Tag: “Human rights”

Three months in East Jerusalem


A talk by Nick Papadopulos describing his time in this city

September 2024

CORRECTED: 14TH September

Nick (pictured below) is the Dean of Salisbury Cathedral and has spent three months in this troubled city earlier in the year. He gave a talk last evening (September 11th) in St Thomas’s Church in the centre of Salisbury. Over 200 attended.

The conflict in the region raises great passions which are not to be seen in the same way with the Ukrainian conflict for example. Russia’s bombing of civilian targets and key infrastructure is seen straightforwardly as a war crime. The destruction of huge chunks of Gaza is not seen in such black and white terms. The increasing settler (and the word ‘settler’ came up in the talk, see below) violence receives only modest attention by news media or politicians. Indeed, Papadopulos commented on the reluctance of politicians in the UK to say or do much seeing the conflict as ‘toxic’ he said. The recent decision by the UK government for a modest reduction in arms sales suggested an effort to assuage those who argue for a total ban and a reluctance to upset the Israeli government. It looks as though they have achieved neither, one of the perils of fence sitting.

‘You can’t be neutral’

He gave a brief history of key events in the recent past starting with 1948, the declaration of the state of Israel and the displacement of three quarters of a million Palestinians which they refer to as the Nakba. He briefly discussed the 6 day war which saw the new state annex large areas of land in the region. These have been given up but they obtained control of Jerusalem, the West Bank, Golan Heights and maintained control of Gaza. Sanai reverted to Egypt. In answer to a question on this he emphasised that it was true that Israel no longer occupied Gaza but they did control it. It became the largest open air prison in the world with no access by sea or air and surrounded by checkpoints.

He described witnessing some of the arbitrary restrictions imposed by Israel on citizens in Jerusalem. One concerned a wish by Moslems to enter parts of the city to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque. Restrictions were suddenly imposed which included only allowing men over 55 to enter and women over 45 likewise. New ID cards and a permit required giving them no time to acquire them. The result was that almost no one got in.

It was not just Moslems but similar restrictions applied to Christians who wish to celebrate Palm Sunday. 20,000 permits were applied for but only 2,000 issued too late for them to be of use. These events are confirmed by Machsom Watch a locally based women’s group which monitors checkpoints in the country. Freedom of worship is protected by article 37 of the Geneva Convention. We do not know the Israeli response to these events but they happen sufficiently often to appear to be an act of policy rather than a response to a particular threat. Checkpoints are surrounded by heavily armed soldiers with a ‘Skunk Water‘ van in attendance. These are used to drench crowds with an evil smelling fluid. The effect of these actions he said is to ‘weaken Jerusalem’s religious diversity’.

West Bank

A few items have appeared in TV news recently by BBC, ITV and Channel 4 showing the settler violence in the west bank. He described one such where Israelis arrived in the early hours and completely destroyed the Palestinian village. He also described the destruction of solar panels, important where there is no electricity. Pouring raw sewage onto land where children play was also mentioned. The various examples he gave concerned collective punishment which is contrary to article 33 of the Convention. He provided several examples of homes and facilities destroyed.

There was a question about the word ‘settler’ which by itself is a fairly neutral word and implies something small scale. In reality the settlements are almost cities and represent a permanent development. It was important to note he said that the ‘settlers’ were now part of the government.

Another question concerned the Holocaust. He reminded us that no Arab was involved in that atrocity, it was Europeans. He did not think that comparison of the Holocaust with what is going on today was helpful he said.

This was an extremely interesting illustrated talk from someone who has spent time in the region and witnessed first hand some of the oppression Moslems, Christians and Armenians experience on a regular basis. It was a pity he did not mention the ‘Apartheid‘ word which was relevant to his presentation. There seems no end to the violence at the time or writing and it does not appear the various cease fire initiatives have come to anything.

For those unable to get to this presentation, there will be a chance to hear it again on 13th November [not 3rd as we earlier posted] at the Quaker centre on Wilton Road, Salisbury.

There was a Vigil as usual this Saturday 14th September in the market place starting at 5pm for half an hour which attracted 30 people. Last week’s Vigil attracted around 35 people.

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Rights Lawyers in China: 9 Years after 709 Crackdown


China: 9th Anniversary of 709 Crackdown on Rights Lawyers and Defenders: 10 Notable Events Over Past Year
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Impactful Lancet Study: Up to 186,000 Dead in Gaza, alarming Figures


Study by the Lancet estimates as many as 186,000 dead in Gaza.

