Tag: “Human rights”

Threats to our rights


July 2022

List of acts and bills which, individually and collectively, impinge on our rights

There is mounting concern that the tide of legislation currently in the process of enactment, will shift power away from the people and give greater powers to the police and the government itself.

Enacted legislation:

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Act 2022

Elections Act 2022

Nationality and Borders Act 2022

Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022

Serious Threats from current bills

Bill of Rights

National Security Bill

Online Safety Bill

Public Order Bill

Lesser Threats – collectively Important

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill

Brexit Freedoms Bill

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Modern Slavery Bill

Draft Victims Bill

Data Reform Bill

Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Bill

Conversion Therapy Bill

Draft Mental Health Act Reform Bill

Energy Bill

Private Renters Bill

Social Housing Regulation Bill

Schools Bill

Possible Threat – under consideration

Locking On

The above is just a list. Below we provide a little more explanation and a brief summary of what they are about.

Some do not attack Human Rights directly. Rather they undermine our access to our human rights or circumvent them altogether so although we may have in law a ‘right’ we cannot, or will not be able, in some circumstances enforce them or rely on them for protection.

What is important is their collective impact. They each chip away here and there at our rights, and some expressly bypass Human Rights legislation (whether the HRA of Bill of Rights). Secondly, they demonstrate the little importance the current governments attach to our liberties, freedoms and our right to express our opinions. Thirdly, the very clear trend they represent to ever greater centralised government control. If they are all enacted and become law then the government will have increased their control significantly. The National Security Bill and the Public Order Bill combined could result in a Police State.

Summaries of what some of the bills and acts contain:

Serious Threats
Bill of RightsA government power grab.  It is a much weakened version of the 1998 Human Rights Act.
National Security BillMinisters and UK officials cannot be charged for crimes they order or encourage overseas – ordering assassinations or the commission of war crimes. It puts the government above challenge, undermines our right to hold government accountable, giving us less say, and government becomes more authoritarian and closer to becoming a dictatorship.
Online Safety BillIntended to protect the right of free speech and expression, prevent the circulation of misinformation, threats and unsavoury content, particularly in social media, but it will not apply to the government and those in public office. Gives more control to the government.
Could be used to stop criticism of the government.
Public Order BillAn extension of the Police and Crime Bill. It has been described as authoritarian and repressive. It gives the police wide discretion and greater powers, introduces control orders and enables stop and search without reason.
Lesser Threats
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) BillNot compatible with Human Rights. Bypasses police, courts, protections and enables substantial government interference in the process of law and the right of defence/protection.
Brexit Freedoms BillGetting rid of and remaining EU protections.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) BillPrevents Universities and Student Unions blocking [no-platforming] speakers thus enabling ‘objectionable opinions’ to be validated. Especially Far-Right, anti LGBT and racism views.
Modern Slavery Bill
Draft Victims BillIt doesn’t protect personal data, from excess police intrusion or provide sufficient support for marginalised groups.
Data Reform BillScraps GDPR ‘red tape’ and lowers barriers to restrict access to personal data.
Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions BillComplex. BDS is an Israeli/Palestine issue. The wider context is about using BDS to control ‘overseas’ issues. The bill gives greater central control to government.
Conversion Therapy Bill
Draft Mental Health Act Reform BillWe have a right to good mental health, and to be treated with dignity and respect. Questionable protections under the Bill of Rights.
Energy BillUndermines the right to affordable energy, safe energy good for the environment, climate, not to be cut-off, not to be forced to have repayment meters.
Private Renters BillConflicts with HRs and gives government Renters Ombudsman opportunity to ignore HRs (peaceful possession/occupation). Complex overlapping with property law. Could be good for renters but shifts final say away from HRs to the government decisions. Renters will not be able to use HRs to challenge Ombudsman decisions.
Social Housing Regulation BillGives central government greater control, the discretion to side step HRs
Schools BillGives Government great control over education to FE level. Has the potential to remove teachers/schools not following an agreed narrative. To close schools without notice or appeal.
Possible Threat
Locking OnMaking Locking-on a specific criminal offence.

Mike Hodgson

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The Bill of Rights


Conservatives seek to abolish the Human Rights Act with a new Bill of Rights

Human rights are about power, who has it, who wields it and the effects on those without it. These rights have been struggled over for centuries. Once it was kings (and the occasional queen) who wielded absolute power. Gradually, it was wrested from them and parliament achieved supremacy after 1688 and the Glorious Revolution. It was a rather more bloody affair a century later in France.

