Bristol Humanists
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BETTER TO LIGHT A CANDLE THAN CURSE THE DARKNESS - campaigning for human rights with Amnesty International
Mon, 09 Jan
|Unitarian Meeting Hall
How do we fight for human rights & freedom of conscience at a time when the world is becoming more sharply & more brutally divided? Amnesty International have been doing this for over 60 years & Sarah from our local group will lead a meeting to thinking about strategies & dilemmas involved.
Time & Location
09 Jan 2023, 19:30 – 21:00
Unitarian Meeting Hall, Brunswick Square, St Paul's, Bristol BS2 8PE, UK
About the event
Amnesty International is well-known, a global movement which campaigns for a world where everyone enjoys full human rights. It is funded by its members & by a wide range of invdividuals who care about freedom & rights for all people. This allows it to be independent of political or religious ideology & all economic interests. For Amnesty, no government is beyond scrutiny & no situation beyond hope.
The organisation has seen many changes for the better since it was set up in the UK in 1961 - torturers have become international outlaws, most countries have abolished the death penalty & seemingly untouchable dictators have been made to answer for their crimes. But recent events have made it only too clear that those victories which have been won need to be defended, whilst the fight continues against appalling breaches of human rights which have never ceased. Amnesty International oversees the state of freedom internationally, producing an annual report on the state of human rights in every country, ensuring nothing is overlooked.
Our speaker, Sarah, will focus on the changes in Amnesty over the years as well as their current big campaign to protect the right to protest. This includes the right to write to prisoners of conscience & others wrongly imprisoned. She will also think with us about the difficulties in maintaining a non-political stance in an increasingly polarised world, a dilemma also familiar to humanists.
“Only when the last prisoner of conscience has been freed, when the last torture chamber has been closed, when the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a reality for the world’s people, will our work be done.”
Peter Benenson, Amnesty International founder
After Sarah's talk there will be time for questions and discussion & these will continue at The Boot Factory bar at the Artist's Residence bar around the corner from The Unitarian Meeting Hall (at the bottom of Cave St). There will also be postcards available for anyone wanting to join in the writing campaign.