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Amnesty Essex Campaigns 2013-14. Pussy Riot!. Russian feminist punk rock band 3 members imprisoned in 2012, after “Punk Prayer”, for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”
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Pussy Riot! • Russian feminist punk rock band • 3 members imprisoned in 2012, after “Punk Prayer”, for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” • Amnesty International has designated the two remaining members, Nadezhda ‘Nadya’ Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, prisoners of conscience. • In a more worrying recent development, Nadya has not been heard from for over two weeks since being moved to a Prison Hospital (after 9 day hunger strike)
Sri Lanka • Campaign against decades of human rights abuses and war crimes, many directed against the Tamil community • Not only historic abuses though; UN reports it is still carrying out enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture and many other abuses • Government has banned all protests across the entire country for the upcoming Commonwealth Summit
Mikhail Kosenko • Anti-Putin protestor who has been sent to a psychiatric hospital • While he suffers from a “minor mental condition”, Kremlin psychologists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and classified him a danger to himself and others • The verdict was immediately contested by a number of independent psychiatrists • Many activists believe it is a return to the punitive psychiatry used against Soviet dissidents
Women’s rights in Afghanistan • After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, women in Afghanistan have been able to gradually claim their basic human rights - including accessing work, school, and voting in local and national elections. Some have entered politics at great personal risk. • Since the re-emergence of insurgency in 2005 by armed groups, including the Taliban, the basic human rights of women and girls are under attack once again. • Amnesty are working at a grassroots level to make sure women’s rights do not go backwards in Afghanistan
Northern Ireland • During ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland, more than 3,600 people were killed and more than 40,000 injured. In most cases, no one has ever been held responsible. • Amnesty is calling for a comprehensive mechanism to be set up to review the conflict as a whole, establish the truth about outstanding human rights violations and determine responsibility.
Russia? • Could just combine Pussy Riot, Mikhail Kosenko, gay rights and numerous other human rights abuses to concentrate on Russia?