Group Newsletter February 2020

February 12, 2020 by zarganar

Welcome to the latest newsletter.
The next meeting is on Thursday 13th February, 7.30pm at Moordown Community Centre. On the agenda – letter writing, planning future events

Marielle Franco.

Our case file is on the murder of Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes. Marielle was born and raised in a favela in Rio, Brazil. An elected councillor, she worked tirelessly to promote the rights of black women, LGBTI and young people.Marielle refused to stay silent about police killings and continued to speak out against injustice right up until hours before her brutal killing in March 2018. A car pulled up beside hers, and Marielle was shot four times in the head. Her driver Anderson Pedro Gomes was also killed.

People who defend human rights in Brazil, like Marielle, are often attacked or threatened. The authorities do not respond adequately – and most of these crimes go completely unpunished. Two ex military policemen were arrested nearly a near ago, but there have been no developments since.

Its a month away from the 2nd anniversary of these murders. On Wednesday Amnesty Brazil will release a video from Marielle’s family thanking everyone for their support and demands for justice. We will publish this on our blog and Facebook page.

Its still important to keep up pressure on authorities in Brazil. They have yet to make any meaningful progress in identifying those who ordered the crime and their motives. Please add your name to this petition:-
https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/w4r-2018-brazil-marielle-franco/

We will be sending letters to authorities in Brazil at our meeting on Thursday. You can download these word documents and send them yourself from our letters page.
https://amnestyat50.co.uk/letters

[Read more…]

South America Newsletter April 2019

April 2, 2019 by zarganar

Dear Friends,

This month there is a petition regarding Venezuela, two Urgent Actions relating to Argentina and Paraguay together with an alert for a future Urgent Action relating to Bolivia. Killings of HRDs in Colombia continue to rise and the President of Colombia refuses to sign an important Bill. We have news on Indigenous rights in Colombia, Brazil and Paraguay, an update on the Marielle Franco case (Brazil) and criminal proceedings against two journalists in Peru.

VENEZUELA

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has reported to the Human Rights Council on the human rights crisis in Venezuela. Amnesty welcomed the commitment to stand by the victims of the crisis in their fight for truth, justice and reparation. Given the scale and gravity of the crisis, and the severe obstacles to justice in Venezuela, Amnesty has urged the UN Human Rights Council to create a Commission of Inquiry to monitor and report on the situation and to clarify responsibility for crimes under international law and gross human rights violations. You can still sign the petition here.

Luis Carlos Díaz, a Venezuelan journalist and defender of digital rights and freedom of expression, was arrested in Caracas on 11 March by the Bolivarian Intelligence Service and accused of alleged “cyber-crimes”. Amnesty has declared him a prisoner of conscience, detained solely because of his widely respected work covering the Venezuelan people’s demands to live in dignity in their country and for his denunciations of the authorities’ response to the crisis. Amnesty has demanded his immediate and unconditional release.

COLOMBIA
An accumulation of grievances, aggressions against indigenous leaders and the rupture of talks with the Government have led the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia (ONIC) to call for an indefinite national mobilisation with a five-point platform:

In defence of the rights to life, peace and human rights.
In defence of land rights
In defence of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights
Unfulfilled agreements by the government with the social movement in Colombia
To enforce compliance with the 2018-2022 Development Plan

Indigenous Colombians protesting in March 2019

The uprising includes 15,000 Indigenous protestors, who have blocked the Pan-American Highway for the last 17 days. Colombia has not seen such a concerted anti-government campaign by its indigenous citizens since 2008.

