September 2019. Minutes

Truro and District Amnesty International Group

Minutes of Meeting held on 11 September 2019

Present: Margaret George; Melissa Ward; Emily Hill; Georgie Wong; Hetty Tye; Linnea Glynne-Rule; Karen Cooper

Apologies: Carol Liesse; Wailim Wong; Shirl Sweeney; Chris Ramsey

1. Matters arising from minutes of July meeting

• Clarified that Princess Latifa of Dubai is not Princess Haya’s daughter. Sheikh Mohammed has 6 wives
• Daniel, a student at Penair School, helped at the bookstall and is hoping to form a group at his school

2. Feedback from Summer Events

• Bookstall and Street Collection raised approximately £190. It was felt that combining the 2 events was successful and we should repeat this next year

Most of the leftover books have been donated to Trelissick Gardens bookshop. We have kept a limited number for future events

• Pride. Agreed that this was a very successful event and enjoyed by those helping.

We were grateful for James’s help with setting up and taking down the stall.

We received approx £35 in donations

76 action cards for Marielle Franco were signed and sent to AI

We collected over 100 signatures on the petition for Zak Kostopoulos

Next year we will request for our stall to be in a better location.

3. Correspondence and AI UK Monthly Update

• No correspondence
• Monthly update has been forwarded to our members. Many of the actions are online ones

Hetty and Georgie will order Write for Rights materials and Christmas cards

4. Treasurer’s Report

• Amounts raised at bookstall/street collection and Pride reported
• Balance on our account on 1 Sep was £1105.05
• Cheques issued for: £75.00 for rent (till end of 2019); it was agreed by the group that £250.00 should be sent to AI UK

5. Campaigns

North Africa:

• Egypt:

We signed 3 letters:

• requesting release of Aser Mohamed, detained when he was 14 years old, now facing 15 years in prison for “confessing” under torture to crimes.
• requesting the whereabouts of Ibrahim Ezz El-Din, a housing rights researcher, arrested on 11 June and forcibly disappeared
• urging the release of Zyad el-Elaimy (human rights lawyer) and journalists Hossam Moanis and Hisham Fouad detained on 25 June, along with 13 others for peaceful political activities.

Reported that there had been a massive increase in death penalties and executions. Egypt accounts for approx 30% of people executed worldwide in 2018, excluding China where death sentences and executions are kept secret.

• Morocco. Ali Arrass has not received post since January. We have been urged to keep writing and remember that he loves jokes and cartoons.

Central America

• Mexico:

murders of journalists continue. Jorge Ruiz Vazquez became the third reporter in a week to be murdered in México on 2 August

Good News: indigenous groups opposing the construction of pipelines by a Canadian company have won their case and the work has been halted

September is the 5^th anniversary of the disappearance of the 43 students – a campaign we have been active in

we signed a letter to The Mexican Embassy on behalf of environmental campaigners

• Honduras:

Amnesty went on mission to Honduras during the first week of July to research human rights violations

We signed a letter regarding attacks on a number of Honduran families

Good news:  Edwin Espinal and Raul Alvarez are now free on bail pending trial, after spending 18 months in jail. They were arrested following demonstrations in Tegucigalpa and had faced dire conditions of imprisonment.

• El Salvador: Evelyn Hernández has been acquitted of murder after suffering a miscarriage.  The government is appealing this decision.

Israel/Palestinian Territories

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s pre-election plan is to “apply Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea immediately”.

He recently met Boris Johnston in London where a protest demonstration was held

6. Future Events

1. World Peace event, 21^st Sept. It was agreed that we would have a stall on the piazza on the morning of 21^st Sept. Hetty has the stall, flag and some materials; Linnea, Georgie and Melissa will be there to help. Hetty will contact Paul Hines and Chris R to let them know what is planned.
2. There will be a fundraiser for Syria Relief at Tregrehan Gardens (near St Austell) on Sunday 22 Sept, 11.00 – 16.00.
3. Xmas Stalls (dates now confirmed) will be on 16^th Nov at High Cross, 7^th Dec in the Mayor’s Charity marquee on the piazza, and 14^th Dec at High Cross.

7. Next meeting will be on Wed 9^th Oct, 6.30 at Sambells café. This will also be the AGM