Amnesty International Bournemouth Poole Christchurch Group

local news & events Amnesty International group for Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch

Group Newsletter January 2017

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Hello
Happy New Year and welcome our the latest newsletter.
Our next meeting is on Thursday 12th January 2017, 7.30 at Moordown Community Centre.
On the agenda – Write for Rights feedback; planning 2017; case file & campaign updates and letter writing.

Write for Rights 2016
castlepoint
We held 3 different W4R events:-  at Direct Theatre Improv’s “Improvisation for the people!” at the Shelley Theatre; at our Moordown Meeting and at Castlepoint Shopping Centre. All were successful in their different ways and well over 100 cards and letters were sent. It was nice at Castlepoint to have dry weather after 2015’s washout – and show off our new banner and boards.
Its never that clear when Write for Rights actually finishes – but materials are still up on the AIUK site. You can download a PDF or follow up individual pages on the different cases.

[Read more…]

South America Newsletter January 2017

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

“Let us start by wishing you a Happy New Year! We hope you’re all rested after the holiday season and ready to get stuck into some human rights campaigning as we’ve got plenty to keep you busy over the next few months.

In this newsletter we have actions for Venezuela and Brazil and we’re excited to see the launch of the Amnesty Latin America wide platform for Human Rights Defenders. We also have updates from Colombia following our Colombia Coordinator’s meeting with the FCO and his written requests to the Colombian Ambassador.

Regional

On 9 December, Amnesty launched an online platform to register and raise awareness of attacks against territory, land and environmental rights defenders in Latin America.  The platform consists of an interactive map that displays individual stories of people and communities who defend these rights and who have suffered threats or attacks due to their work.  You can access the platform here.  [Read more…]

South America Newsletter December 2016

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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…]

Write for Rights 2016

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Every year Amnesty International has encouraged and helped groups send greetings cards to prisoners of conscience around the world in December. Traditionally there were just half a dozen names selected.  In recent years Amnesty has branded this as “Write for Rights” (W4R) and produced much more informative information leaflets, covering many more prisoners of conscience. We have always made this a mainstay of our December meeting.

If you would like to work on Write for Rights from home, or take to work on within a workplace or other organisation you belong to, please go to the AIUK site. You can download a PDF or follow up individual pages on the different cases.

We have been invited to have a W4R table at Direct Theatre Improv’s “Improvisation for the people!” at the Shelley Theatre, Boscome on December 4th, 7.30pm. This is billed as an “unscripted evening of crazy performance games, ludicrous scenes and bizarre stories, washed down with sumptuous songs and magnificent musicals!” But we hope to warm the audience up by getting them to sign some cards on their way in….

South America Newsletter November 2016

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In this month’s newsletter, from the South America Team at AIUK, we encourage you to highlight two South America cases that feature in the Write for Rights Campaign.  There are updates on Brazil and Colombia and a reminder of three Urgent Actions that we have circulated during October.

Write for Rights Campaign

We have two cases in this year’s Write for Rights Campaign.  Máxima Acuña, a subsistence farmer in Peru, has been repeatedly harassed and physically attacked for standing up to one of the world’s biggest gold and copper mines.

Leopoldo López, a Venezuelan opposition leader who features in the on-line version of the campaign, is serving a prison sentence of 13 years and nine months prison sentence without any credible evidence against him.  [Leopoldo is already one of our casefiles – see take action].   We encourage you to feature Maxima and Leopoldo in your Write for Rights activities.

FCO Contacts

On 27 October, we called on Nigel Baker, the new Head of the FCO’s South America Department.  We identified a number of opportunities to work together in support of human rights in the region, especially in Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela. [Read more…]

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