November 2014 Meeting

At our November monthly meeting we were fortunate in hearing from Michael Fisher, one of Amnesty’s two country co-ordinators for the USA. Michael spoke about America’s increasing use of unmanned drones which have been killing people outside the bounds of human rights and the law in forty or more countries over time.

This presentation was a shocking and chilling indictment of US foreign policy, the secrecy and confusion which surrounds their use of drone strikes and the US administration’s refusal to acknowledge accountability for the large number of civilian’s killed alongside targeted military personnel.

Michael told us about the case of a grandmother, Mamana Bibi who was blown to bits in 2012 by a US drone while in her garden in Pakistan. Members of her family were also injured and subsequently testified before Congress in October this year. However, only five members of congress attended the hearing.

Michael urged us to to take action in support of Amnesty’s campaign calling upon the US government to investigate impartially both Mamana Bibi’s death and all other killings resulting from US drone strikes. To add your message, please go to:

http://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.id=27591&ea.tracking.id=MessagingCategory_SecurityandHR-drones~Country_Pakistan

For further information:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/usa-targeted-killing-policies-violate-the-rig

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/24/truth-about-united-states-drone-program