The all party Human Rights Act in 1998 – a fact rather overlooked by some ministers who characterise it as ‘Labour’s’ act – incorporated the European Convention into British law and marked a sea change in the relationship between the people and the government and agents of government. It set out a series of rights which enabled the ordinary subject to challenge government decisions, negligence or criminal acts. Notable successes include the Hillsborough disaster where the police attempted to shift blame onto the supporters but after years of campaigning – using the HRA as a key lever – the surviving families were able to achieve measure of justice and highlight police failings as a key factor in the tragedy. Other scandals have involved hospitals and other police miscarriages where victims have been able to bring to light serious failings in these institutions.

Despite being such a step forward, many in the Conservative party and a major parts of the press, have waged a remorseless campaign against the act. The Conservatives have pledged to reform or abolish it in all their recent manifestos. The press have published story after story along the lines that the act prevents criminals getting their just deserts, it helps terrorists escape justice and most recently, preventing asylum seekers from being exported to Rwanda. Many of the stories are exaggerated or have nothing to do with the HRA. For readers of this material, the decision by Dominic Raab to publish the Bill of Rights this week (June 2022) cannot come too soon and will enable they believe, proper justice to return to the UK. ‘Lefty lawyers’ will be put in their place and before long, plane loads of asylum seekers will be jetted off to Africa. The power of the judiciary to intervene will be reduced.

To understand these actions, as we said above, you have to start with power. If power is exercised fairly, with the rewards of society evenly disbursed, then the holders of power have little to fear. If the leaders have the trust of the people, they are unlikely to feel threatened. But when the divide in the nation between the haves and the have-nots gets wider and wider, when the poor get ever poorer and the nation’s leaders lose the trust of the led, then they will feel threatened. The life of easy privilege will be under threat. It is tempting in these circumstances to clamp down on the means of protest, to close off avenues of redress and to curb the means by which the ordinary person can assert their rights. Hence the spate of bills and the desire to end the HRA, the very means by which the ordinary person can assert their rights against the power of the state.

In addition to the power question, we have to look at some of the other doubtful reasoning behind this bill. In an earlier post we discussed the book written by Dominic Raab and two of his cabinet colleagues arguing for the end of the act. One element was the notion of liberty and it was this which enabled Britain to become a wealthy nation they argue. Laws and regulations have hampered this liberty and thus removed our ability to be properly wealthy. Get rid of these restrictions and we will regain our prosperity.

The argument overlooked slavery which provided the money for investment, imperial preference which stifled competition, and the terrible state that ordinary people lived in, the squalor, the slums, disease and malnutrition. Indeed, they, like many other people, have forgotten the ‘recruits crisis’ where losses in the Boor war at the end of the nineteenth century were hard to replace because the physical, malnourished and unhealthy state of volunteers was so poor.

The Bill of Rights, should it become law – together with the other legislation to limit protest, enhance the powers of the police and to limit judicial oversight – will be a backward step in the development of our society. It will shift yet more power to the government and its ministers. It will drastically reduce the power of the citizen to right wrongs. It is a retrograde step.

We and others will be working to oppose its passing.

For American readers, the Hillsborough disaster was a fatal crush of people during an FA Cup football (soccer) match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, on 15 April 1989. With 96 fatalities and 766 injuries, it remains the worst disaster in British sporting history. Initially, the supporters were blamed but after decades of campaigning, using the HRA as we’ve said, police failings were eventually recognised.

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Refugee Report


We are grateful to group member Andrew for his work in preparing this piece on the important topic of refugees and asylum seekers. There has been a lot of activity on the legislative front this month concerning refugees and related matters .  

There has been much activity on the Nationality and Borders bill, which has reached the report stage, following the detailed discussion in committee, prior to going to the Lords.

Among the changes brought about in the last month, Clause 9 has been the most controversial, allowing the government to remove a person’s citizenship without notifying them, if they consider it in the public interest.  The clause, proposed in July and updated in November, exempts the government from giving notice of a decision to deprive a person of citizenship if authorities do not have the subject’s contact details or if it is not “reasonably practical” to do so.  The clause states that notice would also not be given if such a move is “in the public interest”.  However, the Home Office has said those deprived of citizenship will still have the right to appeal.