July 2024

The figures previously quoted by many (and reproduced on this site) are of just under 38,000 dead in Gaza. The figures are produced by the Gaza Health Ministry and the way they are reported by British media implies that they are not necessarily true and may be exaggerated. It now appears from this study that they are far from being exaggerated and are a considerable underestimate and that the true figure may be an astonishing, not to say shocking 186,000. Claims that the figures are ‘fabricated’ are implausible and are accepted by the UN, WHO and the Israeli intelligence services.

The Lancet study explains in detail the problems in producing a reliable figure in a war zone. The previous data came from hospitals but with almost all of them destroyed this is no longer reliable. Thousands remain buried in the rubble of destroyed buildings and others are dying for want of medical attention or starvation. About the only agency able to deliver aid is UNWRA and they have been subject to considerable restrictions.

These figures have intensified calls on the (new) government to stop further aid going to Israel. Private Eye (No: 1627 p41) reports the closeness between the (previous) government and the Israel arms firms Elbit which has plants in the UK. They reveal undisclosed meetings between Professor Julia Sutcliffe, appointed by Kemi Badenoch, and the firm in an attempt to encourage them to invest £100m in the UK. The article ends by saying “The enthusiasm of the UK government departments for Elbit not only raises ethical issues – Elbit’s chief executive told investors it was “very much involved” in Gaza and was going to build weapons with “lessons learned from the war” – but also puts extra pressure on the UK not to limit arms exports to Israel of arms purchases from it”. The firm has previously been quoted as saying that drones built in the UK are not being used in Gaza.

Sources: The Lancet, al Jazeera, Private Eye

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Vigils continue


31st Vigil on 6 July. Labour’s relations with Israel now significant following the general election

July 2024

UPDATE 2: The new government has announced (8 July) that it is to drop its bid to delay the ICC’s intention to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

UPDATE: It is rare for us to update a post only hours after its publication but we have mentioned the prime minister’s uncertain history in relation to Israel and today, 7 July, he has made a statement committing his party, and now the government, in support of a two state solution. This is to be welcomed.

The vigils continue in Salisbury market place although attendance down to around 25. The conflict continues and although there are reports of peace talks, there is little confidence they will lead to a successful result. Around 38,000 Palestinians have now died including thousands of children.

The conflict spilled into the General Election which was held in the UK last week on 4 July and led to a landslide victory for the Labour party. However some seats were lost and others came close to being lost because of Sir Keir Starmer’s remark early in the election where he said that “Israel has the right to withhold power and water from the Palestinian people” then going on to say that “obviously, everything should be done within International law”. The problem is that collective action against civilians is against international law so the two comments contradict each other. Another, less noticed interview was with the Jewish Chronicle where Starmer was asked about apartheid in Israel and, despite the overwhelming evidence produced by a number of human rights organisations from both within Israel and outside the country that Israel was indeed running an apartheid system, said that Israel was not an apartheid state.

Arms to Israel

It is going to be interesting to see how the new administration handles the arms question and whether it allows further exports going to Israel. The problem for the party is that they struggled for some time to shake off the ‘anti-Semitic’ accusation following Jeremy Corbin’s time as leader. Arguably, this has led them to become fearful of making any criticism of Israeli actions and to become unquestioning supporters.

The Salisbury Amnesty group is 50 this year

Another problem for Israel – and by extension the western countries still continuing to support it – are credible reports of the widespread use of torture by the Israelis. These reports are from the UN; the International Center for Transition Justice; Middle East Monitor; Voice of America; al Jazeera and many others. In the current edition of Private Eye (No: 1627) in its ‘Gaza Watch’ column, is a report of the death in custody of Dr Iyad al-Rantisi in November last year. He was held in a Shin Bet interrogation facility. He was moving south with his family as directed by the IDF and was detained at a checkpoint. Six days later he was dead. A gag order forbade all publication of details of the case and the family have not been provided with an explanation.

He was not alone and a large number of other health care workers have also died. According to Health Care Workers Watch Palestine, 541 such workers have died at the hands of IDF to date, the highest number in any conflict in UN history. Other agencies report comparable numbers. Private Eye also quotes the EU’s European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Operations directorate which reports that 31 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza have been destroyed.

The next vigil will take place on Saturday 13th at 5pm and people concerned about the conflict are welcome to come along.

