IDAHO 2008: Edinburgh, 17 May

In our meeting on 6th May we had a guest speaker from LGBT Youth Scotland who informed us of an upcoming event on High street in Edinburgh called IDAHO. This event hope to campaign for LGBT human rights to be acknowldeged worldwide. This seems like a very exciting event, and if you can make it please go along and show your support for this cause. Amnesty International works to ensure the protection of all human rights, and we should gather together to help those who have experienced persecution for their sexual orientation. This event also links in with Amnesty’s policies on refugees, which was one of our biggest campaigns over the last couple of months. Many people have experienced problems attaining asylum in the U.K. and face being deported back to their own countries where they will surely be persecuted for their sexual oreintation. This event hopes to highlight these such issues on a Global scale, allowing everyone worldwide to stand together against persecution and stand for LGBT human rights.

This event will be host to lots of interesting speakers who work in the area of protecting and upholding the rights of the LGBT community, and will consist of activist workshops to help us devise interesting and innovative campaign methods to support this cause.

For more information visit- www.idahoscotland.org.uk

Gruesome or Truthsome?

I would like to pose some questions; How much do you know? How much do you need to know? How much should we show you? These questions have risen from recent pictures we have been sent depicting the terrible outbursts of violence occurring in Tibet at this time. However from an activist point of view this issue is bigger than these pictures, it concerns every type of campaign we could embark on! The question is should we go all out and show the blood, guts and gore being shed across the world in the various acts of human rights abuses; or should we hand you a petition with a small amount of information for you to read? Should we give you pictures of various forms of torture being carried out worldwide, or should we merely allude to it in our publications and such? Can we embark on protests that actively depict acts of violence or should we merely suggest to you what type of suffering is occurring.

The issue is to what extent we can be explicit with what is happening to innocent people across the world. It has also been highlighted in the recent videos uploaded by Amnesty themselves. These videos though they are cleverly filmed still depict very explicit scenes of violence. Is this the form our activism should take? Some would argue that it is our duty to show the truth about the violence occurring world wide, and to ensure people across the globe understand the intensity of this violence. In this respect we then should be obliged to show the pictures we have received to our whole student body. By doing this we can highlight the full and truthful extent of the violent and murderous tactics being used by members of the Chinese Government and army against these innocent protesters.

However there is a counter argument that people do not need, and do not want to see such scenes of violence taking place. After all everyone has the human right not to witness violent and disturbing scenes, therefore we do not have the right to show such images to people who do not want to see them. The counter argument to that of course is that seeing such images is very different from witnessing them first hand. Allowing people to See such images can help individuals who are not confronted daily with such horror, to understand and acknowledge the damage occurring in their lifetime.

How explicit should we be in our campaigns? How much information and detail should we incorporate into our activism? If we show these horrific scenes of violence are we being Gruesome or Truth-some?

China: The Lowdown

Amnesty is calling for four main issue’s to be addressed by the Chinese Governement, these are: executions, fair trials, respect the rights of human rights defenders and freedom of censorship. These will be the main areas that we will focus on when we begin our campaign regarding China.

Executions:

Amnesty are calling for the Chinese Government to reduce; with the intention to later abolish, the death penalty. Currently there are 68 crimes that can be punishable by death. On January 1st 2007 an important reform took place; which saw the restoration of the Supreme People’s Court, a court which reviews all death sentences passed in china. This is a positive reform but is only a beginning to ending the death penalty. Further to this reform Amnesty would like the Chinese Government to ensure that families and lawyers of those condemned to death are given access to them and to the information surrounding their case.

Fair Trails:

Currently a major element of the Chinese punitive system is ‘Re-education through Labour,’ a system that involves the detention of people without charge for extended periods of time, possibly up to three years. This is directly violating international fair trial standards, and Amnesty is calling for China to assess this situation. These so called criminals can range from ‘unlawful advertising, unlicensed taxis, unlicensed businesses, vagrancy and begging,’ hardly crimes worthy of detention for periods up to three years.

Respect for the Rights of Human Rights Defenders:

China gave assurances that the human rights issues within their country would improve during the run up to the Olympic games. However the authorities are still intimidating and harassing human rights defenders. Human rights defenders should have the freedom to highlight issues of concern without fear of penalty and repercussion.

Freedom from Censorship

The promise made by China for media freedom is not being kept. Thousands of internet police monitor cyberspace to censor any information the Chinese Government deem sensitive; phrases such as ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’ come under such material. Many Chinese people have been imprisoned for acts such as signing petitions online, it is said that china have the most effective form of internet censorship, sometimes referred to as, ‘The Great Firewall of China.’ Currently there has been more leeway given to foreign journalists and media, however domestic media is still very effectively censored.

These four issues combine to create the major aspects to the Amnesty campaign, if we can campaign around these issues we have the chance to help the people of China, and allow human rights abuses to be confronted and realized fully in terms of international law.

Good News!!!

Fear for safety/Fear of torture or other ill-treatment

ALGERIA

Rabah Kadri (m), Algerian national

(This was a recent action that took place, so I thought I would post it on the Blog for everyone to see that these actions are a very important source of activism. Keep up the good work guys!)

Rabah Kadri was released without charge on 27 April, at about 1pm.
He had been held incommunicado for 12 days. He was able to go to
his parents, who live in Algiers, and is staying with them. He is
no longer at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

He was detained by plainclothes security officers on 16 April,
when he arrived in Algiers after being deported from France.. He
did not know where he was held; he is believed to have been in the
custody of the intelligence agency Department for Information and
Security (Departement du renseignement et de la securite, DRS) in
one of the unofficial detention centres they operate in Algiers.

Rabah Kadri told Amnesty International that he was treated
humanely. He was interrogated about the activities which had led
to his conviction and prison sentence in France. He also said that
he was asked to sign a statement saying that he had been treated
well before he was released. People who have just been released by
the DRS are very cautious when speaking about how they have been
treated, in case any criticism of the authorities leads to
repercussions.

Fantastic news that he is free, and that Amnesty can investigate his treatment whilst being detained.

Hundreds abducted in Central Africa

Hey all this was posted on the website today, I thought I would put it up on the blog as recently the attention has been on china, therefore I think we should possibly get an urgent action going on this. Maybe a letter being sent??? Let me know what you all think? I totally understand how hectic the schedules are right now, but if we can we should.

Central African leaders and the UN have been urged to secure the release of more than 350 men, women and children thought to have been abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in recent weeks.

The abductions took place in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Southern Sudan while the LRA was ostensibly preparing to sign a peace agreement with the Ugandan government. The treaty was meant to end more than 20 years of a civil war beset by war crimes, including abductions and widespread unlawful killings and mutilation of non-combatants.

“As in Uganda, these people – including scores of women and children – are likely to be used as child combatants and sex slaves, and yet none of the governments in the region have done anything to try to secure their release,” said Amnesty International.
    
“The governments of Sudan, the CAR and the DRC – with the assistance of the UN – must join forces to secure the safety and release of those kidnapped immediately and bring those responsible to justice.”

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/hundreds-abducted-central-africa-20080422