At the July meeting, our very own Annual General Meeting, I summarise the group activity in the previous 12 months. I am always amazed by how much we manage to accomplish, from the Human Rights Lecture at the University, to the Courtlye Musick concert, through invited speakers and joint activities with other organisations and groups. It is difficult reading the news these days to have much optimism about what the future holds for us, but remembering what we have done, the cards we have sent, the letters we have written, makes me more and more aware that in these times of darkness our group lights a candle for those who cannot speak for themselves and holds it high.

In the year that starts we will continue with this endeavour. The programme is not finalised, but it is already brimming with activities and campaigns: we have already scheduled a set of talks, on South Asia, Brazil, Cuba; we will continue our collaboration with local organisations on the Write for Rights campaign; we will link up with a New Zealand group to seek the release of Liu Ping, a Chinese prisoner of conscience; we will actively campaign for human rights defenders in Eritrea, Aster Fissehatsion and Dawit Isaak, and Cuba, Dr Eduardo Cardet; we will hold a concert for refugees in June 2019 and our Annual Human Rights Lecture at the University; we will go walking for Human Rights around Netley in the Autumn and in the Hampshire countryside in the Spring. Of course, there is still plenty of space in the programme for other activities: please let me know of any suggestions.

I hope to see you at some or all of these events and at our monthly group meetings. There is a lot to do and many hands are needed to keep the candle of human rights shining.

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The first meeting is on Monday September 10^th at 19:30 in Focus Room of the Avenue St Andrew's United Reformed Church, The Avenue, Southampton SO17 1XQ

For more information about the programme, please look at the programme following the link to the right of this post.