The Colombian NGO Somos Defensores (We Are Defenders) report that 32 human rights defenders were killed in the 3rd quarter of 2018, an increase of 14 (77%) on the same period for 2017. As in previous quarters, most victims were community and environmental leaders in rural areas. 6 were women, 3 indigenous and one Afro-descendant. Of the 128 aggressions reported against HRDs, 59% came from paramilitaries, 5% by the Armed Forces and 2% by the guerrillas. The remainder are unknown. You can download the report in Spanish here

President Duque has refused to sign a bill, approved by Congress and the Constitutional Court, to provide the JEP (Special Jurisdiction for Peace) with a statutory law. The JEP was created to ensure justice for the victims of the conflict within the framework of the principles of truth, reparation and non-repetition. The following day the UN’s Verification Mission to Colombia stated ‘It is regrettable that, more than two years after the signing of the Final Agreement, the JEP still does not have a Statutory Law, a solid legal framework that guarantees its operation in full exercise of autonomy and independence, key principles that the UN, through the Security Council, has repeatedly indicated as indispensable. We fully expect that the JEP will receive, from all the country’s authorities, the political and practical support for its functioning. This support will determine, to a large extent, whether victims’ rights are placed at the centre of peacebuilding.’ In a further twist, the JEP has announced it is investigating 40 of its own prosecutors for corruption.

27 March the UK NGO Justice For Colombia reports that two farmers were murdered and 500 families displaced by paramilitaries in northern Colombia. ‘Paramilitaries in Córdoba are targeting people working in voluntary substitution programmes to replace coca plantations with legal crops, one of the core components of the 2016 peace agreement.’ According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, almost 7,000 people have been forcibly displaced in Colombia since the beginning of the year. 6.5 million Colombians have been forcibly displaced since the beginning of the conflict. [Read more…]

Feeding the Darkness

June 29, 2017 by zarganar

The Journeyman Theatre performed their critically acclaimed play “Feeding the Darkness” at the Friends Meeting House, Boscombe, on June 25th. The day was chosen as the following day was the United Nations, International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. It was a powerful 65 minute performance by the duo. It was the result of extensive research into the dark world of state-sanctioned torture and its stark impact on victims, perpetrators, families and those who collude in the ‘process’.

Our Group had been invited to have a stall and will featured some case and campaigns that revolve around torture. Most of the 40 plus audience took time out to look at the displays and ask us questions. The cases are all featured below….

Cases from “Feeding the Darkness” event and Alexander Dakers BIC exhibition

Dr Mudawi Ibrahim Adam

Letter to Sudanese authorities you can quickly email, via Amnesty Ireland. Dr Mudawi was arrested for his human rights work and held without charge for almost five months. He has now been charged with six offences, two of which are punishable by life imprisonment, or worse, death.

Witnesses have stated that Dr Mudawi was tortured in prison including being chained to a pole with his hands cuffed and his legs shackled, as government agents brutally beat him. Dr Mudawi went on hunger strike protesting his imprisonment, and even though he suffers from chronic respiratory and heart complications, he has only been allowed access to a doctor three times since his detention in December. He was only allowed to speak to his lawyer for the first time 77 days after he was imprisoned.

STOP PRESS Dr Mudawi was released, along with five other human rights defenders, late on 29 August 2017. All charges have been dropped. Thanks to everyone who has campaigned on his behalf. See statement from AI: https://www.amnesty.ie/sudan-dr-mudawi-released-eight-months-wrongful-imprisonment/

Demand Justice for Boys Tortured and Jailed for Life

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/demand-justice-tortured-boys

The seven teenagers sentenced to death in Puntland; five have been executed

Letter to Somalia authorities you can quickly email, via Amnesty UK.

When two Somalian teenagers were arrested they were locked in shipping containers for a fortnight. Muhamed, 17, and Daud, just 15, were violently tortured – reporting electrocutions, genital mutilation, drownings, beatings and rape. Now they face life in prison after being forced into a confession. Five other young boys arrested alongside them were executed last month.

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/demand-justice-tortured-boys

Ammar al Baluchi

http://www.amnesty.ca/get-involved/take-action-now/usa-torture-survivor-faces-unfair-trial-guantanamo

Ammar al Baluchi faces charges, including the death penalty, for an alleged role in the 9/11 attacks.

