The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. The story ends with Marjane as a 22-year-old expatriate. The film won the Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
(Thanks to Wikipedia for description and poster)

This film came third in the Amnesty UK media team’s Top 10 Human Rights Films Poll (request on twitter), so it is certainly worth coming along to watch.

Please vote if you haven’t already!

First of all thank you to everyone who showed an interest in Amnesty International and put down their e-mail addresses over the past week. I’m sure all of your inboxes are jammed with clubs and socities inviting you to one thing or another so i will try to keep this short!

Our first meeting of the year will take place tomorrow, Tuesday 22nd of September, 5pm, in committee room 1 in the QMU. (Head up to the 3rd floor, turn left and it is the first room on the right, should be clearly signed.) The meeting will be an introduction to who we are and what we do so please do come along, even if you are not sure what amnesty does, this is your chance to come and see! The meeting is an open event so please, also, feel free to bring along any friends.

Tomorrow is also going to see in our first social of the year, a chance for people to meet, chat and generally get to know each other. It shall be starting from 8pm in the Halt Bar (follow this link for directions) and we hope to see as many of you there as possible, again an open event

Thank you very much.
Look forward to meeting you all,
Megan,
GUAI Secretary.

Iraqi officials have called for his claims to be investigated.

(BBC article)

In brief, lots of plans for recruitment and campaigning throughout freshers week that cannot be achieved without lots of bodies. Therefore the main message of the meeting was any time you can spare and anyone you can willingly drag along will be greatly appreciated, friends, flat mates, partners, people off the street? If they’re willing we want them!

An overview of what’s going on with times and places:

Freshers stall, East Quadrangle, Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th Sept, 10am – 4pm. Anyone around to help set up meet at 9am in the East Quadrangle on Tuesday morning.

Campaigning around Freshers week, The Arms Trade Treaty photo campaign which is getting as many people as possible to have a photo taken holding a sign saying they support the ATT, uploading these photos onto a seperate page on the website and seding the link out to all the top dogs, government,
Stamp out Torture Campaign, Coloured feet with harrowing facts to be scattered around the university, stamping out torture as people walk along them.
Justice for Individuals, Banner to be hung where the John Smith bookshop used to be in the SRC building.

More ideas:
Torture of jellybabies, asking people to torture a jelly baby symbolising the horrors. Is this PC though?
Freshers pack on it’s way with extra arms trade treaty information so a big push to be made on that.

Clothing stall, Ruth managed to gather two rails and there are plenty of clothes left from the fashion show so if man power is plentiful having a stall outside the QM on Tuesday, Wednesday and also Thursday to try and get some money raised right away!

Film screening, Thursday 17th Sept. Pending affiliation with the SRC then a showing of Persepolis (a film about womens rights in Iran) to be shown in the Williams room, attract any interested folk and get us all motivated for a year of campaigning.
Cultural carnival stall, Wednesday 16th Sept, 6pm – 9.30pm. A freshers event involving food from around the globe which we are being encooperated into by holding an Amnestea and cakes. As well as people to man the stall we need people to get baking, any ingredients bought can be reimbursed, also a possibility of a cake making party. Ideas needed for the tea, if anyone has any ideas how we can provide hot water? Or using ice tea was suggested? Thoughts please..!

Freshers Social, Tuesday 22nd September, 8pm, The Halt bar. A gathering of sorts at our trusty Halt bar to welcome new members to the social side of our society. The night is to be held in conjunction with STAR. Our fantastic publicity officer has already designed some amazing posters so it’s just a case of finalising details and asking STAR what they would like for the posters.

Our first meeting also to be held on the 22nd of September, pending a meeting the QM board are having on the 21st to decide room bookings etc. (Pretty sure we should be ok though!)

Protect the human week, 17th – 25th of October. Lewis has organised a gig night in the Captains Rest in conjuction with the band society. It is a function hire we were owed due to a mix up last year. We are also thinking of having the overnight munro challenge either weekend of that week to encooperate it with PTH week. Further information on that soon.

First fundraiser of the year, The Big Fun Run on Sunday 4th of October. A 5K sponsored run that I hope you all want to get involved in! We’ll be getting dressed up and running for the Demand Dignity campaign, anyone who doesn’t want to run then moral support is always appreciated!

Secret Policemans Ball, 5th December. Billy Kirkwood has voiced that he would be happy to compare again. He has a gig at the stand that night but is happy to cancel. Interest also from Susan Coleman to compare. Wasasa comedy group to be involved and perhaps the med student who has been nominated for a big award to sing if we can wangle it!

A new idea for this year is to try and get some media attention for every event we have so Lea is going to learn how to write press releases and get the ball rolling on that one!

I hope everyone has had a really good summer, doing whatever you’ve been doing. I say summer with hilarious irony, because if you all like me were in the UK it was essentially a weird extended springish autumn thing. But hey-ho good news it is getting very, very close to fun Fresher’s week!

I am just wondering who is around to help out with some really fun things that we have planned! You can be a part of Amnestea and cakes at the cultural carnival, an arms trade photo campaign, a second hand clothing stall, a social at our old favourite the Halt bar, some interesting new decorations for the streets around the Uni – and of course the Amnesty stall!!

So if you are around the week beginning the 14th, and most particularly the 15th and the 16th please email me/text me/facebook me to let me know!

Just to inspire you to re ignite your Amnesty passion I’ve just put together a list of the things we are campaigning to stop-

• During 2008 at least 2,390 people are known to have been executed
• In 2008 78% of executions took place in G20 countries
• In 2008 people were tortured or ill treated in 50% of all countries
• Last year people were subjected to forced eviction in at least 24 countries
• And people seeking asylum were forcibly returned by at least 27 countries to states where they faced torture, detention or even death
• The CIA is still known to use waterboarding to extract information from detainees in the ‘war on terror’
• During 2008 at least 8,864 people were sentenced to death
• The UN reported 1,200 cases of enforced disappearance last year
• Last year prisoners of conscience were held in at least 50 countries
• In 2008 freedom of expression was restricted in at least 81 countries
• In 2008 of all people detained unjustly often for prolonged periods without charge or trial, 74% were in G20 countries.

With very best wishes,

Ruth Hickin

p.s I am currently on the hunt for a clothing rail and a hot water urn…so even if you can’t make it but can think of someone who can help with that it would really, really helpful

Big well done and a huge thanks to everyone who made the trip through to Edinburgh to attend The Rescue. it was a huge event and the effort was very much appreciated.

Pictures from the event can be found on our media page (http://www.guamnesty.org.uk/media/index.html), or with some extras on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=107129&id=512758687).

The Rescue 1

The Rescue 2

The Rescue 3

The Rescue 4

Well done guys!