Amnesty magazine

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SYRIA’S SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE POINT OF VIEW PUSSY RIOT AT RUSSIA’S EMBASSY SONGS OF FREEDOM CAMPAIGN FOR REGGIE CLEMONS SECRET PODCASTS

issue 174 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

EXPECT DELAYS THE ARMS TRADE TREATY WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

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September/October 2012 contents

amnesty

magazine issue 174

comment HUMAN RIGHTS EVERYWHERE Our human rights campaigning gets everywhere. Amnesty has played a highly public role in the campaign for an international arms trade treaty, with UK activists creatively keeping up the political pressure.

Human rights work happens in smaller, quieter ways too. Some of you will know our glorious children’s picture book, We Are All Born Free, commissioned four years ago and now published in 35 languages, with its beautiful donated illustrations of our human rights.

The book has attracted interest from many quarters - individuals, schools, churches, theatres, libraries. It has inspired many joint ventures, most recently with the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, which now has the illustrations on permanent exhibition.

The hospital asked our education team to run art workshops for their young patients. We did, and illustrators such as Ali Pye, Jane Ray and Axel Scheffler of The Gruffalo fame joined in to help children design and draw flags, boats and shadow puppets and create their own stories, all connected to the pictures in We Are All Born Free.

The feedback from staff and patients was wonderful. A mother wrote: ‘The day my daughter made the puppets, she was in excruciating discomfort and had been unable to sleep and didn’t want to eat. She was so captivated by the opportunity to meet Axel and make something that for the whole time she was there she was distracted beyond her pain. It was such a relief to see her agitation and discomfort overcome by such a lovely event. Thank you.’

amnesty magazine

this issue...

syRia’s sPiRaL OF ViOLenCe POINT OF VIEW Pussy RiOt at Russia’s emBassy SONGS OF FREEDOM CamPaign FOR Reggie CLemOns SECRET PODCASTS

issue 174 sePtemBeR/OCtOBeR 2012

EXPECT DELAYS the aRms tRaDe tReaty WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

14 PROteCt the human

04 REVIEW NEWS Thousands left homeless after forced evictions in Nigeria; Gruffalo artist brings human rights story to hospital; ICC’s historic moment; Victory for Sarayaku Indigenous People.

08 CAMPAIGN updates Iraqi court sentences man to 15 years after 15 minute trial; World Pride in London; Holding Olympics sponsor Dow to account for Bhopal disaster; Amnesty groups keep up the pressure on the arms trade.

12 POINT OF VIEW LGBTI rights Amnesty refugee researcher Paul Dillane on how the UK asylum system fails those fleeing persecution because of their sexual orientation.

14 COVER Arms trade treaty Despite negotiations in New York ending without agreement, Amnesty campaigners explain how there is still a chance to secure an Arms Trade Treaty that is effective and robust.

17 Syria SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera investigates the impact of the escalating conflict in northern Syria on the human rights of the civilian population.

17

20 Sing freedom the power of our voices Amnesty’s new education pack, and a taste of protest songs, human rights and the lyrics of social change through the ages.

23 Death penalty A step backward Kim Manning-Cooper reports from death row at a time when US public support for the death penalty is faltering.

26 Media awards 2012 Twenty one years of the Amnesty International Media Awards – and news of this year’s winners.

30 Action 35 EVENTS

Kate Allen director

20

Protect the human

amnesty

31 Amnesty people 32 REAL LIVES 37 MAILBOX 38 LAST WORD

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL is a movement of ordinary people from across the world standing up for humanity and human rights. Our purpose is to protect individuals wherever justice, fairness, freedom and truth are denied.

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editorial Editor Maggie Paterson sct@amnesty.org.uk ISSN 0264-3278 advertising SALES CONTACTS See page 35

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News Review SEPTEMBER 2012 top of our agenda: SYRIA

Forced eviction at Abonnema Wharf, 27 June 2012 © Private

FORCED EVICTIONS

As international diplomacy stalls, fighting escalates and senior figures defect from the Assad regime, the UK government is stepping up its assistance to parts of the opposition.

Q: What should the UK government tell Syrian armed opposition groups?

A: The UK should make it crystal clear to the commanders of Syria’s armed opposition that they have a duty to prevent war crimes by those under their command. And that they may be held criminally responsible if they fail to do so.

Q: What future does Amnesty want to see in Syria?

A: We want a Syria that genuinely respects and protects everybody’s human rights. Instilling human rights values in the armed and civilian opposition is a key part of that process.

Report from inside Syria See page 17

TAKE ACTION See page 8

NIGERIA

Amid rain and rubble, thousands forced from Nigerian waterfront Thousands of people were forcibly evicted – and many left homeless – after five days of unannounced demolition in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Bulldozers flanked by heavily armed security forces arrived at 7am on 27 June at Abonnema Wharf waterfront.

Residents expected them to demolish only buildings implicated in gang shootings as part of a so-called crime prevention drive by the Rivers State government (RSG). Five days later, however, the entire community had been razed.

With no time to pack or find other housing, thousands of families, including young children and the elderly, were forced to sleep in the streets, in cars and nearby churches. Despite poor weather due to the rainy season, the RSG offered no emergency shelter.

‘We slept here [in the rubble] in all the rain that fell yesterday, on top of all these children,’ one tenant with a six-month-old baby among her children, told Amnesty. ‘We don’t have anywhere to go, we are just praying that God will send somebody to help us.’

Although it is hard to gauge exactly how many were affected, previous population estimates suggest between 10,000 and 20,000 residents were forcibly evicted. Forced evictions are a gross violation of human rights, exposing victims to multiple other abuses.

Women and children are particularly at risk of sexual violence and exploitation, as well as increased poverty.

Amnesty fears the Abonnema residents will

4 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk september/october 2012

suffer similar violations to those experienced by residents evicted in 2009 from Njemanze, another waterfront community. Many Njemanze families split up to survive, with boys sleeping rough while girls and women squeezed into rooms in Abonnema – only to be evicted again.

Several women who lost their livelihoods were forced into sex work and reported repeated rape.

The demolition flouted not only international human rights treaties but also the RSG’s own laws on ‘urban renewal’ requiring authorities to hold prior consultations with residents and provide alternative housing. It contravened a November 2011 High Court order against Abonnema’s demolition.

Abonnema is one of 40 waterfront settlements in Port Harcourt, housing an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 people. All of them are at risk of forced eviction under the RSG’s ‘urban renewal’ plans.

Nearly 4,000 UK supporters signed a petition calling on Rivers State Governor Amaechi to provide emergency shelter, stop all forced evictions and hold an investigation into why this happened.

This adds to nearly 10,000 names collected globally which will be used as part of the community’s campaigning and lobbying.

Country news

REPRESSION BAHRAIN

Dark days for justice Bahrain’s High Criminal Court of Appeal has postponed to 4 September the final verdict in the appeal case of 13 Bahraini opposition activists - all activists and prisoners of conscience convicted on charges related to pro-reform protests last year.

Dr Ghanim Alnajjar, an internationallyrecognised human rights expert who observed the court proceedings on behalf of Amnesty, said: ‘The decision to postpone the final verdict is unjustified, and is tantamount to a denial of justice.’

The 13 activists, who have already endured months in detention, include prominent activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja. They were originally sentenced by a military court in June 2011 to between two years and life in prison on charges including ‘setting up terror groups to topple the royal regime and change the constitution’. All of the men maintain their innocence.

On 16 August, Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was sentenced to three years in prison after being found guilty of taking part in an ‘illegal gathering’ in relation to a protest in the capital Manama on 6 February 2012.

Bahraini anti-government protesters outside a Manama courthouse. May 2012 © AP/Hasan Jamali

POLICE VIOLENCE SUDAN

security forces fire on protesters At least 10 people were killed, many of them high school students, when Sudanese security forces fired on protesters with live ammunition on 31 July.

Security services and paramilitary police opened fire in Nyala, South Darfur, during a demonstration against fuel prices and the cost of living. Dozens more were injured.

Medical staff at Nyala Public Hospital said the wounds inflicted on eight bodies admitted to their morgue were consistent with those caused by 5.56mm and 7.62mm automatic rifles. The Sudanese authorities have routinely used excessive force against mostly peaceful demonstrations which have occurred regularly in Sudan’s major cities since mid-June.

SAUDI ARABIA

Sheik Nimr Baqr al Nimr, 51, has been in detention without charge since 8 July. Sheik Nimr, who has called for reforms and an end to discrimination against Shi’a Muslims, was arrested by security forces in al-Awwarrika in the Eastern Province.

TUNISIA Hopes and fears... Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest cannot solve endemic injustice in Burma © Demotix

DISCRIMINATION

BURMa/MYANMAR

Abuses against Rohingya erode human rights Six weeks after a state of emergency was declared in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, targeted attacks and other violations by security forces against minority Rohingyas and other Muslims have increased.

‘Declaring a state of emergency is not a licence to commit human rights violations,’ said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International’s Myanmar researcher. ‘It is the duty of security forces to defend the rights of everyone – without exception or discrimination – from abuses by others, while abiding by human rights standards themselves.’

The Myanmar government declared a state of emergency on 10 June, following an outbreak of communal violence among the Buddhist Rakhine, Muslim Rakhine, and Muslim Rohingya communities. It remains in effect in several areas.

Since then, Myanmar’s Border Security Force (nasaka), army, COUNTRY WATCH Thousands of ‘irregular’ migrants have been arrested in Athens in August in a police crackdown on foreign nationals, denying effective access to asylumseeking procedures to those in need of international protection. Many were released.

and police have conducted massive sweeps in areas heavily populated by Rohingyas.

Hundreds of mostly men and boys have been detained, with nearly all held incommunicado, and some subjected to ill-treatment.

Most arrests appear to have been arbitrary and discriminatory. Amnesty reports that after more than a year of prisoner amnesties and releases, the overall number of political prisoners in Burma/Myanmar is again on the rise.

Other human rights abuses against Rohingyas and other Rakhine Muslims have been reported – including physical abuse, rape, destruction of property, and unlawful killings – carried out by both Rakhine Buddhists and security forces.

Unofficial estimates put the death toll at 100, with beween 50,000 and 90,000 people displaced.

Journalist Sofiene Chourabi was arrested with two friends on 5 August for drinking alcohol on a beach at Kelibia in north-east Tunisia – the day after he called for protests against moves by the governing Ennahda party to make offences against ‘sacred’ values punishable by prison or fines.

OMAN

More activists have been convicted on protestrelated charges – a further sign of growing intolerance of dissent. A court in Muscat on 8 August sentenced 11 people to prison and fines for peaceful protests – the latest in a string of cases involving around 35 activists, including writers and bloggers.

UAE

Some 35 men are believed to have been detained since 16 July in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful dissent. They include lawyer Dr Mohamed ‘Abdullah al-Roken, who was in last year’s prominent case known as the ‘UAE 5’. The whereabouts of all 35 are unknown and they are thought to be at risk.

GREECE

GREECE Asylum-seekers queue for days to file their applications at Attika Alien’s Police Directorate at Petrou Ralli in Athens © AP

september/october 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 5

News Review SEPTEMBER 2012

country news...

Far-right groups attacked Roma residents in the western Hungarian village of Devecser on 5 August. Violence broke out when more than 1,000 people including far right vigilante groups gathered at a demonstration organised by far-right party Jobbik.

Eyewitnesses say members of the crowd chanted antiRoma slogans and threw concrete and other missiles at Roma houses. The police did not act to stop the violence.

BELARUS

Photographer and journalism student Anton Suryapin, 20, faces up to seven years in prison after posting pictures online of a stunt involving dropping hundreds of teddy bears from a plane, to draw attention to violations of freedom of expression in Belarus. Amnesty considers him a prisoner of conscience, and is calling for his immediate release.

CHINA

Human rights campaigner Li Wangyang, who was released from prison last year, was found dead in his ward at the hospital in Shaoyang city, Hunan province, on 6 June. He had suffered from multiple health problems since his release. Within a day, thousands signed an online petition by activists who dispute the authorities’ explanation that Li committed suicide by hanging himself. Li Wangyang was prominent in the labour rights movement.

In 1989 he helped set up the Shaoyang Workers’ Autonomous Federation – and was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment for his involvement in the prodemocracy movement.

Photos © Abi Campbell

HUNGARY

A young patient with shadow puppets Right: Axel Scheffler at one of the creative workshops

LEARNING ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS

GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL

Gruffalo illustrator helps bring art, human rights and fun to sick children Amnesty and GO Create! at Great Ormond Street have jointly unveiled a new permanent art exhibition at the hospital, We Are All Born Free, to help children explore the theme of human rights.

