Amnesty International Salisbury Group

Minutes of the Monthly Meeting on Thursday 13th April 20177.30 pm 28, Attwood Road

1 Chairman’s WelcomePresent: Andrew, Fiona, Eddie, Peter, LesleyApologies: Tony

AH

2 Minutes of previous Meeting - These were agreed LC

3 Treasurer’s Report - None was received.

£140.00 was raised at the North Korean event (see below) and will be reserved for this campaign.

A bill has been received for the licence to show the film ‘Fire At Sea’

MP

4 Campaign Reports

Death Penalty

Please see the Salisbury Group Website Death penalty report for the full international update, covering the USA, China, Malaysia, Turkey, the Philippines, India, Indonesia and the UK

Of particular note:

Amnesty’s Report Death Sentences and Executions 2016 has been published:

o 1,032 executions were carried out worldwide in 2016, down 37% from 2015 (1,634)

o Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan joined China in the world’s top five executioners

o The USA carried out the lowest number of executions in a quarter of a century, but eight executions are scheduled in Arkansas in 11 days this month (Note: these were temporarily halted on 14 April 17))

o Investigation discredited China’s claims over openness, while in Vietnam a killing spree was revealed

o There are concerns that the UK is ‘damping down’ its criticism in pursuit of trade deals

7 executions (initially 8) were planned over 11 days in April in Arkansas before the expiry date of the drugs used in lethal injections. The Defence Lawyers presented a collective case

LC

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calling for a permanent block on the killings, citing fears of ‘botched executions’, and saying ‘Our country does not participate in mass executions’. (see above – the executions were temporarily halted by a Judge on 14 April 17)

Following an announcement in Court by Florida State Attorney, Ayala Aramis, that she would no longer be seeking the death penalty in any of her cases, Governor Scott removed her from the case, and from 21 others.

A UK YouGov Poll shows that half of those who voted Leave in the UK Referendum would bring back the death penalty.

Harriet Harman Labour MP and Chair of the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, commenting on Teresa May’s visit to Saudi Arabia, and that of Liam Fox to the Philippines, said the Government should never sacrifice core British principles when seeking new relationships: ‘There is a real danger that in our desperation to conclude trade deals, respect for Human Rights, which is in every EU contract, will just go out the window. The Government must not let that happen.’

Urgent Actions

Malaysia- UA 53/17 – The brothers Suthar Batumalai and B Rames Batumalai, whose execution was originally scheduled for 24th February, were informed that it would now take place on 17th March. (Circulated to DPLWG 14 March 17.) Note: the brothers were executed.

USA – Arkansas – UA68/17 – Jack Jones, convicted of capital murder, rape and attempted capital murder in 1996, was scheduled to be executed on 24th April. The jurors who sentenced him to death had not been made aware that he had been diagnosed with a serious mental disability shortly before the crime. (Circulated to DPLWG 29 Mar 17).

USA – Arkansas – UA67/17 – Stacey Johnson, convicted of murder in 1994, was due to be executed on 20th April. This was despite the fact that 3 State Supreme Court Judges argued he was deprived of a fair trial as he was denied access to information regarding the credibility of a key witness for the prosecution. (Circulated to DPLWG 29 March 17).

USA – Arkansas – UA 66/17 – Bruce Ward was due to be executed on 17th April, despite the fact that he has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and as having no rational understanding of his sentence. He has been on death row for nearly 25 years and is now aged 60 (Circulated to DPLWG 31 March 17)

USA – Texas - UA 72/17 – Paul Storey, sentenced to death for murder in 2008, is scheduled to be executed on 12th April.

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Among those calling for clemency are the parents of the man he was convicted of killing, and one of the jurors who voted for execution. (Circulated to DPLWG 3 April 17)

7.4.11 – The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of execution. The case has been remanded to a lower court for further review of the claim that the prosecution presented false evidence at the trial.

