Group Newsletter July 2024

Welcome to the latest newsletter.
Our next meeting is on Thursday 4th July 2024, 7.30pm – 9.00pm at Moordown Community Centre. We will catch up on campaigns, letter writing, and discuss new ideas about campaigning. We don’t meet in August.

Future Events

After lasts years success, we have now booked for this years Jamnesty on

Saturday 7th September at Chaplin’s Bar

Last year was our first Jamnesty, but we still had a fantastic day with 11 bands and 6 poets – and we raised over £1600! This year we don’t have to contend with the Air Show and can build on worked best last year. So still plenty of cakes! We will soon put up details of the performers, etc on our Events page. Please contact us if you would like to help on the day.

We had planned to return to BourneFree, which is next Friday and Saturday.
Unfortunately the organisers now insist stalls have to be set up (and run) over both days of the Festival. We don’t have enough volunteers to do this, so cannot now have a stall. We are obviously are unhappy at effectively being excluded for not being “corporate” enough!

Young girls at a Women-Friendly Space at a Rohingya refugee settlement
in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

I Don’t Agree with Nick

In 2017, almost one million Rohingya refugees were forced into Bangladesh from Myanmar following wide scale persecution, Human Rights violations, extrajudicial killings, summary executions, arson of Rohingya villages and schools, and diverse other atrocities.
Leading up to the 2017 atrocities, Facebook became an echo chamber of virulent anti-Rohingya content, which Meta was warned about repeatedly. The Myanmar authorities even temporarily blocked the Facebook platform in 2014 because of its role in fuelling ethnic violence and “instigation” during the Mandalay riots. Meta failed to take meaningful action.
The Rohingya community have asked for $1 million US dollars as part of a remedy to help fund educational projects for refugee children – a drop in the ocean to Meta, but a life changing intervention to hundreds of thousands of children.
Our group have written to Nick Clegg, the former Deputy Prime Minister, and now the President of Global Affairs of Facebook. Download the letter and write to Nick in London. Or you can sign the AIUK petition
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/activist-actions/Meta-remedies

14 year old Leonela Moncayo pointing at a gas flare. She and other young activists are fighting against routine gas flaring in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

South America Newsletter

The latest South America Newsletter has updates on Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Peru. Two months after the 14-year-old climate activist Leonela Moncayo and her family suffered an explosion outside their home In Ecuador, the authorities have not effectively investigated what happened. They are conditioning her protection and that of the other eight girls and their families on stopping their activism. Amnesty is demanding that the Ecuadorian authorities effectively investigate what happened and protect Leonela, the other eight girls and their families without these conditions. This is an Urgent Action; the group used this letter that you can download and edit.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr28/8024/2024/en/

Europe Newsletter