The illustrations depict the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and are all taken from Amnesty’s award-winning book We Are All Born Free. They include work donated by dozens of top illustrators

70 news by numbers

including Korky Paul, who illustrated the Winnie the Witch stories, and Axel Scheffler, famed for his work on the Gruffalo.

Members of Amnesty’s education team, helped by illustrators Jane Ray, Ali Pye and Axel Scheffler, also ran a series of creative human rights art workshops for the young patients throughout June and July, earning wonderful feedback from staff and patients.

DEATH PENALTY

people were executed in Iraq in the first half of 2012.

Around the country, hundreds of prisoners are believed to remain on death row.

6 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk september/october 2012

issue watch

A mother wrote: ‘The day my daughter made the puppets, she was in excruciating discomfort and had been unable to sleep and didn’t want to eat. She was so captivated by the opportunity to meet Axel and make something that for the whole time she was there she was distracted beyond her pain. It was such a relief to see her agitation and discomfort overcome by such a lovely event.’

are we getting results?

regression JAPAN … executed Junya Hattori and Kyozo Matsumura on 3 August.

SOUTH KOREA … introduced new rules to discourage migrant workers from changing jobs, thus increasing their vulnerability to abuse and exploitation at work.

UKRAINE … draft legislation proposes to ban ‘promotion’ of homosexuality – including meetings, parades, and articles in mass media.

progress South Africa … the Constitutional Court ruled that two men could not be deported to Botswana because they would face a real risk of the death penalty.

COLOMBIA … ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance on 11 July.

European Court RULES … banning an LGBTI demo in Moldova violated Europe’s Convention on Human Rights.

GOOD NEWS

DISAPPEARANCES MALI

revenge killings, disappearance and torture of opponents Mali must halt its slide into human rights chaos and open investigations into dozens of cases of enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings and torture documented by Amnesty International.

In a report released on 31 July following a 10day mission to Mali, Amnesty details brutal abuses committed by soldiers loyal to the military junta against soldiers and police officers who had been involved in an attempted counter-coup on 30 April 2012.

In the days following the attempted countercoup dozens of soldiers were arrested and taken to Kati military camp, 20 kilometres north of Bamako, the capital. They were held for more than 40 days in appalling conditions and subjected to torture and sexual abuse. Twenty one detainees were abducted from their cell at night and haven’t been seen since.

Amnesty says the Malian authorities must investigate all the cases documented and bring those responsible to account for their actions.

At least 21 named individuals were taken on the night of 2-3 May from their detention cell. One of the remaining inmates said: ‘Around two in the morning, the door of our cell opened. Our wardens stood at the door and began to read a list. One by one, the soldiers called, went out. We haven’t seen our cellmates since that date.’

FORCED EVICTION

CHILE

CAMBODIA

Housing activists freed Thirteen women sentenced to two-and-ahalf years in prison were released on 27 June.

Cambodia’s Appeal Court suspended the remainder of their prison terms, but upheld their convictions.

Their arrest and a grossly unfair trial followed a peaceful demonstration protesting the forced eviction of families living around Boeung Kak Lake in Phnom Penh.

Sarayaku people celebrate the IACHR ruling © AP

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

Key victory in InterAmerican Court ruling A regional human rights court has come down in favour of the Sarayaku Indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon in what Amnesty International has called a key victory for Indigenous Peoples.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruling in Sarayaku v. Ecuador (25 July), ends a decade-long legal battle by the Sarayaku Indigenous People – backed by their lawyers Mario Melo and the Centre for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) – after a foreign oil company was allowed to encroach on their traditional lands in the early 2000s without consultation with IMPUNITY WATCH

Mapuche demand release of those detained in Santiago © Demotix

Children injured in violent eviction Police use of force during and after an eviction resulted in a dozen Indigenous Mapuche community members – including children – being detained, with many suffering injuries, some from buckshot fired by police.

On 23 July, police officers (carabineros) reportedly moved in to evict a group of Mapuche people who a day earlier occupied a plot of agricultural land in Ercilla 600 km south of Santiago as part of an ongoing protest to reclaim their traditional territory in Chile’s Araucanía region.

Numerous Mapuche Indigenous communities across southern Chile have long protested to have their traditional territories restored to them.

ECUADOR

the Sarayaku.

Celebrating, Sarayaku leader José Gualinga said their victory was due to ‘the efforts of our people and the help and solidarity of organisations devoted to the rights of Indigenous Peoples’.

The ruling will have a far reaching impact. The IACHR found that Ecuador violated the community’s right to be consulted, their property rights and cultural identity, and had put their lives and physical integrity at grave risk, after the oil company placed more than 1,400 kg of high-grade explosives on their territory.

DRC

Lubanga Dyilo sentenced to 14 years at the ICC The first ever sentence handed down by the International Criminal Court saw Thomas Lubanga Dyilo given 14 years for recruiting and using child soldiers in armed conflict. This is a historic moment for international justice, Amnesty International said.

The sentence takes into account that Lubanga has been in custody since his 2006 arrest. Prosecutors had originally asked for a 30-year sentence.

The first – which coincides with the ICC’s 10th anniversary – puts the whole world on notice, says Amnesty’s director of law and policy Michael Bochenek. ‘Anyone who recruits or uses children as soldiers faces trial and imprisonment.’

The prosecution limited the charges to conscription, enlistment, and use of child soldiers which meant that the court could not consider allegations of other crimes including sexual violence committed by the FPLC under Dyilo.

Kazakhstan

Artist released Theatre director Bolat Atabaev, was released from detention on 3 July.

He was charged with offences including ‘inciting social discord’ after speaking out on behalf of striking oil workers. The charges have now been dropped.

SERBIA

Water rights granted Five Romani families who were forcibly evicted from Belgrade to the southern city of Nis in April were granted their right to water in July. The families – 18 people, among them children and a pregnant woman – were resettled in an abandoned warehouse without access to water, electricity or sanitation.

LIBYA

ICC staff released Four staff of the International Criminal Court (ICC) were released on 2 July after 26 days in detention. The four were held by a militia group in the remote western town of Zintan after meeting Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi.

Their release followed pressure from several governments, as well as the UN Security Council and the ICC.

september/october 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 7

CAMPAIGN

NEWS

2 minutes

Ask Russia’s Foreign Minister to stop supplying arms to Syria www.amnesty.org.uk/syria

3 minutes

Demand the release of all remaining prisoners of conscience in Burma www.amnesty.org.uk/burma

3 minutes+

Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have been held in solitary confinement for the past 40 years, although 150 case reviews concluded that they pose no threat to themselves or others. Ask Louisiana officials to release them from this unjustified isolation. www.amnesty.org.uk/angola

10 minutes

If you’ve been inspired by Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah, check out the Team Amnesty web page to find out about running to raise money for human rights. (Yes, you might need more time for training.) www.amnesty.org.uk/ teamamnesty

‘Tortured’ Briton sentenced after 15 minutes A 70-year-old man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in Iraq after a hearing that lasted just 15 minutes. Ramze Shihab Ahmed, a dual Iraqi-UK national who has lived in the UK since 2002, was sentenced by a court in Baghdad on 20 June after being found guilty of ‘funding terrorist groups’. Amnesty International believes the trial proceedings were grossly unfair.

At his trial, the ninth in a series (he was acquitted in each of the earlier ones), Ramze’s lawyer was given no opportunity to challenge the prosecution’s case, to crossexamine prosecution witnesses or to call his own witnesses.

The court also failed to exclude from the proceedings a ‘confession’ of Ramze’s, despite longstanding allegations that it was extracted under torture. The court also relied on information provided by a secret informant, which Ramze’s lawyer was unable to challenge and statements made by another individual which were also allegedly obtained under torture.

In November 2009, Ramze travelled from the UK to Iraq in an effort to secure the release of his

Write for Rights © Private

what you can do in

detained son ‘Omar. However, he was himself arrested at a relative’s house in the northern city of Mosul on 7 December 2009. For four months he was held in a secret prison where he alleges he was tortured, including with electric shocks to his genitals and suffocation by plastic bags.

Amnesty International has campaigned for Ramze since September 2010 and is calling on the Iraqi authorities to ensure he receives a fair appeal, including a rejection of all evidence obtained under torture.

Sign the petition

Ramze’s case features in this year’s Write for Rights campaign, which runs from 1 November to 31 December.

Write for Rights combines our seasonal Greetings Card Campaign, when supporters send solidarity messages to people whose rights are being abused, and letters to the authorities demanding justice for those people. The idea is that the greetings cards will bring hope, and that the appeal letters will move those in power to action and help hold them to account.

It’s a chance for you to use your freedom to stand up with people whose rights have been denied.

More information and campaign materials will be on the website soon www.amnesty.org.uk/write

www.amnesty.org.uk/ramze

take

Action

Call on the Italian government to protect the rights of migrants, refugees and asylumseekers fleeing Libya See page 30 8 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

Amnesty supporters joined the World Pride celebrations in London on 7 July, marking 40 years since the city’s first Pride march to demand equal rights for lesbian and gay people © Imran Uppal

Keeping up the pressure for the Arms Trade Treaty Amnesty groups make sure the UK government gets the message ahead of the Arms Trade Treaty negotiations in July. For a report on the conference, see page 14.

Foreign Office, London

D N’T P IS N UR LYMPICS What links the world’s biggest sporting spectacle with the worst industrial disaster of the modern age? To make sure people in the UK know the answer, Indian artist and photographer Samar Jodha came to London in July with a dramatic audio-visual exhibition highlighting the tragedy of Bhopal.

The toxic gas leak from a pesticide factory in Bhopal in 1984 killed up to 10,000 people in a matter of days, and a further 15,000 over the next 20 years. The site remains contaminated and the victims are still waiting for compensation.

Dow Chemicals, a sponsor of the London 2012 Olympic Games, now

owns the company responsible.

Amnesty hosted Samar Jodha’s exhibition at the Human Rights Action Centre (HRAC), and UK artist Pure Evil helped publicise our campaign with a mural next to the HRAC entrance.

Ultimately, our campaign aims to hold Dow to account and ensure justice for the victims of Bhopal. But we also aimed to hold to account the London Olympic Organising Committee (LOCOG), for the deficiencies in its ethical guidelines that led it to accept Dow’s sponsorship bid.

LOCOG refused to back down and apologise to the victims of Bhopal for its defence of Dow. However, extensive media coverage exposing the link between Dow and the effects of the disaster has put the human rights dimension of Olympic sponsorship on the agenda of the International Olympic Committee.

Future Olympic Games organisers will know their sponsorship arrangements will be under scrutiny – so perhaps they will be more wary in choosing their sponsors.

Meanwhile Dow, given its dependence on the sporting market, is sure to want future partnerships with organisers of major events. We may yet see some concessions from the company to the survivors of Bhopal as it seeks to detoxify its image.

Hillingdon

Manchester

Queen Margaret University

Kendal

Mid-Warwickshire

London

Northern Ireland

Perth

Cambridge SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 9

world in view

REPRESSION RUSSIA

FACING SEVEN YEARS FOR A SONG Three members of the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot go on trial for hooliganism, facing seven-year jail terms for singing a protest song against Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main Orthodox church.

The three women (pictured below), Maria Alekhina, Ekaterina Samutsevich and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, all in their twenties, were arrested in March. All appeals against their detention were rejected, despite more than 50 famous figures in Russia agreeing to guarantee their bail.

MAIN Photo © AI/Imran Uppal By 15 August over 12,000 people had added their names to Amnesty’s petition to free the Pussy Riot three. The Russian Embassy in London turned off their faxes so balaclava-clad campaigners went to hand them over in person.

Take action www.amnesty.org.uk/pussyriot Protest songs See page 20

© AP 10 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

The trio were charged with ‘hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility’ after a number of group members performed a song ‘Virgin Mary, redeem us from Putin’ in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour cathedral on 21 February. The protest was one of several planned ahead of the March presidential elections.

Church leaders demanded harsh punishment for the three. Two of the women deny any involvement in the church protest.

The third admits being part of the group and protest. The trial continues.

The musician Sting joined Amnesty and other rights groups in calling for the women’s release and condemning their disproportionately severe treatment.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 11

From discretion to disbelief:

First they were ignored. Then they were told to hide it.