A precedent was set in 2019, after Shamima Begum, who was born in London, was stripped of her UK citizenship due to her connections with the ISIL (ISIS).  Sajid Javid, home secretary at the time, argued that although Begum did not have a foreign passport, she would not be stateless because of her Bangladeshi ancestry.  However, Bangladesh, which she had never visited, said she had no claim to the South Asian nation.

Since 2006, the UK has had the power to strip dual nationals of their British citizenship.  The measures were introduced after the 2005 London bombings – four suicide bombings on July 7 that killed 52 people.  At that moment, British anti-terrorism laws changed, and collective security was trumped over protecting civil liberties and freedoms.

Under Tony Blair, who was then prime minister, 12 counterterrorism measures were outlined, also including the expansion of the controversial Prevent programme, which was quietly created in 2003. This required public officials working in schools, universities, hospitals and local councils to report people they found to be showing “radical” tendencies to the authorities.

The ability to deny people citizenship was increased in 2010 by then-Home Secretary Theresa May, who used the powers to strip 20 dual-national Britons who were believed to be fighting in Syria.  In 2014, May took this further, extending the measures to foreign-born British citizens without dual nationality, as long as they were eligible for foreign citizenship and would not be left stateless.  But the new clause – which means people may not be notified of their stripped citizenship – can also be applied before it becomes law, making an appeals process harder.

A report by the New Statesman found that almost six million people from ethnic minority backgrounds could be affected by the proposed clause.

The bill also aims to rule as inadmissible asylum claims made by undocumented people as well as criminalise them and anyone taking part in refugee rescue missions in the English Channel.  Moreover, border force staff will be granted immunity if people die in the Channel during “pushback” operations, a matter of concern among immigration lawyers who say the bill breaches international and domestic law.

According to The Guardian, in response to the new clause, the Home Office has said: “British citizenship is a privilege, not a right.  Deprivation of citizenship on conducive grounds is rightly reserved for those who pose a threat to the UK or whose conduct involves very high harm.  The nationality and borders bill will amend the law so citizenship can be deprived where it is not practicable to give notice, for example, if there is no way of communicating with the person.”

The bill is currently going through the House of Commons and will progress to the House of Lords by next year.

The situation with the points-based immigration system

The Government is struggling to manage the demands of its post-Brexit, points-based immigration system, new figures suggest.  Quarterly statistics published by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) show that waiting times for immigration sponsorship approvals have increased dramatically since the start of 2021, when the UK’s new immigration system came into effect.

From 2018 to the start of 2021, on average, 78.5% of ‘tier 2’ sponsorship applications were processed within four weeks. In the first half of 2021, this figure sank to an average of 24.6%.  This has similarly been the case for ‘tier 5’ sponsorships, 79.7% of which were processed within four weeks from 2018 to the start of 2021.  Since that time, 23.6% have been processed within this time limit.

Tier 2 visas are granted to skilled workers seeking employment in the UK.  According to the Home Office, applicants “must be able to speak, read, write and understand English” in order to gain entry.  Tier 5 visas, meanwhile, are open to temporary workers – with visas granted for between six and 24 months. Both routes require an application fee of roughly £200, and a healthcare surcharge of some £600-a-year – unless the applicant is a health or social care worker.

The average time taken to process a visa application in the second quarter of 2021 was 48.35 days – compared to just 28 days in the second quarter of last year.  There are now 2,202 applications in the UKVI system that have taken longer to process than the average amount of time – compared to just 374 in the final quarter of 2020.

From 1 January 2021, the UK introduced a more stringent immigration policy that allows entry for those who have a job offer in a skilled sector that meets certain salary thresholds – as well as students and temporary workers in applicable industries.  In order for temporary and skilled workers to gain a visa, the UK demands that they are officially sponsored by their prospective employer.  This differs from the UK’s previous immigration system, during its membership of the EU, when European citizens could move freely to live, work, or study in the UK.

Unsurprisingly, the UK has subsequently seen a surge in sponsorship applications, which were previously only required for non-EU migrants.  An average of 1,346 applications were made in each quarter from the beginning of 2018 to the third quarter of 2020 – rising to 2,607 in the final quarter of 2020, 3,566 in the first quarter of the new year and 3,794 in the second.