Protests

It’s perhaps also interesting to note that our protest is entirely silent and there are no loud-hailers. We undertake no violent actions and we do not chain ourselves to railings or other similar activities. We do not therefore infringe the previous government’s laws designed to limit protest. As a result we are ignored and we will not be reported on by local media. A matter on which to reflect for those who say they do not mind protests as long as they’re peaceful.

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Salisbury Vigil

NAZA – the film


NAZA was shown in cinemas around the country October 2026 The film NAZA was shown in cinemas around the country yesterday and following the showing there was an interview with the makers and others involved. NAZA is the word used by the IDF to assess collateral deaths in pursuit of one Hamas operative. It is…

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Latest vigil and other things


The 149th vigil held on Saturday. Big row about the Green party motion on Zionism October 2026 A tense week on the Israel front with a major row erupting at the Green party conference arising from a motion to defining Zionism as “a political ideology which called for the creation – and, now it exists,…

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Minutes and Newsletter


October meeting minutes October 2026 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…

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Uyghurs win important case


World Uyghur Congress wins important Appeal Court case concerning cotton produced in Xinjiang

June 2024

The dreadful treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province in China is well established and around one million of them are kept in 380 internment camps. They are also used as forced labour in the production of cotton and 85% of China’s cotton comes from this region. This cotton finds its way into western markets and is used to produce clothing on sale in UK shops and elsewhere.

The WUC tried to get the National Crime Agency to carry out an investigation which the declined to do saying that they needed details of specific contracts. This was overturned at the Appeal Court in what is being described as a ‘watershed moment‘ ([2024] EWCA Civ 715). The court said the decision by NCA was ‘illegal’. The cotton produced using forced labour infringes the Proceeds of Crime Act. This is the first successful action in the world and is being regarded as a landmark decision. If a company knowingly uses, or which they suspect to be using, forced labour, then a prosecution can be initiated under POCA.

Needless to say the Chinese are angry and the Chinese Embassy said it was ‘an enormous lie by anti-Chinese elements to smear China’. The problem for the Chinese is that it is a closed region and journalists are not allowed in. Footage that has emerged has been shot clandestinely. There seems little doubt however that the scale of the repression, the attempted destruction of the Uyghur culture including banning the language, and the demolition of hundreds of mosques, represents a major crime taking place in the twenty first century. It is variously described as a crime against humanity and genocide.

A lawyer from the Global Legal Action Network said ‘this litigation has been critical in recognising the mass atrocities being committed against Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim people by the Chinese government, and holding to account those complicit in, or profiting from, these crimes.’ Producers of clothes using Chinese cotton will now have to take extra care that it does not use forced labour. Major high street names are involved.

Sources: Binman’s, Reuters, The Guardian, Law Society Gazette

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“Amnesty a worthless sham”


Fierce criticism of Amnesty International by the editor at large of the Jewish Chronicle

April 2024

“Amnesty is an indecent, morally bankrupt sham that has nothing of value to contribute”. These are just two comments in a Times column under the ‘Thunderer’ heading in its edition of April 11th. After first saying that the organisation was once a remarkable one which campaigned on behalf of prisoners of conscience, today it has become “just another partisan NGO, with all the dreary hard-left obsessions – including the customary fixation on Israel”. There then follows a damning description of current prisoners of conscience saying that far from being law abiding citizens and writers, they were in fact dreadful terrorists who committed fearful crimes against Israeli men.

This site has referred, in several posts, to the system of Apartheid being operated in Israel against Palestinians. Many of the processes used in South Africa against the Blacks are present in the country and severely limit the movement and livelihoods of non Jewish citizens. Three detailed reports have been published: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and B’Tselem an Israel based human rights organisation. The HRW report has received a detailed rebuttal essentially denying that Apartheid exists in any form.

The invasion of Gaza following the horrific attack by Hamas on 7 October has seen around 33,000 Palestinians killed, many of whom were women and children with thousands more buried in demolished buildings. The sympathy for Israel after the Hamas attack, has begun to dissipate following the actions of the IDF. As famine begins to set in, the blocking of aid trucks by one means or another has attracted criticism from international friends of Israel. The killing of 7 aid workers recently drew widespread criticism and renewed attention to how IDF were conducting the war in the territory.