Now they are told to prove it. Amnesty’s refugee researcher Paul Dillane shows how the UK asylum system fails people fleeing persecution because of their sexual orientation.

After World War Two, the international community made an effort to ensure that what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany could never happen again. It proclaimed the right of people who are at risk of persecution in their home country to depart and seek international protection elsewhere. Sadly, concern for gay people was not in the minds of the international community, even though gay people wearing the pink triangle were exterminated in Nazi Germany in concentration camps alongside Jews wearing the star of David.

The 1951 Refugee Convention, the cornerstone of the international refugee framework, did not and was not intended to protect gay and lesbian people. For the next five decades gay people were effectively forgotten. It wasn’t until 1999 that the UK courts recognised that a gay person could fall within the remit of the Refugee Convention.

Unfortunately, that recognition was rarely

sufficient to ensure the protection to which gay people were entitled. Between 1999 and 2010, when we had a major landmark ruling from the UK Supreme Court about the rights of gay refugees, the ‘discretion principle’ applied.

For a political activist or a member of a religious or ethnic minority, if the asylum system accepts that your life would be at risk, you are not expected to return to your country and seek to hide or suppress these aspects of your person in order to avoid harm. But for gay or lesbian people, decision makers regularly told them to simply go home and ‘be discreet in order to avoid any future difficulties’. This is the ‘discretion principle’, an objectionable principle which persists in many European countries and has caused immeasurable suffering in the UK. It was during this period, from 2003, that I started legally representing people seeking asylum in the UK. I remember having

12 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

extraordinary arguments with judges and government lawyers as to, for example, where an individual in Iran might go to have gay sex. The focus was squarely on conduct, with little thought for an individual’s ability to be open about their sexuality or their rights to enjoy their lives to the full extent which the rest of us enjoy. The UK authorities would regularly assert that the British Embassy had reported that there was a park in Tehran where one could go to have sex with other men. I often wondered how a British Embassy official discovered this!

The preoccupation with conduct was revealed in the language used. We have legal judgments in which government lawyers and judges referred to gay people as ‘homosexuals’ and ‘sodomites’ wanting to engage in ‘buggery’ and ‘sodomy’. I have never met a gay person who identified themselves as a ‘sodomite’ and, as a gay man, I found this utterly offensive.

© Lou Dunn

In 2010, we had the most remarkable ruling from the UK Supreme Court in a case concerning two gay men: one from Iran and one from Cameroon. This judgment transformed the UK legal landscape. The judges asserted that what is protected under the law is the ‘right to live freely and openly as a gay man. This involves a wide spectrum of conduct going beyond conduct designed to attract sexual partners and maintain relationships with them’. This is the essence of what a gay person seeking sanctuary in our society is looking for: a chance to access protection and exercise the full plethora of rights afforded under international human rights law.

Lord Roger, one of the key judges in this case, sought to illustrate the point with a stereotypical example. He said, ‘just as male heterosexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals

are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates.’ Unfortunately, this attempt at British humour was lost on some.

One newspaper proclaimed: ‘Gay asylum seekers have the right to Kylie Minogue.’

The ruling finally rid us of the ‘discretion principle’, but since then we have seen a shift from ‘discretion’ to ‘disbelief’. This shift was predicted by writer Jenni Millbank (From Discretion to Disbelief: Recent trends in refugee determinations on the basis of sexual orientation in Australia and the UK).

Asylum seekers now face great difficulties in persuading decision makers that they are telling the truth about their sexual orientation or gender identity. We regularly see decisions refusing applications for asylum in which the authorities state, for instance, ‘you have failed to “prove” your sexuality’. Proving your sexuality is often extraordinarily

difficult. That is why we at Amnesty find ourselves continually intervening in cases to remind decision-makers how they should approach this issue.

The asylum decisions we see place the lives of genuine lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people at risk of being returned to a country where they face significant danger. Just last month we were involved in frantic efforts in the High Court to prevent the forcible return of a young man who claims to be gay to Cameroon. In his country same-sex acts are punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment and we have documented the arrest and conviction of a number of people for nothing more than their actual or perceived sexuality.

Stereotypical ideas of what gay or lesbian people do in their personal affairs persist among asylum decision makers. I recently worked on the case of a young woman who was forced to flee Uganda after a family member walked in on her having sex with a female partner. Uganda is a deeply homophobic country and the risks to LGBTI people are grave. The British official refused her asylum claim, arguing ‘given your concern about being identified as a lesbian you would not have engaged in the sex act if there was any possibility that this would have been discovered’. In effect, it was argued that it is inconceivable that a person from a country in which same-sex acts are criminalised will ever engage in sexual intercourse with a person of the same sex if there is a remote possibility of discovery. This is frankly ridiculous.

In another recent case the UK authorities would not accept a man’s claim to be gay.

At his appeal hearing the government lawyer asked him: ‘So this boyfriend that you say that you have, do you do anything intimate with him?’ Now the first thing I was taught before being sent off to court to represent asylum seekers was: never ask a question that you don’t know the answer to. The answer this particular gentleman gave was so graphic that any doubts that he was gay were quickly dispelled.

There have been significant legal advances in the UK over the years, including the 2010 Supreme Court judgment. But serious concerns persist about the treatment of LGBTI asylum seekers in the UK asylum process. Peter Tatchell, the human rights activist, once said that LGBTI rights are the litmus test for how a society respects human rights. If I was marking the UK’s report card, I would say ‘must do better’.

MORE INFO

www.uklgig.org.uk www. stonewall.org.uk

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 13

THE arms TRADE TREATY EXPECT DELAYS Delaying tactics, a clerical error and a last-minute U-turn by the United States meant that July’s negotiations in New York ended without an agreement on the Arms Trade Treaty. But Amnesty campaigners Verity Coyle and Oliver Sprague, who attended the conference, explain that we still have a second chance in October to secure an effective treaty.

‘The United States

supports the outcome today of the Arms Trade Treaty conference… and a second round of negotiations, conducted on the basis of consensus, on the treaty next year; we do not support a vote in [the UN General Assembly] on the current text.’

US Department of State

14 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

‘I am disappointed that the

conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) concluded its four-week-long session without agreement on a treaty text that would have set common standards to regulate the international trade in conventional arms. The conference’s inability to conclude its work on this much-awaited ATT, despite years of effort by member states and civil society from many countries, is a setback.’

Amnesty supporter in Parliament Square, London

From the very start it was clear that the month-long Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) negotiations would be a rocky ride.

The first session didn’t start for a day and a half, held up by a procedural wrangle that had nothing to do with the ATT. It was over the right of Palestine to participate in the conference. The issue arose from a clerical error: ‘states’ rather than UN ‘member states’ were invited to take part in the negotiations.

This was obviously a political hot potato for the Americans. And the Arab League – many of whose members oppose an ATT – took advantage of it to attempt to frustrate the ambition of the conference, weaken the treaty, and stop ministers supportive of an ATT from delivering their opening speeches. The squabble blocked UK government minister Alistair Burt and several others who were prepared to give a big political impetus to the conference.

From that moment on it was clear that the 10 or so governments most opposed to the treaty were prepared to use every trick in the book to prevent it from happening.

Musical chairs The first week of the conference was essentially lost because of the debate over Palestine’s right to participate. This did lead to the odd comical moment. When we finally got going, there was chaos as they rearranged the hall. Everyone had to move two seats to the side so that Palestine could speak: it was a geopolitical version of musical chairs.

But there were some good moments too.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon gave an impassioned speech about the ATT’s provisions and aspirations, and human rights. We also handed over the petition signed by nearly 700,000 supporters from around the world; it was presented to Ban Ki-Moon by some female activists from the Philippines. It was one of the moments that brought home to us what we were there for – a shining light in an otherwise frustrating first week.

Ban Ki-Moon Now, we thought, even though we were a week behind, at least we could get on with the conference. But then came another setback. In order to get through the long ATT agenda, the chair, Argentine Ambassador Roberto Moritan, wanted to split everything up into different sessions that would run concurrently. When he asked for agreement on his working rules for the conference, two flags went up to object: Iran and Syria.

Iran said that because it couldn’t get visas for all of its delegation team, it didn’t have enough representatives to take part in all the sessions, and so its voice wouldn’t be heard.

Syria said the same. So another procedural wrangle ate into the negotiating time.

A masterstroke The negotiations were quite chaotic. Every day there was a new rule of procedure, so nobody knew what was going on or what they would be doing the next day.

Then Ambassador Moritan introduced a new chair’s paper. It was a significant backwards step from previous ATT texts, and many states were angry with the US for blocking the treaty after so much hard work. Ambassador Moritan’s new text had the effect of firing up all those in the room who wanted a real treaty.

The chair also introduced evening sessions, made delegates work from 10am to 2am, called in countries for oneto-one and private consultations, and locked groups of three or four states in a room to fight over an issue that they really cared about. He was utterly determined to make the treaty happen.

Lobbying pays off This was when all the work that Amnesty had done with the UK government for so long beforehand proved its importance. We had daily contact with the UK delegation and Amnesty UK Director Kate Allen spoke to the government minister. Amnesty UK supporters played a vital role, too, with over 12,000 sending messages to Alistair Burt

The Arms Trade Treaty Q What is the Arms Trade Treaty?

A It is a legally binding international agreement to regulate the transfer of conventional weapons. At the moment it exists only in draft form.

Q What is the point of it?

A To stop transfers of arms and ammunition that fuel conflict, poverty and serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

Q Who thought up the idea?

A The idea came from Nobel Peace laureates; civil society organisations across the world supported it.

Q How did it get on to the UN agenda?

A People across the world, including Amnesty International supporters, campaigned and lobbied for it long and hard. urging the UK government not to proceed with an ineffectual ATT. The UK government responded with a strong statement saying it would walk away from a weak treaty.

Different working papers were being introduced every day throughout the negotiations, some brilliant, some dreadful.

It was like a yo-yo. So until we got the final draft text on the Thursday of the final week, we had no idea what would be in it.

Our efforts to get the right text in the right places succeeded beyond our expectations, with countries taking our suggestions and putting them into their submissions. We helped to turn an inadequate draft into a final text that was reasonably strong and close to what we wanted.

The final text includes the ‘golden rule’ on human rights: if there is a substantial risk that arms due to be supplied by a country are likely to be used to commit serious human

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 15

THE arms TRADE TREATY EXPECT DELAYS

‘This is not the result we wanted. But we have made huge

progress. The chair’s draft treaty has our full support as well as that of the great majority of other states… We now need to maintain the momentum and to complete this crucial work as soon as possible, taking the issue to the UN General Assembly.

An Arms Trade Treaty is coming. It will not be this week but we will succeed. When we do, the world will be a safer place.’

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague

Children jump from an old Soviet era tank, Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 2009 © Demotix

violations, the arms transfer shall not go ahead. Provisions on gender-based violence and corruption also made it into the treaty.

The moment of betrayal By 1.15 on the Friday morning of the final week we were jubilant because we thought the treaty was secured. The chair thought so too, and rather than working through the night, he closed the meeting before two final minor issues were addressed.

Later that morning, as the final day of talks began, the USA took the floor. It said it could not agree the treaty and needed more time. Russia quickly did the same, and the treaty was blocked. It was bitterly disappointing.

There was much speculation that the US State Department had been over-ruled at the last minute by the White House because of concerns about the effect on President Obama’s re-election campaign. The National Rifle Association had fought a rearguard action to turn the ATT negotiations into a Second Amendment issue, claiming – incorrectly – that the treaty would infringe

the right of Americans to bear arms. There may have been a fear that if Obama was associated with a perceived pro-gun-control measure it might cost him votes.

All the negotiators from progressive countries were unbelievably angry with the US move. They thought that the treaty had US support; many of the compromises in the text were designed to bring the Americans in, and still the USA betrayed them at the final moment.

Another chance Despite that disappointment, this is not the end of the ATT. We still have a good opportunity to secure a robust and effective treaty. Just after the US move, the UK got together with Australia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Japan and Finland to issue a statement of support for an ATT, and 90 more countries signed up to it.

‘We are disappointed,’ said the statement, ‘but we are not discouraged.’ It went on to state the countries’ determination to bring about an ATT as soon as possible: ‘One that will bring about a safer world for the

16 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

sake of all humanity.’

For Amnesty, the job now is to capitalise on this anger, determination and momentum.

The UN General Assembly meets again in October, and we will urge countries to table the draft ATT text as a resolution. Unlike the July conference, where decisions were taken by consensus, a two-thirds majority would be enough at the October meeting.