However, this surge was entirely predictable. Home Secretary Priti Patel announced the points-based immigration system in February 2020, with Brexiters having supported the idea ever since the 2016 EU Referendum campaign.

According to employer solutions law firm Davidson Morris, Home Office staff have also been diverted “away from sponsorship applications to handle EU settlement scheme applications from EEA nationals” – the process through which EU residents have gained the temporary or permanent right to remain in the UK.

“One year on, our new system is making it easier for businesses to hire the skills and talent they need, while incentivising investment in our domestic workforce,” a Home Office spokesperson told Byline Times.  “Valid and complete applications for visas are processed within the published timescales despite a sustained rise in demand.”

However, the lagging performance of the UK’s immigration system risks exacerbating worker shortages that have plagued the country in recent months.  Amid food and fuel shortages, the UK has made 4,700 temporary visas available to HGV drivers, 5,500 visas for poultry workers, and 800 for pork butchers.  The Government also encouraged 300 EU fuel tanker drivers without a visa to enter the country – yet only nine people applied.

These schemes will not solve the fundamental issues with the UK’s new immigration regime – either in the short or the long-term.  Indeed, speaking to CNN, British Chambers of Commerce President Ruby McGregor-Smith likened the Government’s temporary visa schemes to “throwing a thimble of water on a bonfire

Immigration as a concern for voters

Following Robert Peston’s claim that immigration was top of voters’ concerns, YouGov asked adults in Great Britain, most recently on 22 November 2021, to pick up to three of the most important issues facing the country.  The top three responses were health (49%), the economy (40%) and the environment (35%).  Immigration and asylum were fourth with 34%.  (These figures are analysed to remove random fluctuations in the data due to sampling variability.  If this isn’t done immigration and asylum are even lower with 22%).

Ipsos MORI polled people between 5 and 11 November and found climate change was mentioned most as a concern (40%).  Coronavirus and pandemic diseases came second with 27% and Brexit issues and the NHS/healthcare were both third with 22%.  Immigration and immigrants were mentioned by 11%.

Safe Return of Asylum Seekers

While the Nationality and Borders bill moves on, for some reason a new bill has been tabled to help the government return asylum seekers to “safe countries” in an effort to reduce the number of people claiming asylum in the UK.   Introduced by Conservative MP Peter Bone, the Asylum Seekers (Return to Safe Countries) Bill has passed its second reading.

The Bill would “require asylum seekers who have arrived in the United Kingdom from a safe country to be immediately returned to that country”.  This could apply to those arriving directly from countries deemed “safe” by the UK or to asylum seekers arriving in the UK via a safe country such as France or Germany.  This is essentially an attempt to reinstate the Dublin 111

Accord of the European Union, which allowed member countries to return unregistered immigrants to that part of the EU where they first landed.  Post- Brexit, this obviously no longer applies, though the Home Office is trying to return asylum seekers to the Continent wherever it can.

Health issues for refugees

Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF), alongside other leading healthcare organisations, has written to the Home Secretary in the wake of last month’s tragic loss of life in the English Channel.  The letter outlines their collective opposition to the Nationality and Borders Bill due to its lasting and profound harm to the health and wellbeing of people in need of refugee protection.

Dear Secretary of State,

We write to you in the wake of last week’s tragic loss of life in the English Channel, as organisations representing medical professionals and patients, to raise concerns about the health implications of the Nationality and Borders Bill.

In its attempt to establish a two-tiered asylum system based on the way a refugee enters the UK, the Bill undermines established international protection rules and practices and breaks international law. The United Nations Refugee Agency has described these changes as “a recipe for mental and physical ill-health”.

If passed, the Bill will bring in sweeping changes to the asylum system, including establishing large-scale reception centres in the UK and offshore asylum processing sites, which will cause lasting and profound harm to the health and wellbeing of people in need of refugee protection.

Our concerns are based on a wealth of evidence from individuals held on Manus and Nauru Islands under the Australian Government’s offshore detention policy and our work supporting people in asylum accommodation across the UK.

We strongly oppose the Nationality and Borders Bill as it stands and urgently call on you to establish a kinder, fairer, and more effective approach to supporting refugees, regardless of how they arrive in the UK, including a community-based accommodation system that enables meaningful access to health services.