It is not true to say that Amnesty is ‘fixated’ on Israel. It has campaigns on a wide range of issues around the world. It has argued that the root causes of the conflict in Israel and Gaza need to be addressed and has called on all parties to adhere to International Humanitarian law. Israel is by far the most sophisticated country in the area with massive resources courtesy of the USA, a powerful military and is a sophisticated society.

Stephen Pollard’s Times’ article verges on being a diatribe. It is of a piece with normal Israeli practice to demonise critics as being anti-Israel. While Israel continues its Apartheid actions in the West Bank, there is unlikely to be a satisfactory long-term peaceful solution. Using ‘dumb’ bombs to destroy entire blocks because there is (it is believed) a Hamas operative within it is not consistent with International law. Writing tirades against those who draw attention to Israeli failings are unlikely to succeed either. It is in contrast to a rather prescient article of his in the New Statesman six years ago in which he notes that the violent putting down of protests will lose the country empathy.

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March minutes


March 2024

We are pleased to attach the minutes of the group’s meeting in March thanks to group member Lesley for producing them. As we have explained before, they are lengthier than one would expect from normal minutes but as we do not produce a newsletter, they provide information of possible interest for recipients and supporters.

Due to a misunderstanding of WordPress statistics, previous reports of visitor numbers were erroneously reported and in fact are at a much higher level than realised. This arose because ‘visits’ are in fact visits by new people. Existing visitors – those whose IP address will be recognised – are not included in the figure.

March 2024 minutes (Word)Download
The Salisbury Group was established 50 years ago this year.
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December minutes


Minutes for the December group meeting

December 2023

We are pleased to attach the minutes of the Salisbury group’s meeting in December thanks to group member Lesley for compiling them. The minutes contain a report on refugees – a hot topic in the UK at present – a summary of the death penalty report (the full version is on this site) and a brief report on a talk on human rights at South Wilts school. 

Minutes for December (Word)Download
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July minutes


Minutes of the July Group meeting

July 2023

We are pleased to attach minutes of the meeting held in July 2023 thanks to group member Lesley for producing them. As well as giving details of our activities past and future, it has items of more general interest for example, progress with government bills which will have an impact on human rights, a report on the refugee situation and a report on the death penalty around the world.

July minutes (Word)Download
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The ‘New’ Conservatives


Danny Kruger: the leader of the New Conservatives

July 2023

Danny Kruger, the MP for Devizes in Wiltshire, whose odd ideas on human rights we have had occasion to highlight before, is the founding member of the New Conservative grouping within the party. All their manifesto concerns considerable hardening of attitudes towards immigration. Their ten point plan is:

  1. Closing temporary schemes that grant work visa eligibility for care workers and senior care workers.
  2. Raising the minimum income required to gain a skilled work visa.
  3. Extending the closure of the student dependant route.
  4. Closing the graduate route to students.
  5. Reserving university Study Visas for the brightest international students.
  6. Monitoring the reduction in visa applications under the humanitarian schemes.
  7. Implementing the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill rapidly.
  8. Capping the number of refugees legally accepted for resettlement in the UK.
  9. Raising the minimum combined income threshold for sponsoring a spouse and raising the minimum language requirement.
  10. Capping the amount of social housing that councils may assign to non-UK nationals. [Source Wikipedia]

Several of these policies run counter to the UK’s treaty obligations and would have significant impacts on human rights particularly concerning the Illegal Migration Bill currently struggling in the House of Lords. The care worker proposal for example, would make an already serious situation considerably worse. Their policies are all concerning immigration at present and are reported to be designed to appeal to Red Wall voters which, curiously, does not include Devizes, a safe Wiltshire seat. It is depressing that the people of Devizes should support Kruger and one assumes, these policies. The grouping claims to have 25 supporters but those listed do not add up to 25.

It is concerning that a group of MPs should see it advantageous to major on – to the exclusion of all else – a range of draconian anti-immigrant policies believing them to be popular with the electorate. Mr Kruger has previously claimed that a number of our country’s ills – long waiting lists for example – are the fault of immigrants.

The item concerning the cap on refugees would apply across the piece and would include those from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong. Mr Kruger is a committed Christian and has spoken often about his beliefs. He is himself, the son of an immigrant and it is a curious fact that many in his party who are sons and daughters of immigrants (Priti Patel, Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak) are so hostile to those who follow them.

Sources: Wiltshire Times, Premier Christian News, Wikipedia, Blavatnik School of Government (Oxford University), Politico

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