USA – Arkansas – UA 78/17 – Kenneth Williams, aged 38, was due to be executed on 27th April for a murder committed during a prison escape in 199 at the age of 20. He is seeking clemency, saying he is remorseful and that his reform demonstrates that ‘even the worst of people can be changed for the better’. The testimony of the victim’s sister in calling on the jury to impose the death penalty was judged to have ‘violated the constitutional standard.’ (Circulated to DPLWG 5 April 17).

USA – Arkansas – UA 84/17 – Ledell Lee, convicted of murder, was due to be executed n 20th April. There have been serious concerns about his legal representation. (Circulated to DPLWG 10 April 17).

USA – Arkansas – An email petition to the Governor was received from Amnesty USA, calling for the executions to be stopped. It was to be delivered on Friday 14th April. (Circulated to the local Group 12 April 17- this month’s Group Urgent Action).

Campaigning

Reggie Clemons – An email reply was received on 22nd March from Vera Thomas of www.justicewatch4reggie.com She did not respond to our request for a current address for Reggie, but thanked the Group for their support. She informed us ‘The judge denied the motion on double jeopardy for rape and robbery. We will be appealing the decision. The trial is scheduled for August 2017. In 2015 the case was thrown out by the State Supreme Court. Now he is being retried again. We have been fighting for Justice for 25 years and will continue the fight’.

Saudi Arabia – the sentencing to death of juveniles – The Group participated in a Mother’s Day tweet action for four young men and their mothers – Abdullah al-Zaher (now aged 20), Abdulkareem al-Hawaj (now aged 21), Ali al-Nimr (now aged 21) and Dawood al-Marhoon (now aged 22). All are at risk of execution.

World Day Against the Death Penalty – A local group

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action, on or around the day (10th October) will be planned. AI London will be asked to provide early notification of any proposed national action.

North Korea

The Talk by Jihyun Park (pictured) on 16th March was a great success, with 50+ attending. The evening commenced with a showing of the film ‘The Other Interview’. Jihyun’s presentation, which the audience found extremely moving, was followed by a question and answer session facilitated by the Amnesty Regional Representative, Kenny Latunde-Dada. Jihyun is writing her memoirs and these should be available soon.

Donations from the audience totalled £140.00, which will be used in the North Korea campaign.

Prior to the event, PC videoed an interview of Jihyun with Kenny. On completion, this will be available on the Group’s website and on YouTube.

Refugees

The subgroup met on April 3 to agree details of the Vigil to be held at the Guildhall on Refugee Day, 24th June. FD will seek out and inform other groups in the city who might have an interest in this action.

PC will send out press notices to BBC News, Salisbury Journal, Valley News and other media outlets, and post on the Group’s Web site.

PC will prepare A3-sized boards. People will be asked to hold them in front of themselves for a photo. They will be of two types: one to say ‘I welcome refugees’ and a second to say ‘I am a [blank space] and I welcome refugees.’AH, EB and PC had attended a performance of ‘The Asylum Monologues’ given by Ice and Fire, actors for Human Rights, at Southampton on 12th April. It was agreed holding a similar event in Salisbury should be explored, possibly in the Autumn AH will approach the group; FD will explore possible venues and costings at Five Rivers; PC will pursue the possibility of a performance in the Cathedral.

4 Refugee Urgent Actions were circulated:

UA 223/16 – Update Action for Syrian Asylum Seeker Noori

TM

AH

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UA 59/17 – 4 families seeking asylum detained in USA Immigration and Customs Enforcement Centre for 500+ days

UA 61/17 – Call to stop journalist’s forcible return to Uzbekistan

UA 37/17 – Iranian refugee detained in prison cells in Papua New Guinea

5 Social Media Report

Web and other media statistics, March 2017 A record month for the Web site with the highest daily number of views at 65 and the highest ever monthly figure of 405 – the first time we have breached 400. The North Korean talk also received a lot of interest on Facebook with 63 people engaging. Indeed, across all our platforms, the consistent item of interest was North Korea and the problems there.

