Amnesty International, York

These measures are seen as part of an ongoing and far-reaching legislative crackdown on the exercise of peaceful protest rights.

Local Amnesty members asked Rachael to support a recently tabled amendment that would add a new clause to the Crime and Policing Bill. The new clause would create a specific statutory right to peaceful protest. Amnesty International UK strongly supports this clause and urges MPs to speak in its favour in Committee.

Rachael Maskell was very supportive of our requests, saying that she too is opposed to the relentless attacks on the peaceful exercise of protest rights pursued by the last government.

Amnesty York was at York St John University on February 18th with an interactive stall to prompt discussion with students and staff on human rights. We printed the fun chicken cartoons of human rights and from them selected 14 key rights.

People were asked to choose their 3 personal favourites and mark them with a sticky dot - no right answers, of course, but good conversations. Main choices on this day were Right to Education (people mentioned the plight of Afghan women), No Slavery or Forced Labour (which has been much in the news) and Freedom from Discrimination.

We had Human Rights Passports, stickers, badges and bookmarks from Amnesty’s bookshop in York as very popular give-aways. The topic of human rights seemed new to quite a number of people and we are planning a re-run at the start of the next academic year.

This Women's Day, with the dehumanised women of Afghanistan and Iran in mind, Amnesty York invited people in the city centre to sign a petition to make Gender Apartheid an international crime

..... it's part of a high-level international campaign https://endgenderapartheid.today/ - you might like to sign.

We had great public sympathy with one signature a minute over 3 hours, even if we were combatting the allure of the street fire-eater. Our burqa wearing model oversaw the event. The petition of 133 signatures has gone to David Lammy, Foreign Secretary, copy Keir Starmer.