A group of medical organisations and health bodies wrote to you on 26 November 2020 expressing concern about the use of Ministry of Defence sites to house people seeking asylum.

The letter highlighted the sites’ unsuitability for this purpose due to the lack of access to adequate and appropriate healthcare services, public health risks resulting from a lack of compliance with COVID-19 regulations, and the risk of re-traumatisation triggered by accommodation in former military barracks.

Despite this warning, and Public Health England’s advice against using Napier Barracks because of the coronavirus pandemic, no action was taken.  Residents were left managing health needs alone and reports of suicidal ideation were frequent.

An inspection by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration found individuals “suffering from serious underlying physical and mental health conditions, including one case of active TB at Napier”, and there have been two avoidable and significant coronavirus outbreaks in the Napier site.

We are deeply concerned by plans to establish large-scale reception centres to accommodate up to 8,000 people, and that Napier Barracks is viewed by the government as a prototype for these  centres.

As medical organisations, our experience of supporting vulnerable individuals in Napier Barracks and Penally Camp, as well as medical evidence from Greece which operates similarly large reception centres, show this type of large-scale accommodation prevents people from accessing medical care and presents a real risk to public health.

This type of accommodation is also inappropriate for people seeking asylum, many of whom will have experienced torture, exploitation and abuse, and are at risk of severe psychological distress and re-traumatisation.

The Bill’s proposal for asylum seekers and refugees to be detained offshore indefinitely whilst their asylum claims are processed is deeply alarming from a health perspective.

Australia has implemented a policy of offshoring refugees and asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru Islands since 2012, resulting in severe and well documented harm to people’s physical and mental health whilst concealing their suffering from public scrutiny.

This must not be replicated by the UK. MSF’s mental health project on Nauru Island responded to shocking levels of mental illness among asylum seeker and refugee patients linked to the offshore processing policy.

Sixty percent of patients had suicidal thoughts and 30 percent actually attempted suicide, while 10 children and two adults were diagnosed with the rare, life-threatening condition Resignation Syndrome, which requires medical care to keep the individual alive.

The policy also perpetuated a system of violence, physical and sexual abuse of those detained and led to more than 1,200 people being medically evacuated from Nauru to Australia to receive medical care not available on the island. Many were evacuated for psychiatric reasons after years of distress on the island.

In light of these serious mental and physical health concerns, we are calling for the government to scrap the plans to establish offshore asylum processing and ensure that all asylum seekers who arrive in the UK remain in the country whilst their asylum claim is processed, by removing clause 28 from the Bill.

We also call on government to withdraw plans to introduce UK-based reception centres and make a full commitment to house people seeking asylum in the UK within our communities.

Yours sincerely,

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Beyond Europe

Six months after it moved to formally terminate the programme, the Biden administration is restarting the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as Remain in Mexico, a border policy that forces vulnerable migrants to wait in northern Mexico as their US asylum cases are assessed.  This project was instituted by President Trump, and the current administration say they are having to reinstitute it due to a federal court injunction obtained by the states of Texas and Missouri.  The American Civil Liberties Union have commented:

“The reimplementation of this illegal and cruel policy will inflict on thousands of additional people seeking asylum the same harms that were well documented under its previous implentation: horrific abuse, including torture, rape, and death; and the denial of any meaningful opportunity to obtain asylum.    

“Secretary Mayorkas himself recently acknowledged that MPP is inherently flawed and cannot be fixed, and that its human costs are substantial and unjustifiable.  Although the Biden administration may claim it has no choice but to restart MPP, there is no question that it has a choice to end Title 42, which causes many of the same harms, and yet it has chosen to continue and even double down on that cruel and unlawful policy that turns people away at the border under the guise of public health. It is imperative that that administration do everything within its power to bring both policies to a complete end.”   
 

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President-elect Joe Biden and human rights


President-elect Joe Biden has declared that human rights will be an important part of his agenda when he becomes president in January.  Following a period when President Trump rowed back on a lot of US commitments in this area, this is clearly welcome.  So how is this likely to look?

Trump pulled the US out of the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 and this year designated the International Criminal Court a “security threat.”  It is expected that a Biden administration will reverse these decisions as well as re-staffing the depleted Human Rights Department of the US Department of Justice and returning to various arms control agreements.  It is also clear that Biden will take a multilateral approach to international issues, unlike his predecessor.

