refugee Week and the whole topic of refugees, immigration and asylum seekers raises more heat than light with considerable mis and disinformation. So if you are in the Salisbury area, pop along and see how you get on.
Contains a number of interesting items about human rights today
May 2026
We are pleased to attach our latest minutes and newsletter. We do not publish a newsletter as such but the minutes double as one. They contain pieces about immigration, the death penalty and the slowly deteriorating state of rights in the UK. Towards the end you will find details of forthcoming activities if you were interested in making contact.
We attach the minutes and newsletter of our April meeting thanks to group member Lesley for compiling them. They contain a lot of material and details of future activities appear towards the end. If you were thinking of joining us (it’s free) then coming along to one of these events would be a good start.
We are pleased to attach this month’s minutes and Newsletter for the group thanks to group member Lesley for preparing them. We do not publish a Newsletter as such but they contain a lot of material on the death penalty around the world, the state of UK politics as they affect human rights and the current refugee situation. There are also some statistical details and we are pleased to report that number viewing the site have risen significantly.
The group hosted a coffee morning at St Thomas’s church in the centre of Salisbury. We had a suggested action for people to take concerning a surgeon, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya (pictured), who was seized from a hospital in Gaza and who’s whereabouts in Israel are currently unknown. He has probably been severely mistreated. We are asking people to write to the IDF to ask for his whereabouts to be made known, for assurances that he is not being tortured, to have access to legal advice and to receive medical treatment. Disappointingly, only three handouts were taken.
Considerable international disquiet has been expressed about this man, and how he has been treated. The Israeli media are now saying, 14 months later, that he is a member of Hamas.
