Promoting human rights in Salisbury UK
This week, the Playhouse is performing the Beekeeper of Aleppo and members of the Salisbury group will be present before the performance and during the interval. It will be a good opportunity for anyone interested in the group’s activities to make themselves known.
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.
If you come here following the film Just Mercy shown at Playhouse, welcome and the case we referred to can be accessed from this link. It concerns a singer in Nigeria who is at risk of execution. As was explained, Amnesty opposes the death penalty in all circumstances. It is not a deterrent and mistakes which are many, cannot be rectified once someone has been executed.
The group produces a monthly report on cases and issues surrounding the penalty around the world and the most recent can be found here. We have also published a review of a discussion organised by Amnesty concerning the World Day Against the Death Penalty, (which Amnesty themselves have used), and this can be found here.
There are concerns that there is a desire to resume the death penalty in the UK and some politicians have said so but in the case of the Home Secretary, Priti Patel MP, she has said she no longer supports that position.
You may have heard of Reprieve and the work of Clive Stafford Smith in USA. Clive represents many people on death row some of whom were convicted on flimsy or circumstantial evidence. Unlike in the UK, police in many US States are under no obligation to reveal evidence which points to the suspect’s innocence. Clive’s fascinating book Injustice is reviewed on this page.
The Salisbury group is not just concerned with the death penalty but with human rights issue generally. We are concerned at the government’s desire to abolish the Human Rights Act especially when we leave the EU and we shall be campaigning on this if it comes to fruition.
We are not doing any face to face activities at present for obvious reasons but new members are welcome and following this site or Facebook or Twitter @salisburyai is something you can do. When normal times resume, we hope to get back to campaigning work.
Film Just Mercy to be shown on 4 November at 7pm in the Playhouse with an introduction by a member of the Salisbury group. For further details and how to buy tickets see the Wiltshire Creative post.
This Evil Thing is the title of a play by Michael Mears (pictured) which will be performed at Salisbury Playhouse between 18th – 21st October. The play received four star reviews at the Edinburgh Festival. Amnesty International judges described it as ‘Magnificent storytelling’ and longlisted it for their Freedom of Expression award at the Festival. The play tells the story of conscientious objectors during the First World War. The Link magazine said:
Mears himself is exhilarating to watch. He hares across the stage, convincingly being about four different men at once. And the play is rooted in Mears’ own life. Photos of his father and grandfather are on the sideboard, both of whom served in the World Wars. This is a rich and personal modernisation of a lesser-told tale.
Performances will be from Wednesday 18th to Saturday 21st at 7:30 with a matinee at 2:45 on Thursday. There will be a talkback after the performances.
Booking details are at the Salisbury Playhouse website.
If you are interested in human rights issues and would like to join us you would be very welcome. The best thing is to keep an eye on this site or on Twitter or Facebook (salisburyai) and make yourself known to one of us. It is free to join the local group.
The tapestry – which has been put together by members of the southern region of Amnesty International – was erected today in the Playhouse.
Each panel illustrates one of the clauses of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It will be on display in the theatre for the next two weeks or so and while a series of plays are being performed on the subject of Magna Carta.
We hope to move it to the Cathedral, subject to their agreement, at the end of the theatre run. The tapestry can be viewed on the first floor of the theatre.
UPDATE: Piece in the Salisbury Journal
On Monday, June 15, celebrated actor Edward Fox will read extracts from Magna Carta at Salisbury Playhouse as part of a panel discussion investigating the relevance of the historic document today.
We are pleased to announce an event at Salisbury Playhouse called Magna Carta Now on 15 June at
2pm. It will involve Edward Fox OBE who will read parts of the Magna Carta and there will be a panel discussion on the relevance of these readings in the politics today.
The event is particularly relevant in view of the announcement by the new government of their plans to scrap the Human Rights Act (or the ‘hated’ Human Rights Act as some would say), details of which are expected in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech on 27th. We have waited several years now for the promised British Bill of Rights which we understand from press comment has gone through at least 8 drafts but has still not been published.
The panel is a distinguished one:
Tickets are available from Salisbury Playhouse www.salisburyplayhouse.com (24 hours) or phone 01722 320333 or at the Playhouse itself.
We hope local Amnesty supporters and others will come along to what promises to be an interesting event. We should add that there will be an opportunity for audience participation at the end of the event.
UPDATE: Where to obtain tickets for 12 March now at the end of that item.
Our group is planning a number of events to mark the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta. We have been working with the Cathedral in Salisbury which has one of the surviving copies of the document. Our focus will be on its relevance to the present day and in particular, the Human Rights Act #HRA and its place in modern politics.
We have several projects planned and we will update these pages as time goes on. But for the moment, this is a brief introduction to what we have planned:
feature images to illustrate the #StopTorture campaign and will have the torture wheel, based on the one used by the Philippine police. In case you have not come across this, it is a wheel on which the various methods to torture their victims are displayed. They then spin the wheel to decide on which one to use. This display will be set up in March and will run for at least a month. To read more about the torture wheel follow this link.
Under the coalition Government Dominic Grieve became a Privy Counsellor and appointed the Attorney General for England and Wales and the Advocate General for Northern Ireland and he held that post until July 2014.
He has spoken often on human rights matters arguing that despite the Conservative leadership’s recent announcement of fundamental change to both the HRA and the national relationship with the ECHR, there is much that remains undebated and misunderstood about both.
He will try therefore tonight try to lay out reasons why – while not free of imperfections – the ECHR and its direct application in our law through the HRA is of enormous benefit to our country and our collective wellbeing. He is determined that this argument can and must be made with some passion because he believes that it goes to the heart of our identity as a nation and of our national interest.
It will be an interesting talk and will follow the annual Choral Evensong in aid of Amnesty in the Cathedral. Tickets: apply to magnacartaevents@salcath.co.uk.
In the summer on 15 June, we are planning, with the Playhouse, an event where an actor will read selected passages from the Charter and then a panel of guests to discuss their significance. The guests are likely to be Kate Allen, the Director of Amnesty UK, Prof Guy Standing author of The Precariat and writer and researcher, Ben Rawlence. This will be in the afternoon so it’s a date for the diary at present. Details will be both here and at http://www.salisburyplayhouse.com.
On the morning of the 15th, there will be a 6th form conference involving local schools and Kate Allen has been invited to that.
Amnesty in Salisbury 