There is no precedent for doing this.

Sceptical states may attempt to stall progress by calling for another ATT conference instead, which could lead to a watered-down treaty. The USA has already demanded another conference.

But with the full support of countries like the UK, we can still secure a strong and effective ATT. As UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said at the end of the negotiations: ‘An Arms Trade Treaty is coming. It will not be this week but we will succeed.’

Find out more and join the campaign www.amnesty.org.uk/arms

Eyewitness report

Syria SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE At considerable personal risk, Amnesty’s Senior Crisis Response Adviser Donatella Rovera visited northern Syria earlier this year to investigate the human rights situation. She found a shocking escalation in unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention and wanton destruction of homes.

Most places I visited were suffering armed conflict – and things have deteriorated since I left Syria. The situation started nearly 18 months ago with peaceful protests and escalated due to very brutal repression by the security forces. This led to some of the soldiers leaving the army to set up what is today a major component of the armed opposition, the Free Syrian Army. There has been pretty intense fighting with loss of life on all sides – the armed opposition, the security forces and, inevitably, civilians as well.

In all of the 23 towns and villages I visited I met families who had lost relatives: in many cases they had been taken from their homes and shot dead in cold blood. Others had been killed in indiscriminate attacks.

Survivors of these attacks had horrendous injuries – some had lost limbs. Many families were camping out in the remains of what used to be their homes, which had been burnt down. They were left with nothing other than the clothes they had on when they fled.

The pattern of attacks was remarkably consistent. Security forces and the army swept through villages with scores of tanks and armoured vehicles, in quite a few cases backed up by combat helicopters.

Sometimes clashes took place outside the villages but these invariably ended with the armed opposition withdrawing as they were outgunned and outnumbered. The Syrian army has considerable resources and the armed opposition is not a match for them.

‘In all of the 23 towns

A demonstration following a funeral in the Bustan al-Qasr district of Aleppo City.

Syria, 25 May © AI

and villages I visited I met families who had lost relatives: in many cases they had been taken from their homes and shot dead in cold blood.’

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 17

Eyewitness report Syria

Once the forces entered the towns and villages it was pretty much the same: houseto-house searches, during which they killed a large number of civilians and set fire to homes and other property. In some cases they targeted the homes of known activists.

In other cases attacks were random. In one village I met an old woman in her mid- to late-70s who lives with her two daughters and has no association of any kind with any activists; her home was also burned.

In some villages about half the houses in the village had been burned – it was clearly random. Sometimes soldiers also set fire to the bodies of people they had killed in what seemed to be gratuitous brutality. Perhaps they wanted to take revenge – it seemed to be an effort to punish communities for supporting the opposition or to intimidate communities who were still holding demonstrations.

These particularly brutal acts of violence occurred in most places I visited, which indicates that there was a clear pattern to the attacks. It was quite clearly not a case of rogue elements in the Syrian army taking personal initiative. It seems to have been much more a policy.

In every town and village I also met men who had been detained. They were obviously the lucky ones as they had been released. Nonetheless all had been tortured – the ones I met were missing teeth, and had broken bones, wounds, and scars.

Everyone, almost without exception, wanted to talk about their case and those who were left behind in the detention centres. Tens of thousands of people are being detained – their families often don’t know where they are and the authorities do not acknowledge holding them.

People were afraid for themselves and their families – even people I met in refugee camps outside Syria didn’t want their names or photos published. But they also very much wanted the rest of the world to know what was happening.

In most places they hadn’t seen outsiders for several months and saw this as an opportunity to tell their stories. They all asked why the international community has been so apathetic, why they were not getting protection, why the world seems so uninterested in their plight. I also found a lot of resilience, and I think it is striking that so many people are still willing to go out and demonstrate peacefully, even though they know they are at risk.

The situation now in Aleppo – the country’s largest and richest city – is different, and major demonstrations only started a couple of months ago. The reaction of security forces and Shabiha militias, who are armed and funded by the security forces, has been the same as anywhere else – that is to say brute force. There was no armed opposition in Aleppo when I visited, only peaceful demonstrations, but invariably the security forces fire live rounds on protestors, killing or injuring those who take part. As in other parts of Syria, the city has now seen an escalation in conflict between Syrian forces and the armed opposition.

On 25 May, I watched a demonstration after Friday prayers – like all the demonstrations I watched, it was peaceful.

Demonstrators were calling for the fall of the regime, chanting ‘peaceful, peaceful’ and clapping their hands above their heads, which they do so the security forces can’t say they have stones, knives or anything in their hands. Within 15 minutes the security forces and the paramilitary militias arrived and started to fire live rounds with Kalashnikovs. They were also using hunting rifles that fire metal pellets which are deadly at close range – and this is what they were doing, firing from very close range. Everybody fled for cover – myself included – and within minutes it was over.

One boy was killed and a dozen or so were injured.

People who have been injured in demonstrations cannot go to hospitals

18 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

because they will be arrested. Instead brave doctors and nurses stand by with medical supplies and people put their homes at the disposal of the wounded. These homes are transformed into instant field hospitals.

I went to a couple – there was blood everywhere, IVs hanging from the tops of windows. The doctors work as quickly as they can because they have to – they must stabilise the patient as fast as possible and then move them on and wipe away any sign that that home was ever used for that purpose.

While I was in Aleppo I couldn’t help thinking that if the international community had acted more decisively – or at all – in conveying a message to the Syrian government that such blind repression of peaceful protestors is not acceptable, then the situation would not have deteriorated to the extent it has.

Perhaps there is also a little bit of uprising fatigue or Arab Spring fatigue.

Last year everybody was gripped by this wave of uprisings that brought about very swift change in Tunisia and Egypt and more protractedly in Libya. And now perhaps interest is waning. Also people like simple things, black and white: the regime was bad, it’s been replaced, now it’s good.

It’s not like that – these are bigger projects that require long-term work.

It is imperative that we push for action to be taken as soon as possible because without that the situation will deteriorate further without any doubt. The situation is now an internal armed conflict in many

‘In some cases

they targeted the homes of known activists.

In other cases attacks were random. In one village I met an old woman in her mid- to late-70s who lives with her two daughters and has no association of any kind with any activists; her home was also burned.’

Left: A man carries a boy badly injured during heavy fighting between Syrian rebels and Syrian Army forces in Idib, north Syria. © AP/Rodrigo Abd

parts of the country but it’s not been a sectarian conflict as such – it has been a classic case of state repression. But the longer the situation goes on the more there is the danger that it will turn increasingly sectarian even though many elements within the civilian and armed opposition, as well as Amnesty of course, are actively working to prevent that.

A proper UN-led mission with the mandate to monitor and investigate would certainly send a message to all parties to the conflict that their conduct is being observed and nobody will be able to benefit from impunity. For that reason we’ve also been calling for the situation in Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court. This alone won’t solve the situation, but I think it is a start to give a signal that the time for impunity is over and that the international community is now prepared to deal with the situation more seriously.

At the same time, other things are happening. We are beginning to see some indication that at the level of the international community the message has finally got through that looking the other way isn’t going to make the problem go away. Recently a ship that was carrying military equipment from Russia to Syria was stopped in UK waters. This is the first time we’ve seen that happening.

At the same time we’re also hearing that weapons are now reaching the armed opposition, and we are seeing an intensification of the armed confrontation on the ground. In so far as I see it, that

Above: More than 600 probable artillery impact craters showing on this satellite image (yellow dots) were identified in Anadan, a small town in the vicinity of Aleppo city. 31 July 2012 Left: This image shows a residential housing complex adjacent to Anadan, where probable artillery impact craters have been identified.

31 July 2012

is not a good thing. Obviously the more armed confrontation there is, the more civilians can get caught. Others see that as another development that can put pressure on the Syrian regime perhaps to negotiate.

As a human rights organisation, we are particularly concerned with what can be done to reduce the negative impact on the civilian population. We cannot stop the two parties waging war but we can push for mechanisms to be put in place that would provide more protection for the civilians such as pressing governments to insist on respect for international humanitarian law in all their dealings with parties to the conflict.

Find out more Download the Amnesty reports (see box, right) visit www.amnesty.org.uk/syria or call 020 7003 1777 TAKE ACTION Ask the Russian Foreign Minister to stop supplying arms to Syria www.amnesty.org.uk/syria

AMNESTY REPORTS Deadly Reprisals: Deliberate killings and other abuses by Syria’s armed forces highlights the widespread, systematic human rights violations including war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 70-page report provides disturbing evidence that abuses are part of a deliberate state policy to punish and intimidate communities suspected of supporting the opposition.

AI Index: MDE 24/041/2012 All-out repression: Purging dissent in Aleppo, Syria based on first-hand investigations in the city of Aleppo at the end of May. As the size and frequency of Aleppo’s anti-government protests increased, this report shows that the state security apparatus reacted with a characteristically reckless and brutal use of force in which peaceful demonstrators were killed and injured.

AI Index: MDE 24/061/2012

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 19

sing freedom

Š AP

Amnesty launches a fantastic resource for schools about freedom and protest songs through the ages. Tim Minogue gives a taste of the rich history of protest songs.

20 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk september/october 2012

Speaking and singing against the existing order was practically suicidal in medieval England. Ball, a leader of a radical sect called the Lollards, was hung, drawn and quartered during the bloody repression that put down the revolt, and his severed head displayed on a spike.

Nearly 300 years later Gerrard Winstanley, a member of the Levellers, who believed that all property and land should be held in common, wrote the ‘Diggers Song’: But the Gentry must come down / and the poor shall wear the crown / Stand up now, Diggers all!

In the 1960s Winstanley’s lyric inspired English folk singer and Amnesty member Leon Rosselson’s song ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ and in the 1980s versions were recorded by Billy Bragg and the ‘anarchist’ band Chumbawamba.

In the USA, religious songs known as ‘spirituals’ were sung by African-American slaves as they worked in the fields as a way of keeping their spirits up and defying their oppressors. Openly challenging the slaveowners was dangerous, of course, so many spirituals had lyrics that on the surface were ‘merely’ religious while often carrying a deeper meaning that the slave owners would miss. ‘Wade in the Water’, for example, which has been recorded by many artists including Bob Dylan, Billy Preston and Eva Cassidy, contains the lines: Who’s that young girl dressed in red / Wade in the water / Must be the children that Moses led

On the surface the song refers to the Bible story of the Israelites’ flight out of Egypt, while the ‘hidden’ meaning is that escaped slaves should take to rivers and lakes to throw pursuing bloodhounds off their scent.

The spirituals had an enormous influence on strands of popular music such as jazz and the blues. One of the most powerful songs about racism was recorded in 1937 by the singer Billie Holiday: Southern trees bear a strange fruit / (Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,) / Black body swinging in the southern breeze / Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees © Chris Alexander

People have probably been singing about injustice for as long as human beings have had voices. But in many times and places it has been so dangerous to do so that they have had to sing quietly, or in code to disguise the songs meaning.

One of the first surviving lyrics to protest at an unjust social order was penned by John Ball, a radical priest, at the time of the English Peasants’ Revolt in 1381: When Adam delved and Eve span / Who was then the gentleman?

‘Strange Fruit’ was written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish teacher in New York, who had seen a gruesome newspaper photograph of the lynching of two black teenagers.

The most famous 20th century protest song started out in church pews and picket lines.

‘We Shall Overcome’ has its roots in AfricanAmerican hymns from the early 20th century, and was first used as a protest song in 1945, when striking tobacco workers in Charleston, South Carolina, sang it on their picket line. By the 1950s, the song had been discovered by the young activists of the African-American civil rights movement, and it quickly became the movement’s unofficial anthem. Its verses

‘Everybody has a voice, everybody has the

ability to express themselves and everybody has something really powerful to say.’

Kate Tempest

Then and now...

(Left): Singer Billie Holiday. Her version of Strange Fruit, a song about lynching in the Deep South, has become a classic. (Right): Writer and rapper Kate Tempest september/october 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 21

I’m a war child I believe I’ve survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives Emmanuel Jal, ex-child soldier were sung on protest marches and in sit-ins, through clouds of tear gas and under police batons, and it brought courage and comfort to bruised, frightened activists as they waited in jail cells, wondering if they would survive the night.

In the decades since, the song has circled the globe and has been embraced by civil rights and pro-democracy movements in dozens of nations worldwide and it continues to lend its strength to all people struggling to be free.