In April 2003, Ammar was abducted and taken into US custody in Pakistan. For the next three years, the CIA subjected him to enforced disappearance, moving him to different CIA-operated “black sites”. Throughout this time, Ammar was brutally tortured by CIA authorities as part of their interrogation program. Acts of torture that he was forced to endure include: water torture similar to water boarding; continuous high volume music; extreme sleep deprivation; forced nudity, and beatings that have resulted in a painful traumatic brain injury.

Ammar was transferred to prison at Guantánamo Bay in 2006, where he still is today. He continues to suffer from symptoms including the inability to sleep, along with severe physical and psychological pain, as a result from his torture and brain injury – all inflicted at the hands of US authorities. He has yet to receive medical treatment or rehabilitation for his extensive injuries. This continues to affect Ammar’s ability to participate effectively in his own defense, even though the United States has invoked the death penalty against him. Ammar al Baluchi’s trial has yet to begin. We have created a letter you can download, edit and send to Jim Mattis, Secretary of Defence in the USA. Click here

http://www.amnesty.ca/get-involved/take-action-now/usa-torture-survivor-faces-unfair-trial-guantanamo

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

http://freenazanin.com/

British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in April 2016 at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport.

She was about to fly home to the UK with her two-year old daughter, Gabriella, following a family visit. Nazanin was allowed to leave Gabriella with her parents, but the toddler’s British passport was confiscated. Since then Nazanin has been allowed only very restricted visits from her family, subjected to solitary confinement, and accused of plotting the ‘soft overthrow of the Islamic Republic’. She may have been coerced into making a ‘confession’. Nazanin’s family said she was sentenced to five years in prison on unspecified ‘national security-related charges’ on 6 September. She has since lost an appeal against the sentence.

Nazanin’s husband Richard has been quite vocal in trying to get the British Foreign Office to press hader to free his wife – Guardian August 2017 . AIUK have been campaigning on Nazanin’s behalf and she was part of the Write 4 Rights camapign. Current action go to http://freenazanin.com/

Egypt: Seven men facing imminent execution after being tortured in custody

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/06/egypt-seven-men-facing-imminent-execution-after-being-tortured-in-custody/

From left to right: Khaled Askar, Ahmed Meshaly, Mahmoud Wahba, Abdel Rahman Atteya, Ibrahim Azzab, Bassem el-Khereby

On 7 June Egypt’s Court of Cassation, upheld death sentences against Bassem el-Khereby, Ahmed Meshaly, Ibrahim Azab, Mahmoud Wahba, Khaled Askar, and Abd el-Rahman Atteia after a deeply flawed trial. The man they are accused of murdering was a police guard of one of the judges sitting on a panel on a trial of President Mohamed Morsi.

According to their families and lawyers, they were arrested by the National Security Agency (NSA) in March 2014 and forcibly disappeared for periods of between three days and three months cutting off their access to their relatives, lawyers and the outside world while being tortured to obtain videotaped “confessions”. They were held in different locations across the country including the NSA headquarters in Cairo.

At least three of the families told Amnesty International that they only learnt their sons had been detained when they saw them “confessing” on TV with bruised faces. When the families were finally allowed to visit their sons in prison they told them that they had been tortured by being anally raped repeatedly using a wooden stick, given electric shocks on the genitals and other parts of the body, suspended in stress positions for periods of up to four days. They said that NSA officers had burned them in the neck with cigarette butts and threatened to rape their mothers and sisters in order to pressure them to confess.

The men later retracted their confessions before a state security prosecutor in Cairo, explaining they had been tortured. But they were then returned to the NSA where they were tortured again as punishment for withdrawing their statements and sent back to the prosecutor for a second time where they “confessed” fearing further reprisals.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/06/egypt-seven-men-facing-imminent-execution-after-being-tortured-in-custody/

Fomusoh Ivo Feh

http://write.amnestyusa.org/cases/fomusoh-ivo-feh/

Fomusoh Ivo Feh was set to start university when he received a satirical text message from a friend:

‘Boko Haram recruits young people from 14 years old and above. Conditions for recruitment: 4 subjects at GCE, including religion.’

