Please join us for our next meeting on Tuesday 19 February 2019 at 7 pm at St. Pauls Room, The Church of Holy Apostles, Address  47 Cumberland Street, SW1V  4LY. This is not our usual meeting venue. The church of Holy Apostles is a short walk either from Victoria Station or from Pimlico Tube Station. No 47 is the Priest’s house. Continue to the next gate on the left which leads to a ramp down into the garden and the church hall and adjoining rooms where the meeting will be held.

We are delighted that we will have two guest speakers: Oscar Jenz, Amnesty International, Country Coordinator for UAE and Joe Odell, International Campaign for Freedom in the United Arab Emirates (ICFUAE) 

If you hear about the United Arab Emirates you might mainly think of a popular holiday destination, the Louvre Abu Dhabi or the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. A country in the Middle East which wants to be attractive for tourists and likes to pretend that they are tolerant and far more open than their neighbours Saudi Arabia. The UAE even declared this year 2019 as a "Year of Tolerance". However there is a dark side of United Arab Emirates with human rights violations and prisoner of conscience. You might have followed the news about Mathew Hedges, a British academic who was arrested and sentenced for allegedly spying, and was finally released after seven months in prison. Our group decided at the end of last year that we want to adopt Ahmed Mansoor as prisoner of conscience and work on his case. He is a human rights activist who as arrested on 20 March 2017 and who was last year sentenced to 10 years of prison for his tweets and his campaigning against injustice and for prisoners of conscience.

Oscar and Joe will speak about Ahmed Mansoor, but also about other prisoners of conscience as well as human rights issues surrounding migrant workers, the war in Yemen, and the UK's arms deal vis-a-vis the UAE in Yemen. 

We hope many will join us for our meeting. All are welcome.