Experience of rural poverty in 1930s America inspired the singer Woody Guthrie to write ‘This Land Is Your Land’: In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple / By the relief office, I’d seen my people / As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking / Is this land made for you and me?

Guthrie’s brand of committed folk music directly inspired post-war protest singers such as Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and, later, artists such as John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen. First Seeger, then Baez, recorded and popularised ‘We Shall Overcome’. Seeger’s ‘Where have All the Flowers Gone’ was probably the most influential anti-war song of the early 1960s, along with Bob Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’: Come you masters of war / You that build all the guns / You that build the death planes / You that build the big bombs / You that hide behind walls / You that hide behind desks / I just want you to know / I can see through your masks In the 1960s, a whole generation explored their concerns about poverty, racism and war through popular music. In the 1970s Lennon’s ‘Give Peace A Chance’ and Bob Marley’s ‘Get Up, Stand Up (for your rights)’ became the anthems of a generation. In

1970, Joni Mitchell added the environment to the list of subjects dealt with by the protest song. Visiting Hawaii for the first time she was aghast at the way a beautiful environment had been despoiled and wrote, in ‘Big Yellow Taxi’: They paved paradise / And put up a parking lot Singers are still telling the truth about the world as they see it through protest songs.

Amnesty has produced a new pack of resources for students aged 11-16 and their teachers, called The Power of Our Voices. It explores the history of the protest song in a booklet and DVD which includes lesson plans and loads of ideas for learning more about the struggle for human rights.

In the pack students will meet former Sudanese child soldier Emmanuel Jal, who has used rap music to bring global awareness to the suffering of children forced into combat. They also encounter members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza), who sing to demand improvements in the terrible social, economic and human rights situation in their country in the face of police truncheons, beating and brutality. They will stand with the Egyptians in Tahrir Square in the recent movement for democratic change.

And they will work with London poet and rapper Kate Tempest as she guides them through the process of writing their own protest song for the great Amnesty Protest Song Writing Competition!

As Kate Tempest says: ‘I think what is beautiful about protest songs… is that you can find a way to speak the things that everybody feels, but just don’t have the space to talk about. Everybody has a voice, everybody has the ability to express themselves and everybody has something really powerful to say.’

THE PROTEST SONGS OF TOMORROW Amnesty’s new education pack, The Power of Our Voices, aims to engage secondary school students in the history and impact of protest songs – and to encourage them to write their own song on an issue that is important to them. The students can then enter their lyrics or a video of their performance in our UK-wide protest song competition. aged ces for students Educational resour in English, Citizenship, UK 11-16 across the , and PSE/PSHEE, Music projects lar for cross-curricu

THE POWER OF OUR VOICES gs, human Protest son the lyrics rights andchan ge of social

ional Amnesty Internat

SONG competition We are looking for lyrics and songs that speak about the human rights issues of today The competition is open to all secondary and further education students, aged 11-19.

There are two categories – Best Lyrics and Best Performance. Prizes include having work published by Amnesty and performing at an Amnesty event, an exclusive performance and workshop at your school by writer and rapper Kate Tempest, and Amnesty goodie bags.

Full guidelines, terms and conditions are available in the pack. Deadline for entries is 31 January 2013. find out more www.amnesty.org.uk/voices

22 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk september/october 2012

DEATH PENALTY 2012

Death takes a backward step In July KIM MANNING-COOPER travelled to California and Missouri to investigate the death penalty with a joint team from Amnesty and Reprieve, including former director of public prosecutions Lord Ken Macdonald.

This is her report from inside Death Row – at a time when US public support for the death penalty is faltering.

In September 2011 the US state of Georgia executed Troy Davis after 20 years on death row despite severe doubts about the safety of his conviction.

The state’s seeming determination to kill Davis no matter what shocked people around the world and caused millions of Americans to question the continued use of the ultimate penalty in their country.

Nearly a year after Davis died, I’m standing beside Reggie Clemons, 41, another African-American who, after 19 years on death row, could share Davis’s fate. As in Troy’s case, there are serious doubts about his conviction (see panel).

Like Davis, Clemons has a warm and devoted family backed up by a committed group of activists who are determined to do all they can to save his life. Like Davis, he has become a living symbol of all that is wrong with the death penalty and the way it is applied in the United States: it is no deterrent to murder, it often makes mistakes, it violates all its victims’ right to life and it is applied disproportionately to black people,

the poor and those of low IQ – all of whom often have inadequate legal representation.

It is visiting hour at the Potosi Correctional Center, about 90 minutes drive from St. Louis, Missouri. I’m with Reggie’s mother, Vera Thomas, and Jamala Rogers, co-ordinator of the Justice for Reggie campaign. I have my photograph taken with Reggie in front of a large poster featuring a beautiful waterfall. It’s a surreal scene.

Reggie jokes that ‘it looks like we could be on vacation’. Yet the truth is we are in the visiting area of the grim prison where he has been waiting to die since 1993.

As I saw with Troy Davis, it is the unconditional love of his family which is getting Reggie through. His family are completely devoted to him and visit as often as they can – usually every week.

We spend about two hours with Reggie, who keeps his mind alive when he isn’t working on his case by ‘inventing’ things in his head – such as an airbag for motorcyclists. I tell him what we are doing in the UK: collecting petitions and

raising the profile of his case and he thanks Amnesty members for their support. He tells us that the man at the table behind is another death row inmate who wants to express his thanks for all the work that’s being done to end the death penalty.

It must be good for them to learn that there’s work happening on the outside, because Missouri is not going anywhere fast on the road to abolition, although the activists there are phenomenal. But they are fighting against a system which isn’t really listening to them.

Before travelling to Missouri we meet anti-death penalty activists in California, where things look much more positive for the anti-death penalty campaign. On 6 November Californians will vote on whether to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP). If the ballot were to pass, it would be the biggest blow against the death penalty in the US in the past 40 years.

Our group includes Lord (Ken) Macdonald, former director of public

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 23

Washington

The death penalty in the USA

Montana

North Dakota (1973)

Oregon

Death penalty abolished Including (not on the map): Alaska (1957) Hawaii (1957)

South Dakota

Idaho Wyoming

Nebraska Nevada

States retaining the death penalty Including: US Government US Military

Utah

Colorado Kansas

CALIFORNIA Oklahoma (source: www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/statesand-without-death-penalty)

Arizona

New Mexico (2009)

TEXAS

The global trend is moving towards abolition – 141 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. Those US states and countries that continue to execute are becoming increasingly isolated.

prosecutions in the UK, who is now chair of the anti-death penalty group Reprieve, Sophie Walker, Reprieve’s US death penalty investigator, and Laura Moye from Amnesty USA. We are there to find out more about the progress of the abolition campaign since the death of Troy Davis and to support the ‘Yes on 34’ campaign – so called because it’s ‘proposition number 34’ on a list of proposed changes to California’s constitution to be put before voters in November.

If it were to pass all 725 people on the state of California’s death row in San Quentin prison would be spared execution, as the new law would be retrospective. We are given a tour of San Quentin, outside Oakland, which is a very tough and sobering place, although there is one lighter moment when we are shown the exact spot where country singer Johnny Cash stood when he performed his famous concert for the inmates in 1969.

Ken Macdonald has meetings in Sacramento with a number of California

state officials. He tells them, as former DPP, how Britain has a good level of community safety and has reduced the rate of unsolved crimes, despite not having the death penalty. We take part in other supportive action for the Yes on 34 campaign. If it passes it will be fantastic. This is a historic opportunity and I hope that they take it.

Seventeen states have abolished the death penalty now in the US. We’re hoping that California will be the 18th. Since Troy Davis was executed, polls show that support for the death penalty has fallen to its lowest since 1976, when the US resumed executions. I always say now that when the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis they made a better argument in favour of abolishing the death penalty than Amnesty ever could, because they exposed the flaws in the system. The American people’s confidence in the death penalty was shaken, so it’s really vital that we keep campaigning now. We need to talk about the fact that 140 people have been released from death

24 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

row since 1976 because they were able to prove their innocence. What we don’t know is how many innocent people have been executed in the same period.

As Davis said before he was executed, ‘this struggle is not just about me, it’s for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the Troy Davises who will come after me’. There are Troy Davises and Reggie Clemonses on death rows across the US, and all around the world.

The global trend is moving towards abolition – 141 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. Those US states and countries that continue to execute are becoming increasingly isolated.

International solidarity is most important. For the Clemons family to know that people on the ‘other side of the pond’ are campaigning for their family member is wonderful. It’s about shining a really intense spotlight on Reggie’s case and, hopefully, making it impossible for the state of Missouri to execute him.

DEATH PENALTY 2012

MAINE (1887) Vermont (1964)

Minnesota (1911)

Wisconsin (1853)

New York (2007) Michigan (1846) Pennsylvania

IOWA (1965)

Ohio Illinois (2011)

Indiana

West Virginia (1965) Virginia

Kentucky

MISSOURI

New HampshirE Massachusetts (1984) Rhode Island (1984) Connecticut (2012) New Jersey (2007)

Delaware MARYLAND Dist. of Columbia (1981)

Troy Davis, whose execution last year prompted a fall in public support for the death penalty in the US

North Carolina Tennessee

Arkansas

ALABAMA

SOUth Carolina

Georgia

Mississippi Louisiana FLORIDA

Reggie Clemons: a case-study OF injustice Reggie Clemons was sentenced to death in St. Louis in 1993 as an accomplice to the murder of two young white women, Robin and Julie Kerry. There was no physical evidence and since the trial allegations have arisen of police coercion, prosecutorial misconduct, and a ‘stacked’ jury.

Two other black youths were also convicted in the 1991 murders, including Marlin Gray, who was executed in 2005.

Clemons has consistently maintained his innocence. His case illustrates many of the flaws in the US death penalty system.

Shortly after a 2009 execution date was stayed, the Missouri Supreme Court assigned a judge (a ‘Special Master’) to investigate the reliability of his conviction and proportionality of his sentence. The master will review the case at an important hearing set for 17 September.

At the time of his arrest, Reggie was a 19-year-old with no criminal history. He was among a group of four young men (ranging in age from 15 to 23 years) who encountered

Prison photocall: In front of an idyllic scenic backdrop, campaigner

the Kerry sisters and their Jamala Rogers, Vera Thomas (Reggie Clemons’s mother), Reggie Clemons, Kim Manning-Cooper (Amnesty) cousin, Thomas Cummins (all white), on the bridge.

Cummins first confessed to the crime and immediately faced charges. confession to rape out of him – though not The spotlight soon shifted to the three murder – yet the rape allegation was never African-Americans and the nightmare began. pursued. Moss’s summing up put a fictional There are lots of troubling facts in the case. scenario before the jurors, in which the Of particular concern are the allegations of women were raped and stabbed in a darkened police brutality, the prosecutorial misconduct, room. Yet there was no darkened room and the stacking of the jury. Nels Moss, a and no stabbing. Yet despite such glaring prosecutor in the case, dismissed a number of inconsistencies, Reggie was still convicted.

African-Americans from the jury. It consisted of 10 white and two non-white members, in an area where the racial mix of the general For more information and to population is close to 50-50. Moss’s conduct sign the petition, see during the trial was described by four federal www.amnesty.org.uk/reggie and judges as abusive and boorish. He compared www.justiceforreggie.com Reggie Clemons to notorious serial killers, even though Clemons had no police record PHOTO EXHIBITION: ‘I am still Troy and was 19 years old. He was fined $500 Davis’. By US photographer Scott and held in contempt of court for some of his Langley. HRAC, London 21 September. conduct during the trial.

See www.amnesty.org.uk/events Reggie claims that the police beat a false

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 25

JOURNALISTS ON THE FRONTLINE Some journalists make huge personal sacrifices to cover human rights stories, a fact that Amnesty highlights each year at the Media Awards.

Not all are foreign correspondents caught in the crossfire. Hundreds of journalists brave more shadowy threats in their own countries, from security forces, political interest groups, or organised crime, among others.

Since 1992, 926 journalists have been killed while working. More than two-thirds of these – 647 – were murdered, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Politics, corruption, crime and human rights are the four areas most often covered by murdered journalists.

Among the 10 deadliest countries for journalists are Somalia and Mexico. Lydia Cacho is a human rights journalist based in Cancún, south-eastern Mexico. In a telephone call on 29 July, a male voice called her ‘bitch’ and threatened her with death if she ‘messed’ with them. She filed a formal complaint about the threat with Mexico’s Attorney General.

Lydia began receiving threats after publishing a book in 2005, exposing a child pornography ring which she said operated with the knowledge of politicians and business people.