The message was a joke about how difficult it is to find a job in Cameroon – so even an armed group like Boko Haram would want highly-qualified recruits. Ivo forwarded the message to another friend, who sent it on again. But after a teacher saw the text and showed it to the police, Ivo and his two friends were arrested in late 2014.
A draconian anti-terrorism law was used to charge them with several offences, including attempting to organise a rebellion. In late 2016 Fomusoh Ivo Feh, and his friends Afuh Nivelle Nfor and Azah Levis Gob, were convicted of ‘non-denunciation of terrorist acts’ and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. As documented by Amnesty International, legal proceedings involving “acts of terrorism” in Cameroonian military courts fail to meet international fair trial standards. Many of those who have been brought to court under suspicion of supporting Boko Haram have faced unfair trials in which the burden of proof is often reversed and people are convicted on the basis of limited and unverifiable evidence. Trials of civilians before military courts also raise a number of concerns about independence, impartiality and guarantees of fair trial rights. You can write or email via AI USA – http://write.amnestyusa.org/cases/fomusoh-ivo-feh/

Ali Aarrass

Ali Aarrass, a Belgian national, is now six years into his 12-year prison sentence in Morocco following a grossly unfair trial that saw him convicted for allegedly participating in and procuring arms for a criminal group known as the “Belliraj network”; charges Ali Aarrass denies. The court relied on a “confession” which he said was obtained through torture. On 28 April, the Moroccan Court of Cassation rejected his appeal and confirmed his conviction and 12-year prison sentence. The Working Group of Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) considers the conviction to be arbitrary as it is based on “confessions” obtained under torture, and has called for his release and adequate compensation.

The action page from AI Ireland has, unfortunately been recently taken down. The Urgent Action from AIUK is no longer current. https://www.facebook.com/Ali.Aarrass/

Write for Rights Site C Dam

December 11, 2016 by zarganar

A century ago Helen Knott’s great-great grandfather signed a treaty with the Canadian government to protect his people’s way of life in the Peace River Valley, British Columbia. But instead of honouring that promise, the government has ignored it and authorised a massive hydro-electric dam that threatens the way of life of the indigenous communities in the region.

The Peace River Valley is home to numerous cultural and heritage sites with a history spanning 10,000 years. Now members of the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations have gone to court, insisting the government honours the 100-year-old promise and stops work on the Site C dam. Even though the case has not been decided yet, the hydroelectric company has begun clearing the valley.

Owing to the number of communities affected,Amnesty are asking people to send messages online using Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #WithThePeaceRiver. These will be automatically added to our solidarity website, and shown at an Amnesty Canada event with the Peace River Valley communities in late 2016. More information (including how to write to President Trudeau) here, or go to the AI Canada page.

South America Newsletter December 2016

December 2, 2016 by zarganar

The latest newsletter from the South America Team at AIUK – Ellie May (Brazil), Richard Crosfield (Colombia), Graham Minter (Rest of South America).

“We have three actions for you, one is a petition to sign Amnesty Brazil’s website concerning impunity, a second is on arbitrary detention in Argentina and a third on an attempt on the life of a HR defender in Colombia.
We also report on our recent meetings with the Argentine, Brazilian and Colombian embassies. We three also met with the FCO to discuss Amnesty’s human rights concerns in the region with the new Head of Department .

BRAZIL -Impunity Continues

A court in Brazil has decided to shelve the case of Eduardo de Jesus Ferreira – the 10-year-old boy killed by military police in April 2015.

Many of you will remember our work last year with his mother, Terezinha de Jesus, who bravely travelled Europe to raise awareness of the issue of extrajudicial executions.

The news is shocking considering a police investigation concluded that the police were responsible for his killing in November last year. [Read more…]