Update on Amnesty cases - August 2024

There have been significant developments on various cases Sutton Amnesty have been working on, including as follows:

Dr Mohamed al-Roken (UAE)

One of Sutton Amnesty's two prisoners of conscience Dr Mohammed al-Roken had already been kept in detention beyond the end of his ten year sentence. His inclusion in a subsequent trial which started last year and appeared to be a case of 'double jeopardy' has led to a life sentence. Absolutely shocking - see https://en.edacrights.com/post/769  and  https://en.edacrights.com/prisoner/4 for background information.

Alaa Abdelfattah (Egypt)

We have hoped that the new Government would play a more active role in human rights issues worldwide and can take some encouragement from the recent meeting of Mona Seif (Alaa's sister who spoke to the group last year) with Hamish Falconer, the new Middle East Minister.  We have also heard from Mona that Alaa Abdel Fattah's sentence should be completed on 29 September and, in view of concerns he will not be released, that we lobby our MPs. We understand that Amnesty are keen to manage approaches to MPs to maintain consistent messaging but need to understand this better. In the meantime we propose to write as private citizens. Mona also sent the following link which is a good background read:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/alaa-abd-el-fattah-uk-government-…

Sasha Skochilenko (Russia)

Sutton Amnesty have campaigned actively for Sasha Skochilenko's freedom and she has featured prominently on a number of our stalls (for example last year's Eco-fair and visit to Sutton High School). Her 'crime' for which she received a seven year sentence was 'Spreading false information about the Russian army' - actually exchanging price tags in a supermarket with anti-war messages relating to the invasion of Ukraine. We were delighted to hear therefore that she had been released as part of the 'prisoner swap' between Russia and the US. Others involved in the swap on whose part we have taken action include Lila Chanysheva (part of Alexei Navalny's team), Andrei Pivavarov (head of Open Russia) and Valdimir Kara-Murza (an Anglo-Russian opposition politician sentenced to 25 years for 'treason' and perhaps the highest profile prisoner in recent times after Alexei Navalny).

Toomaj Salehi (Iran)

We were pleased to hear Toomaj Salehi's death sentence has been over-turned. It remains outrageous he remains in prison and that other executions continue in Iran. An article on Toomaj by Nazanin Zaghari-Ratciffe in the most recent Index on Censorship likened him to 'an ordinary man with a real voice in his music, suddenly thrown into the national and international spotlight while holding on to his truth'. She goes on to describe his song 'Normal' articulating how corruption, sanctions and self-inflicted isolation have led to rampant poverty and inequality in a resource-rich country. It led me to find this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcGMGFBaQrU  Powerful stuff!