This led to her being detained for defamation.

Despite this, she has continued to investigate trafficking of women and girls.

Earlier in the year, six journalists were killed in less than a month in Mexico, highlighting

26 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

the authorities’ failure to protect media workers from violence. This risk level has led some media organisations to stop covering organised crime.

Somalian authorities routinely ignore the killing of journalists. Two media workers were killed in separate incidents in the capital Mogadishu during one mid-August weekend. Yusuf Ali Osman, a former veteran journalist and official in Somalia’s Ministry of Information, was shot dead on 12 August by two young men reportedly wearing school uniforms. That same afternoon, radio and web journalist Mohamoud Ali Keyre was killed, reportedly by stray bullets during a fight between government troops in the Yaqshid district.

Each year, Amnesty uses its Media Awards to publish a comprehensive list of all journalists killed, and all journalists currently imprisoned because of their work. Events in the Middle East and North Africa seem to have pushed this figure up by more than 20 percent this year, to 174 behind bars, according to the CPJ.

MEDIA AWARDS 2012

BEYOND THE HEADLINES

Photojournalists demand justice after a series of attacks on media workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh in May. Three journalists at the online news portal bdnews24.com were seriously wounded when men brandishing machetes burst into their offices. Three photojournalists from the Prothom Alo newspaper were attacked by police and left with multiple fractures after covering a student demonstration. Journalist murders and attacks regularly go unpunished in Bangladesh. © Demotix

REMEMBERING MARIE Events in the Middle East shaped many of the shortlisted entries for Amnesty’s Media Awards this year – not least the work of the veteran reporter Marie Colvin, who tragically paid with her life earlier this year to get news out of Syria.

Journalists from print, broadcast and digital media gathered at the British Film Institute in central London on 29 May 2012 for a memorable ceremony to announce Amnesty’s coveted annual Media Awards.

While the entries covered a broad range of subjects, many in some way reflected the year’s dramatic events in the Middle East and North Africa. Syria’s bloody uprising, the struggle in Bahrain, the Gaddafi regime’s final days – here, as elsewhere, brave and determined journalists threw a spotlight on the plights of ordinary people.

Most poignant among the awards was the posthumous win in the National Newspaper category for Marie Colvin for her article ‘We

Live in Fear of a Massacre’ (above right, Sunday Times). The article was Marie’s last piece, written literally days before she was killed in a Syrian army rocket attack on the Baba Amr suburb of Homs on 22 February.

Among the many tributes paid to Marie’s life’s work was a special video message from her mother Rosemarie. She spoke of her ‘pride’ at the Amnesty award and described the motivation behind Marie’s courageous reporting.

‘She told the story of war always through the eyes of people who were suffering. Through children, through women, through various people who were being injured by despotic rulers. She wanted to bring that to light.’

Coverage of the battle in Homs, Syria, also brought awards for ‘Mani’ for Channel 4 News (Gaby Rado Memorial Award) and for Sue Lloyd Roberts for BBC Newsnight (Television News). But the ceremony did not only showcase stories from conflict zones.

Subjects closer to home and stories long dropped from the headlines also won awards.

These included BBC Radio 5’s broadcast live from Guantánamo Bay (Victoria Derbyshire) despite official obstruction, Mary Turner’s intimate photographic portrayal of Dale Farm family life (Times), Will Storr’s exposure of widespread male rape in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (Observer), the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s multi-media feature on deaths in UK police custody, and Ronke Phillips’s investigation into the 2001 ‘torso in the Thames’ mystery of a trafficked and murdered child (ITV London/ITN).

Guests at the event joined in a campaign action for Dina Meza, an experienced human rights journalist in Honduras who recently received violent threats - in 2007 Dina received an Amnesty Special Award for Human Rights Journalism under Threat.

The awards, hosted this year by Sky News presenter Dermot Murnaghan, recognise excellence in human rights reporting and acknowledge journalism’s significant contribution to public awareness and understanding of human rights issues. With 12 categories, including one for student journalists, the awards are judged by panels of prominent journalists and media personalities.

There is growing interest in human rights journalism among a younger generation, judging by the galloping success of Amnesty’s Young Human Rights Reporter of the Year.

Now in just its third year, the competition attracted more than 3,000 school students, up from 700 entries last year. Co-sponsored by the Guardian Teacher Network and the education weekly SecEd, this year’s judges included the award-winning children’s author Kathryn Cave.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 27

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28 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

MEDIA AWARDS 2012

MEDIA AWARDS 2012 WINNERS Media Awards 2012 winners from left: Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields; The Rape of Men; A Place to stay - Dale Farm

DOCUMENTARY

MAGAZINES: CONSUMER

RADIO

Winner: Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields.

ITN Channel 4 (Callum Macrae, Chris Shaw, Jon Snow).

Shortlisted: Enemies of the People (Voices from The Killing Fields), More 4 (Rob Lemkin, Stefan Ronowicz, Thet Sambath); Give up Tomorrow, BBC4 Storyville (Michael Collins, Nick Fraser, Eric Daniel Metzgar, Marty Syjuco).

Winner: Nature’s Defenders.

New Internationalist (Vanessa Baird).

Shortlisted: The Art Issue: Art or Vandalism?; Russia’s Robin Hood; China’s New Deal. Index On Censorship (Yasmine El Rashidi, Nick Sturdee, Simon Kirby (respectively)).

Winner: Victoria Derbyshire in Guantánamo Bay. BBC Radio 5 Live (Louisa Compton, Victoria Derbyshire, Rob Halon).

Shortlisted: Afghanistan: Counting the Cost. BBC Radio 4 Today/The World Tonight (Nina Manwaring, Ceri Thomas, Mike Thomson).

STUDENT

DIGITAL

MAGAZINES: NEWSPAPER SUPPLEMENTS Winner: The Rape of Men. Observer Magazine (Will Storr).

Shortlisted: The 1,000,000 Ghosts of Baghdad. Mail on Sunday Live Magazine (Evan Williams).

Winner: Deaths in Custody: A Case to Answer. Bureau of Investigative Journalism (Dan Bell, Iain Overton, Stuart Griffiths, Charlie Mole, Rachel Oldroyd, Angus Stickler).

Shortlisted: The Execution of Troy Davis, Guardian (Ed Pilkington, Guardian Digital Team); Voices from Dark Places: Exposing the Crimes of the Assad Regime, Al Jazeera (Annasofie Flamand, Hugh Macleod).

GABY RADO MEMORIAL AWARD Winner: Horror in Homs. Channel 4 News (‘Mani’).

Shortlisted: Midnight’s Children; Kenya is on the Brink of its own Disaster; ‘Bridenapping’: A Growing Hidden Crime, Independent on Sunday (Emily Dugan); Nigeria: Sex, Lies and Black Magic; Uganda’s Miracle Babies; Honduras: Diving into Danger, Channel 4 Unreported World (Jenny Kleeman).

INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION & RADIO Winner: Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark.

Al Jazeera (May Ying Welsh, Jon Blair).

Shortlisted: Assignment: Blasphemy - A Matter of Life and Death, BBC World Service (Caroline Finnigan, Bridget Harney, Jill McGivering, Bushra Taskeen); Death in the Desert, CNN (Sheri England, Mohamed Fahmy, Tim Lister, Earl Nurse, Frederik Pleitgen).

NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS Winner: We Live in Fear of a Massacre.

Sunday Times (Marie Colvin).

Shortlisted: In Europe’s last Dictatorship all Opposition is Mercilessly Crushed; ‘My Husband Phoned to Say he was Going to the Sauna ... We Never Saw Him Again’; RBS Helped Bankroll Europe’s Last Dictatorship, Independent (Jerome Taylor); Investigation into Undercover Policing of Protest, Guardian (Paul Lewis, Rob Evans).

NATIONS & REGIONS Winner: Torso in the Thames.

ITN/ITV (Ronke Phillips, Faye Nickolds).

Shortlisted: Gaddafi’s Secret Policemen Came to Talk to Me; Women of the World’s Worst Slums. Sunday Herald (David Pratt).

PHOTOJOURNALISM Winner: A Place to Stay - Dale Farm.

Times (Mary Turner).

Shortlisted: Revolution: Human Rights Abuse in Egypt, NUJ (Lewis Whyld); The Rattle Of War And The Pain Of Hunger, Guardian (Robin Hammond).

Winner: The Curious Case of John Oguchuckwu. Glasgow Guardian (Amy Mackinnon).

Shortlisted: Democracy Criminalised in East Jerusalem, Brig Newspaper/Stirling University (Boel Marcks Von Wurtemberg); Living in Exile. Life 360, Cardiff University’s International Journalism Magazine (Paul Dharamraj).

TELEVISION NEWS Winner: Undercover in Homs. BBC Newsnight (Amanda Gunn, Sue Lloyd Roberts).

Shortlisted: Battle for Misrata, ITV News (John Irvine, Arti Lukha, Sean Swan, Tim Singleton, Deborah Turness); Horror in Homs, Channel 4 News (Agnieszka Liggett, ‘Mani’, Jonathan Miller, Nevine Mabro, Teresa Smith).

YOUNG HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTER OF THE YEAR Winners: Upper Primary (7-11): Aine Clarke, Newport Primary School, Newport, Fife.

Lower Secondary (11-14): Alice Reynolds, The Royal School, Haslemere.

Upper Secondary (14-16): Heather Booton, Skipton Girls’ High School, Skipton.

Sixth Form (16-18): Alice Woodhouse, Kings High School, Warwick.

For details of next year’s Young Human Rights Reporter competition, see page 35.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 29

campaign action

act now Actions are simple things that can make a real difference to human rights. Visit our website for more actions and all the latest updates: www.amnesty.org.uk/takeaction

sample letter

H.E Alain Giorgio Maria Economides The Ambassador of Italy to the UK Italian Embassy 14 Three Kings Yard Davies Street London W1K 4EH A mother and child fleeing Libya arrive in Italy, May 2012 © UNHCR/F. Noy

Italy protect migrants AND refugees fleeing Libya On 3 April Italy signed a new agreement with Libya on migration control despite evidence that migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers are subjected to serious abuse in Libya.

The majority of migrants leaving Libya for Europe come from countries such as Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan. They are often fleeing conflict and persecution and should therefore be granted some form of international protection. The abuses they suffer in Libya include torture and indefinite detention in harsh conditions.

The new agreement commits Libya to strengthening its borders to prevent the departure of migrants from its territory. Italy is to provide training and equipment for border surveillance. However, effective human rights safeguards are completely absent, and no mechanism is envisaged to identify and assist those who need international protection.

Amnesty is urging the Italian government to make sure that its migration control policies and practices do not cause, contribute to, or benefit from human rights violations.

Italy is one of many European states stepping up migration control. As a result, people on the move can have their human rights violated – often out of the public eye.

FIND OUT MORE: www.whereyoudontexist.eu TAKE ACTION

Call on the Italian authorities to safeguard the human rights of migrants, refugees and asylumseekers fleeing Libya.

Your Excellency I am writing to share my concerns about the disturbing migration control policies recently enacted by the Italian government.

Despite substantial public evidence that migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers are still subject to serious abuse in Libya, on 3 April this year Italy signed a new agreement with the Libyan authorities. It did so even though the policy of push-backs at sea was clearly condemned by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Hirsi Jamaa and Others v Italy, last February, and the Italian government gave a public commitment to implementingthe ruling.

The Italian authorities still seek support from Libya in stemming migration flows, while turning a blind eye to the fact that migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers are at risk of serious human rights abuse there. Through the April agreement, Libya has committed itself to strengthening its borders so as to prevent the departure of migrants from its territory. Italy has committed itself to providing training and equipment to enhance border surveillance. However, effective human rights safeguards are completely absent, and no mechanism is envisaged to deal with those in need of international protection.

The Libyan authorities still do not recognise the right to seek or enjoy asylum, have not signed the UN Convention on Refugees, and to date no official agreement with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is in place.

I am joining Amnesty International’s calls asking the Italian government to: • Set aside any existing migration control agreements with Libya • Make public all migration control agreements negotiated with Libya or any other country • Disclose details of past and current cooperation projects with Libya, including those funded by the European Union, as well as information on provision of official resources, staff and equipment • Commit that it will only enter into further agreements on migration control with Libya once Libya can demonstrate that it respects and protects the human rights of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants and has put in place a satisfactory system for assessing and recognising claims for international protection.