The US-based organisation Human Rights Watch have urged the new administration to reverse course:

On November 9, countries at the UN Human Rights Council reviewed the human rights record of the United States and offered recommendations on guaranteeing the right to health, including sexual and reproductive health, non-discrimination, voting rights, policing, and gender equality, among others.  The Biden administration should re-engage with the Human Rights Council, including by accepting Universal Periodic Review recommendations aligned with international human rights law, and realizing the human rights obligations identified by the council

They also urge the incoming regime also to repudiate the Department of State’s Commission on Unalienable Rights, which Trump set up to make a hierarchy of countries and abandon the universality of international human rights law.

Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty UK, has also urged the Biden administration to take a new approach to international law and has indicated 3 areas where the new administration needs to change its human rights policy internally – gun control, asylum seekers and police reform (AIUK, 9 November 2020).

In the run up to the election, Biden made a number of statements in defence of human rights, notably in the Middle East, which he may well struggle to carry out.  In the last week or two, Egypt and Turkey have both made a large number of arrests of dissidents (maybe hoping to do so before Trump leaves), and Saudi Arabia is sending feminist activists to a terrorism court.

As Kareem Fahim writes in the Washington Post (27 November 2020):

The moves in recent days, by a trio of authoritarian governments that are close allies or partners of the United States, have put human rights issues front and center weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office, in a pre-emptive challenge to his pledge to vigorously defend such rights.

 

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Web sites


At the bottom of this site, you will find links to many websites involved in human rights activities, either in specific countries or globally. Just added are three sites involved in Palestine and Israel: Yesh Din; Breaking the Silence and Physicians for Human Rights Israel.

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Can it get any worse for human rights?


The worst human rights abusing nations set for seats on the UN’s Human Rights Council

The news that Saudi Arabia, Russia, Pakistan, Cuba and China are set to take seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council today has sent shock waves around the world.  How can it be that the world’s worst abusers of human rights get to be in a perfect position to frustrate the work of the UN?

China is the world’s largest executioner of its citizens the precise numbers being a state secret.  It is committing what amounts to cultural genocide with the Uighurs in Xinjiang.  Around a million are incarcerated for what is claimed are programmes of re-education.  Women are being forcibly sterilised.  It is hard at work trying to stifle freedoms in Hong Kong.  It’s activities in Tibet have drawn years of censure. Torture is common and many are held incommunicado.

Russia is another state with a dismal human rights record.  Here in Salisbury we have experienced months of

Bench in Salisbury where the Skripals were found. Pic: Salisbury Amnesty

disruption following the attempted murder of the Skripals.  There are no free elections in the country and it looks as though there was an attempt on the life of opposition leader Navalny with Novichok.  Many journalists have been murdered, simply gunned down in the street.

Freedom of association is severely restricted.  Torture and mistreatment are common. Human rights defenders and NGOs are targeted.  Corruption is on a massive scale aided and abetted by the City of London.

Saudi Arabia is almost in a league of its own.  We have featured on these pages for many years the continuing bombing of civilians and civilian targets in Yemen and recently we have noted the disgraceful decision by the UK government to resume arms sales to the country.  Torture is common, and they are one of the world’s worst executioners often in public displays of barbarity.  Women’s rights are highly restricted.

These countries, under their despotic and dictatorial leaders, are simply not fit to be on a council for human rights.  They have no intention of changing their laws and systems to improve matters, indeed it can be argued that all three are getting steadily worse.

The Council is supposed to ensure that all people know their rights and are treated fairly.  It is supposed to ‘check what governments do to protect the rights of its people in their countries’.  How it can do this with countries like this sat on the governing body is a mystery.

 

 

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Women in Iran


Women in Iran at risk

As news spreads that Iran could be facing a second wave of coronavirus due to an increase in the number of cases, the health and safety of Nasrin, Yasaman and other imprisoned women’s rights activists remains at risk.  Now more than ever, we must increase the pressure on Iranian authorities to release these women immediately.

Our campaigning has helped secure the release of prisoners of conscience in Iran before.  Please can help us do it again.  Please watch and share our post, featuring Iranian-born actress and Amnesty Ambassador, Nazanin Boniadi who has campaigned with us since 2008 on the unjust conviction and treatment of Iranian youth, women and prisoners of conscience.

 

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