Thursday October 5^th 10-12 drop in letter writing for Individuals at Risk at the Falcon Hotel, Chapel Lane Stratford on Avon. All welcome. Case studies provided. The Falcon Hotel is currently undergoing major refurbishment works so please would you enter on the car park side off Scholars Lane where either the bar or lounge are available for our meeting? We look forward to seeing you.

Thursday October 5^th 7.30 performance of ‘The Bundle’ by the Journeyman Theatre at the Court Room, The Old Police Station, Chipping Campden. This tells a story, closely based on the trials of a real woman and her three young children who are denied human rights in Chechnya. The woman is removed from her Russian homeland by her Chechen father, abducted into forced marriage and subjected to a life of servitude. She takes the ultimate risk of planning her escape to the UK where she finds a home but also encounters the Home Office’s environment regarding asylum seekers and refugees.

Tickets are £10 on the door or £8 in advance from Ann Allen ann@allen.co.uk. All profits to Gloucestershire Action for Asylum and Refugee Seekers.

Wednesday October 11^th 7.00 group monthly meeting at the Friends Meeting House, 37 Maidenhead Road. We are delighted to be welcoming Alex Loftus, a relative of Nazanin Zachari-Ratcliffe as our speaker. In spring 2016 Nazanin was charged with ‘belonging to an illegal group’ when stopped at Tehran Airport, along with her young daughter Gabriella, as they were about to return to the UK. Nazanin was subsequently sentenced to five years imprisonment of which the first 45 days were spent in solitary confinement. The charge was made in connection with her work with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organisation promoting socio-economic progress, independent journalism and the rule of law, and her past work at BBC’s Media Action. Gabriella remains in Iran with Nazanin’s parents where she can only visit her mother twice a week.

Last winter our group supported Nazanin through the ‘Write for Rights’ campaign by sending her dozens of supporting cards. We have also written to our MP, the Government, and the Iranian authorities, seeking her immediate release. Amnesty considers her to be a political prisoner whose welfare our group has a special concern for, and we look forward to hearing from Alex.

Amnesty press release

'Looking for Mummy' Nazanin's story a play about her plight