I ask you kindly to urge your government to take these recommendations into consideration, so as to ensure that Italy’s migration control policies and practices do not cause, contribute to, or benefit from human rights violations.

Yours sincerely,

30 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

AMNESTY PEOPLE

This page focuses on Amnesty campaigners, fundraisers, supporters and educators. If you know someone you’d like to see interviewed contact The Editor (see page 3 for contact details)

0123456789

50 Years

Amnesty International

THE prize: Two tickets to The Secret Policem en’s Ball, flights to New accommodation for three York, nights and £500 spendin g money (details overlea f).

YORK for WIN A TRIP TO NEW

Closing Date: 14 Februar y 2012 Draw Date: 16 Februar y 2012

MEET PETER HOWLETT

dy show Policeman’s Ball come flights, see Amnesty’s Secret two tickets to the Ball, Here is your chance to raffle and you could win in New York. Enter our money! ing spend £500 and accommodation

£5

Closi

ng Date

14 Feb ru 2012 ary

‘Crikey, look at this main prize on Amnesty’s raffle this year. New York for the Secret Policeman’s Ball, hotel for three nights and £500 spending money’. I was in the kitchen talking to my wife Ruth. ‘Wow,’ she said, ‘That sounds fun – go for it.’

The normal reaction for us is either to ignore raffles or just to send an additional donation.

This was different and fun and anyway, we weren’t going to win so what did it matter!

We are retired and live in South Cumbria after careers in education and the voluntary sector in Portsmouth. An awareness of human rights has probably been there, although initially undefined, from an early age. There was no blinding revelation just a steady drip, drip, drip of incidents that seemed so wrong and difficult to understand in terms of people’s relationships with each other.

Being born in the Second World War was probably a good place to start with an awareness of human rights and racial prejudices but of course this only develops over time. I do though remember from my earliest years a complete inability to understand why human beings can be so extraordinarily cruel to each other. Later grew an understanding of the terrible negation of freedom of speech and human rights in so many parts of the world.

I have no idea when I joined Amnesty but it was many years ago. Probably like many members I am perhaps a little ashamed to admit that involvement has only been at the level of financial giving and doing my best to respond to as many of the letter/postcard campaigns as possible. This has certainly increased in retirement, but yes, I could do more!

In what seemed like a very short time following the completion of the raffle entry there was a call from Amnesty. The raffle had been

© Private

Ruth and Peter Howlett, longstanding Amnesty members, just occasionally ‘do the raffle’ and never expect to win. Then came their lucky day. forgotten because we never win on these things.

I assumed the call was a rather interesting take on trying to achieve an increase in my monthly giving. It took a little while before I realised that the expression ‘you’ve won the main prize’ meant exactly that. Imagine our surprise and excitement!

We had been to the States twice before but never to New York, never to a smart hotel and never as special guests to an important event.

This was going to be truly something and sure enough it was.

Space doesn’t admit a full account of the trip but it was fantastic. The legendary Secret Policeman’s Ball, first time out of the UK; the legendary Radio City Music Hall; an invite to the reception before the show and the amazing show itself. That alone and then home on the next flight would have been very special – but we also had what became four nights in New York to enjoy. And a superb hotel overlooking the centre of Broadway and Times Square. What lucky people!

A final few words about Amnesty in New York and the show. The venue was packed to the

rafters with people, largely Americans, who were clearly hugely supportive, aware and appreciative of Amnesty’s work. The performers and production were superb (if a little beyond the 9 o’clock watershed in their material), important of course to emphasise freedom of speech. And boy, did we have some envious younger friends and relatives when they heard we had seen Coldplay live. Tickets for UK gigs are apparently gold dust. There was also a good mix of American and British performers and we were surprised that many of ours appeared to be so well known in America.

To Amnesty and especially Shana Alexander and Rachel Doughty for their excellent organisation and support, Ruth and I can only say thank you for a wonderful experience. To Amnesty, keep up the good work – it was deeply reassuring to see at first hand the respect and enthusiasm for the organisation. Very well done to all involved and again thank you.

Interview: Shana Alexander

TEMPTED? JOIN OUR AUTUMN RAFFLE As well as rewarding our supporters with some great prizes the raffle helps to fundraise for Amnesty International’s campaigning work.

Over the last three years the raffle has raised over £3 million and we want to raise £175,000 from the raffle this Autumn, so please join in. You can buy tickets from 24 September so call us on 020 7033 1777 (Mon-Fri 9am-6pm) to order yours.

All ticket stubs need to be returned by 7 December and the draw is on 14 December. Good luck!

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 31

Real lives Postage Rates: World (Zones 1&2) 10 gram letter: 87p 20 gram letter: £1.28p Europe Up to 20 grams: 87p

© Movice

MOVICE COLOMBIA Human rights defenders face death threats Killings, threats and attacks have intensified against members of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), a coalition of 200-plus human rights and social organisations. They campaign for truth, justice and reparation for the countless victims of human rights violations committed by the security forces and paramilitary groups in Colombia’s long-running armed conflict.

Those campaigning for Afro-descendant communities, Indigenous Peoples and peasant farmers displaced by the conflict have been particularly targeted, because a new law may lead to the restitution of some lands stolen by all parties to the conflict.

The Verbel Rocha family in Sucre Department are among the campaigners targeted by paramilitaries. Eder Verbel Rocha was killed on 23 March 2011 and there was an attempt to kill Hermes Verbel Rocha in April 2012. Rogelio Martínez, leader of the peasant farmer community of La Alemania, was killed in May 2010. Other MOVICE members working on La Alemania received death threats in May 2012.

TAKE ACTION

APPEAL Urge the authorities

to take effective measures to protect members of MOVICE according to their wishes. Call for immediate investigations into the attacks against human rights defenders.

Señor Juan Manuel Santos Presidente de la República de Colombia Palacio de Nariño, Carrera 8 No.7-26 Bogotá Colombia Salutation: Dear President Santos/ Excmo. Sr. Presidente Santos His Excellency Mr Mauricio RodriguezMunera Embassy of Colombia 3 Hans Crescent London SW1X 0LN Fax: 020 7581 1829

For a copy of our free letterwriting guide, send sae to: The Editor, Amnesty, Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA

PALESTINIAN DETAINEES PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

CHEN ZHENPING CHINA

© Private

campaign action

Six detainees missing since 2002

Six Palestinian men, last heard of at a Palestinian Authority (PA) detention centre in Salfit, West Bank, on 12 March 2002, are still missing. They have been subjected to enforced disappearance.

The six are ‘Ali al-Khdair, Taiseer Ramadhan, Nazem Abu ‘Ali, Shaker Saleh, Ismail Ayash and Mohammad Alqrum. They appear not to have been formally charged, but were alleged to have passed information to the Israeli security services.

Before their disappearance, the men’s families visited them in detention and reported that they had been tortured. They noted marks on the men’s bodies where they had been tied in painful positions, and cigarette burns on their faces or bodies.

PA security forces said the six had escaped from the detention centre and fled towards Israel. The PA authorities have given no more information about them. Despite reports that the men died in detention, officials informally advised the families to drop the case. There has been no investigation into their fate.

TAKE ACTION

APPEAL Call for an investigation

into the reported torture and subsequent enforced disappearance of the six men. Urge that the findings be made public and that anyone responsible for torturing the men be brought to justice in a fair trial.

His Excellency Mahmoud Abbas Office of the President Ramallah Palestinian Authority, via Israel Salutation: Your Excellency Prof Manuel S Hassassian The Palestinian General Delegate Palestinian General Delegation 5 Galena Road London W6 0LT Fax 020 8563 0058

32 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

Drugged, tortured, denied fair trial Chen Zhenping was jailed for eight years in August 2008 for practising Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned in China. She is being held at Henan Provincial Women’s Prison.

A former detainee reported that Chen Zhenping has been regularly stripped naked and beaten, tied to a bed and prevented from using the toilet. They reported hearing her cry: ‘Don’t give me the shot, I don’t want to take the drug.’

She has also received electric shocks.

It is unlikely Chen Zhenping had legal representation at her trial. Her family could not hire a lawyer as Chinese authorities have systematically deterred lawyers from representing Falun Gong practitioners. They managed to hire a lawyer after the trial, but he has been prevented from speaking to Chen Zhenping in private or enquiring into her case.

When Chen Zhenping’s daughter went to the court to collect a copy of the sentencing document, she was punched, kicked and stamped on by a court employee. Local police refused to investigate.

TAKE ACTION

Appeal Call for the immediate, unconditional release of Chen Zhenping, whom Amnesty International considers to be a prisoner of conscience. Call for an investigation into reports of her torture, and for those responsible to face justice.

Li Xinming Secretary, Political and Legal Committee Jinshuiqu Jinshuilu, 17 Zhengzhousi, 450000 Henansheng China Salutation: Dear Secretary His Excellency Mr Liu Xiaoming Embassy of the People’s Republic of China 49-51 Portland Place London W1B 1JL

appeals updateS

Dr Amadou Scattred Janneh is serving a life sentence for being in possession of t-shirts with the slogan ‘End to Dictatorship Now’. He was arrested on 7 June 2011 and charged with ‘intent to cause, or bring into hatred, contempt or to excite disaffection against the person of the President or the Government of The Gambia’.

Dr Janneh, who is the former Minister of Information and Communication in the Gambian government, was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on 16 January 2012. The t-shirts were made by a non-governmental organisation, the Coalition for Change – The Gambia (CCG).

Activists and journalists in Gambia are routinely subjected to human rights violations such as unlawful arrest and detention, torture, unfair trials, harassment, assault and death threats, making it extremely difficult for them to do their work.

TAKE ACTION

Appeal Call for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr Amadou Scattred Janneh, whom Amnesty International considers to be a prisoner of conscience. Note that his arrest and imprisonment violate his rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association.

Dr Alhaji Yahya Jammeh President Private Mail Bag State House Banjul The Gambia Salutation: Your Excellency Her Excellency Mrs Elizabeth Ya Eli Harding The Gambia High Commission 92 Ledbury Road London W11 2AH Fax: 020 7229 9225

On 17 December 2010, around 350 people, the majority Roma, were forcibly evicted by local authorities from Coastei Street, in the centre of Cluj-Napoca city, Romania. Forty families were re-housed on the outskirts in the New Pata Rat area, close to the city’s rubbish dump and a former chemical waste dump. Another 36 families were effectively made homeless.

The housing provided is inadequate and cramped, with no hot water or gas. The closest bus stop is approximately 2.5km away, making it difficult for residents to reach education, employment, health care and other essential services.

Some of those not offered re-housing have since been informally allowed by the local authorities to build improvised homes nearby.

They have no access to water, sanitation or electricity. With only a verbal agreement from the municipality and no security of tenure, they live in daily fear of eviction.

TAKE ACTION

Appeal Urge the Mayor of

Cluj-Napoca to hold genuine consultations with all families from the New Pata Rat on long-term housing plans, and to provide effective remedies and reparation for losses and suffering incurred from this forced eviction. Ask the Mayor to address the families’ urgent needs, providing them with minimum security of tenure and access to utilities and services.

Primar Cluj-Napoca Str. Motilor nr. 7 Cluj-Napoca Romania Salutation: Dear Mayor His Excellency Dr Ion Jinga Embassy of Romania Arundel House 4 Palace Green London W8 4QD Fax: 020 7937 8069

© Payvand.com

Forced to live near waste dumps

APPEALS UPDATES

© AI Jazeera English

Life sentence for possessing t-shirts

COASTEI STREET FAMILIES ROMANIA

© Joshua Gross, Joshua Tree Photography

© CCG

AMADOU SCATTRED JANNEH GAMBIA

Nasrin Sotoudeh The family of prominent human rights lawyer and prisoner of conscience Nasrin Sotoudeh (Real Lives June 2012) continue to be harassed. A travel ban has been imposed on her husband, Reza Khandan and their 12-year old daughter, Mehraveh Khandan.

Nasrin Sotoudeh is serving a six-year prison sentence in Tehran’s Evin Prison on the vaguely worded charges of ‘spreading propaganda against the system’ and ‘acting against national security’ through membership of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders. She denies the charges.

Amnesty believes that the harassment of her family is intended to force them to stop campaigning for her release. Nasrin Sotoudeh has been held in Evin Prison in Tehran since her arrest on 4 September 2010, including a lengthy period in solitary confinement.