Web siteA record month. The figures are: Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar211 201 275 189 274 268 405

ViewsAll time: 7 840 Country views show a reversal in previous trends with the UK in the top spot. Top 4:UK 171USA 132Lebanon 12France; Pakistan; Germany

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Top posts: 1. Violence against women in North Kore2. Salisbury firm engaged in spyware 3. The prospects for human rights in 2017

Followers: a further increase of 3 this month and we now have 188. So altogether a good month for the site.

Twitter

Quieter month partly because we had less to tweet

Impressions:

Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar

PC

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3050 3045 3633 5101 6505 2856 3682

Top 3 tweets:

1. Jihyun Park’s talk in Salisbury – 4422. Urgent action for Abdolfattah Soltani – 3373. Free Iranian POCs - 300

We now have 125 followers, an increase of 3, and 182 following, the same as last month.

FacebookThe top three items for the month were:

1. North Korean talk – 632. Human rights under threat – 11 3. Item promoting the NK talk – 10

Tumbler

We have 6 followers on Tumbler an increase of 1. We have 17 followers. No change.

North Korea

The demonstration outside the Guildhall still invites interest. On Flickr, the still image has had 3,162 views and the video, 662 – both increases. On YouTube it has 1,633 views giving a viewing total of 5,457. The North Korea video on YouTube involving Fiona Bruce MP has shown an encouraging increase in views following the email to Kenny who circulated it. It now has been seen 136 times.

www.flickr.com www.YouTube.com

Group actionsThere were two group actions during this period - one was to free Iranian POCs

Web site: www.salisburyai.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/salisburyai

Facebook: www.facebook.com/salisburyai

As ever, contributions to the sites are welcome. Engaging with the sites also helps build profile. Please try to visit one of the sites at least and click ‘like’ or ‘forward’.

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6 Monthly Action

Nazanin Zaghari –Ratcliffe – an Urgent Action and Richard Ratcliffe’s Change.Org petition

Syria – Solidarity Action on Noori – letters to the Authorities and messages to Noori

All

7 NWR Session

The session to place on 5th April. 17 members of Salisbury NWR attended and participated well in the discussions and activities. LC to circulate the materials within the Group.

LCPC

8 Street Petition – Syrian Prison Extra-Judicial Killings

This will take place on Saturday 22nd April, 9.00 to 12.00 md-day, in the Library Passageway. FD will email supporters to ask for volunteers to help man the stall. AH will produce a rota. PC will produce information sheets, together with flyers for the Vigil.

All

9 Grapevine

AH will run the session at St Thomas’s on 26th April.

AH

10 Market Stall

The date of 27th has been confirmed. FD will email to request volunteers to help with the stall and items for sale. Profits will be donated to a specific campaign/charity – details to be confirmed.

AHAll

11 Romsey Group Meetings

AH, LC and PC had attended the Group’s talk on Human Rights Legislation on 20th March. It was extremely informative – for further information, see the write-up here.

LC will email apologies to the Group Secretary as no-one within the Group – unfortunately – is able to attend the talk on Aleppo on 24 th April.

12 Arts Centre Films FD

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‘War Witch’ is to be shown at 7.00 pm and ‘Incendies’ at 9.00 pm as a double-bill on 9th June. Professor Lucy Mazdon will front both.

No decision has as yet been made regarding the Amnesty film which will be shown in the Autumn, but a number of possibilities are being considered.

13 Licence for Carol Singing

Farshid has passed the request for the letter on to the Community Officer.

FD

14 AOB – There was none.

15 Forthcoming Events

Syrian Prisoners Street Petition – 22nd April Grapevine Session – 26th April Market Stall – 27th May War Witch and Incendies – 9th June Magna Carta Event – 15th June Vigil – 24th June World Day Against the Death Penalty (at or around 10th Oct)

All

Next Meeting: Thursday 11th May, 2017 Time: 7.30 pm Venue: 4 Victoria Road

Links:www.salisburyai.com www.twitter.com/salisburyai www.facebook.com/salisburyai www.tumblr.com/saliburyai Campaign box and banner: AH

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