John Teterissa Prisoner of conscience Johan Teterissa (GCC 2010) has been at risk of further torture and other ill-treatment in Batu Prison, Nusakambangan island, Indonesia, following a transfer from Madiun Prison in East Java. On arrival at Batu, he was beaten with electric cables. He has not received medical treatment.

Johan Teterissa was arrested in June 2007 after taking part in a peaceful demonstration in Ambon, the capital of Maluku province. He is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence.

He and other inmates, including prisoner of conscience Joni Sinay, were transferred to Batu Prison on 21 July, reportedly because of overcrowding. His lawyers were not informed about the transfer beforehand. Soon after his arrival at Batu Prison he and his fellow prisoners from Madiun were reportedly kicked and beaten by prison guards.

(Action has been taken by the Urgent Action Network)

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 33

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34 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

Events

Book sale 17 November, 10am-4pm Church of the Dartmouth Row, London SE10 8BF The Blackheath and Greenwich group is holding another of its famous book sales, with thousands of titles on offer.

what’s on...

Amnesty Northwest regional conference 17 November, 10am-4pm Friends Meeting House, Lancaster Contact: Jennifer Jaynes, jenniferjaynes@live.co.uk

USING THE LISTINGS All listings are placed in date order. The key below denotes the event category:

Award

Conference

Exhibition

Film

Literature Music

Festival Fundraising

Scott Langley exhibition I am still Troy Davis from 21 September, 7pm Free HRAC

Talk Theatre HRAC

Events held at the Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA. Events are free unless stated.

Bookings are essential at www.amnesty.org.uk/events

SEPTEMBER Sponsored walk 16 September, 9-11am Free Starts Buckhurst car park, Sevenoaks The walk – over 3, 5 or 10 miles – through the beautiful Kent countryside is either for a donation or sponsored. There is a superb lunch of homemade food at a farm for which we request £5 a head.

For more information, visit www.sevenoaks.amnesty.org.uk Talk: Human rights on the West Bank 18 September, 7.30pm St John’s Episcopal Church, Princes Street, Perth, PH2 8LJ The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel brings internationals to the West Bank to experience life under occupation. Ian Bell’s presentation – Monitoring Human rights on the West Bank: three months as an ecumenical accompanier in Qalqiliya District – reflects on his personal experience.

This exceptional photo exhibition marks the anniversary of Troy Davis’s execution in Georgia USA. US photographer Scott Langley documented the campaign for Troy including scenes on the night of his execution outside the prison near Jackson, Georgia.

Young Human Rights Reporter of the Year Calling all budding journalists and photojournalists...

In September we launch our 2013 young reporter competition. We’re looking for compelling news stories by young people on any human rights issue you feel passionate about. This year we’ve added a photojournalism category for great photos on a human rights theme – and you don’t have to be an expert.

For students aged 7 to 18 years. Top entries will be published and winners will be announced at a special Amnesty award ceremony in London.

See www.amnesty.org.uk/ youngreporter

NOVEMBER Amnesty International UK National Student Conference 16-18 November Expert speakers, discussion and debate, and a chance to learn new campaigning skills and meet students from all over the UK. Book at: www.amnesty.org.uk/ student

AUTUMN RAFFLE NOW! The Amnesty raffle is about to mail out (21 September). It’s that time when we can offer Amnesty supporters some great prizes.

Call 020 7033 1777 (Mon-Fri 9am–6pm) to order your tickets. The raffle will draw on 14 December.

Good luck!

Talking about Amnesty Autumn 2012 Our volunteer speakers reach out to over 50,000 young people a year, helping them to understand Amnesty’s work and develop a passion for human rights. To join the School Speakers Network you must complete a one-day training session and then obtain a satisfactory Criminal Records clearance (which Amnesty will pay for). We are running two speaker training sessions this autumn.

School speaker training sessions 29 September 9.45am-5pm HRAC

3 November 9.45am-5pm Warwick University

Shortlisted entrants for Amnesty’s 2012 Young Human Rights Reporter of the Year ceremony, shown with host Ellie Crisell of Newsround (centre)

To find out more or to register for training visit: www.amnesty.org.uk/speakers speakers@amnesty.org.uk

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 35

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The report will be available to order from September. We encourage you to read it and we would love to hear your views.

• To read or download online go to www.amnesty.org.uk/accountability • To order a printed copy contact sct@amnesty.org.uk or call 020 7033 1777 Amnesty is committed to best practice in transparency and accountability, and has signed up to the International NGO Accountability Charter. This report was also checked by the Global Reporting Initiative.

36 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012

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Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group Needs new trustees to determine direction and strategy We: - visit immigration detainees at the airport - give practical and emotional support - raise public awareness of detention www.gdwg.org.uk Contact: anna.seddon@btinternet.com Tel 01273 845 363

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23

your letters

Drone attacks The report, USA: ‘Targeted Killing’ Policies Violate the Right to Life, 15 June 2012, shows that Amnesty is very concerned about drone attacks following obviously carrying out extensive and careful research.

I had assumed that because there had been no mention of these attacks in our magazine, we were not looking into the issue. I hope there soon will be a mention.

Desmond Goodier Palestinians’ plight It seems to me that there is a real lack of knowledge and understanding regarding the plight of Palestinians. If the British public were aware of the abuse that the Palestinians are constantly subjected to under the Israeli apartheid regime, surely they would be disgusted, horrified and would demand justice.

There are some wonderful people and organisations who do a terrific job supporting the Palestinian cause, but it appears that it hasn’t fully registered here at home. It took time before support against apartheid in South Africa was sufficiently large to affect change; is the Israel/Palestine issue also a slow burner and is change just a matter of time?

Gary Davies, Wellington, Somerset Fight discrimination with discrimination In your latest issue you ran an article entitled ‘Muslims face Europe-wide prejudice’. The article describes as ‘prejudice’ and ‘discrimination’ a kind of exclusion that Islamists themselves often perpetuate and maintain, by the doctrines of their faith, against women and homosexuals.

In the same issue, you also praise the work of LGBT activist Maurice Tomlinson for his work against homophobia in Jamaica.

Your editors are inconsistent in supporting the hijab (which promotes sexual apartheid and internal discrimination, within

Islamic communities, against women) and then blaming ‘Europeans’ for taking a stand against this form of dress – even though many of the ‘Europeans’ who oppose the hijab and burka are themselves Muslim.

I appreciate that multiculturalism is a complex subject but you are NOT helping the cause of women anywhere by supporting Islamic sexism and the forms of dress that perpetuate it.

Dr T M Murray Amnesty believes that it is wrong for women to be compelled to wear a headscarf or veil, either by the state or by anyone else; it is also wrong for women to be prohibited by law from wearing it.

I entirely support the campaign mentioned on page 5 of the June/ July magazine which highlights the discrimination against Muslims in Europe.

What I have not seen – or may have missed – is Amnesty’s condemnation of the destruction of property, rape and murder of Christians in Muslim countries such as Pakistan, Nigeria and Egypt.

Should this be the subject of another report, equally condemnatory?

S J Dalton, Ludlow Human rights violations against Christians in a number of countries, including those mentioned above, are detailed in the Amnesty International Report 2012.

Killing with kindness Unless Gregory Sams (March issue) had his tongue firmly in his cheek when writing his letter, am I to assume that his inference is that it is perfectly acceptable to kill judicially if something more ‘reliable and readily available’ is to hand?

Why didn’t anyone think of it before – let’s not strive to eradicate the death penalty everywhere but, rather, redirect our efforts to ensuring that those countries which still retain it perpetuate capital sentencing with all due

© CARE

mailbox

Afghan Women’s Network delegation at the Bonn conference on the future of Afghanistan, December 2011

STAR LETTER

Women’s rights in Afghanistan I would like to recommend Fawzia Koofi’s autobiography The Favoured Daughter to all interested in women’s rights. It’s an absolutely fascinating account of her life up to recent times, when she became Afghanistan’s first female deputy speaker.

It’s of significance now when Western forces are preparing to leave the country. In the last few months an edict was issued by the Ulema Council of top clerics stating that ‘Women are subordinate to men, should not mix in work or education and must always travel accompanied by a male guardian’. This statement is not legally binding but it was published

by President Karzai’s office without comment, which can be taken as unspoken approval.

We must try to ensure that Afghani women hold on to their slender gains made over the past 10 years and not allow the Taliban to push them back into purdah.

A Formstone, London

Send your letters to: The Editor, Amnesty Magazine, Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA. Max 150 words.

Include your address. Letters may be cut or edited. Or email us at: sct@amnesty.org.uk with ‘letter to editor’ in the subject line. humanity and compassion.

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘killing with kindness’, doesn’t it?

Charles E Burrough, Birkenhead TUNING IN TO TWITTER How Amnesty International would like you to use your influence for Nadezhda, Maria and Ekaterina – http://amn.st/riot2 #PussyRiots @stephenfry

Love getting the @AmnestyUK magazine and reading the good news & seeing one of our group actions having made a difference #writeforrights @hunderhi Casually reading Amnesty International Magazine whilst sunbathing. #goodytwoshoes @LegalAidLass

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2012 www.amnesty.org.uk AMNESTYmagazine 37

© Ian Skalski

last word

LIKE A JOLT OF ELECTRICITY Multi-talented musician, songwriter, producer and former Eurythmics star Dave Stewart has worked with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Mick Jagger.

Together with singer Joss Stone and war photographer Paul Conroy, Dave has produced the song Take Good Care in support of Amnesty’s campaign for an effective Arms Trade Treaty.

Interview Camilla Kinchin

THE ARMS TRADE TREATY read more See pages 4 and 8 Take action See page 28 The new version of the song ‘take good care’ will be released on 5 July (available on iTunes).

When did you first become aware of human rights abuses?

I think you vaguely become aware of them as a child – bullying, in a way, is not too dissimilar.

When I moved to London at 17 I arrived at the perfect time for a teenager to get their mind blown – 1969. I started going to concerts, and there was a massive explosion of magazines such as IT and Oz. For the first time you read what was going on from a different perspective, and I started to get aware of the massive injustices going on around the world.

How did you get involved with Amnesty?

During the 1980s, the Eurythmics were travelling around the world and we met lots of different people and were exposed to different views. We started to look at Amnesty and Greenpeace and then later on, in 1999, of course we did a huge tour [the proceeds of which went to Amnesty and Greenpeace]. At every gig we had huge things for people to sign up to the organisations, and backstage we would meet the local Amnesty people. We became hands-on at this point – our children even sat in Amnesty and Greenpeace offices in different countries while we were rehearsing.

Why is the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) so important to you?

Whether it’s drug gangs in Mexico, the things we saw rising up in [the former Yugoslavia] a while ago or what’s happening in the Congo, someone somewhere along the line is making these weapons and shipping them off to areas that are in complete disarray. I think it’s just pretty obvious that that’s not a very good idea.

38 AMNESTYmagazine www.amnesty.org.uk JUNE/JULY 2012

How did Take Good Care come about?

One day I phoned Joss and asked her to come and record in Nashville. She was with Paul at the time and asked him about the song he had been singing. He sang it to her and told her the story about a war photographer he knew who got shot in the head, and Joss started crying.

She took a recording of it, and when we were in Nashville, I said: ‘We’ve got to record this’.

Amnesty then suggested it would be a good thing to use in the ATT campaign.

What has been the most memorable moment of your life?

There’ve been a few. One was spending time with Nelson Mandela. We were talking and he was being very humorous one minute and then just saying something, in a very easy way, that just made you think about it for six months or so. He took me to see the cell he had been in on Robben Island. That was an amazing, unforgettable moment. And there were musical things too – playing live with Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger and obviously Annie Lennox.

What inspires you?

I think I have a good illness: I wake up in the morning, open my eyes and I’m like ‘I’m alive!’.

It’s like a jolt of electricity. I have this child-like quality to look at the world every day like it’s unbelievable.

What are you working on now?

I’ve got a musical on Broadway, Ghost, and a TV series, Malibu Country, I’ve created for ABC in America. I’m writing a kind of autobiography called The Ringmaster, and have an album coming out, The Ringmaster General.

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By carrying the card, you’ve made it possible for us to protect people at risk around the world. Please keep up the great work.

If you don’t have one yet then you can help us achieve the next big target by applying today. To celebrate the occasion The Co-operative Bank will give Amnesty: • £30 for every account opened • £2.50 when the card is first used • 0.25% of everything spent on or transferred to the card It adds up so quickly.

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Why not join the thousands who helped raise this total? Applicants must be UK residents aged 18 years or over with an annual income of £10,000 or more. Call The Co-operative Bank on:

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