Members of Amnesty International’s Central Birmingham group is calling on local people to get involved with Amnesty’s mass lobby at the House of Commons on Wednesday 10 May and urge local MPs to support the call for tough controls on the global arms trade.
Hundreds of people from across the UK are due to gather in Westminster for what may be the last chance to lend their support to the campaign before crucial talks on the arms trade take place at the UN next month (June).
The mass lobby comes after a three-year long campaign by the Control Arms Campaign – which includes Amnesty International, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) and Oxfam – for tighter legislation on the international arms trade.
With less than 50 days to go before world leaders gather at the UN in New York for crucial talks, Amnesty’s lobby is intended to send a strong message to the Government that the British people backs the call for tighter controls on the brokering and trading of arms internationally. An international Arms Trade Treaty would reduce the chances of weapons ending up in the hands of those who use them for torture, unlawful killings or other gross human rights violations.
Simon Ware of Amnesty International’s Central Birmingham group said:
“It’s really important that as many people join us on 10 May. We need to tell the Government that people in Birmingham do care about the way arms are traded globally.
“When you consider that one thousand people are killed every day by armed violence, it’s clear that existing arms controls aren’t working. An international Arms Trade Treaty will end the arms trade free-for-all and help save people’s lives.”
MPs and campaigners will have an opportunity at the lobby to add their name and face to the world’s largest visual petition – the Million Faces Petition – which will be delivered to the UN Review Conference on Small Arms and Light Weapons in June. Over 945,000 people have already signed up around the world.
To find out more about being part of Amnesty’s mass lobby, please call 020 7033 1777 or visit www.amnesty.org.uk
The mass lobby comes after a three-year long campaign by the Control Arms Campaign – which includes Amnesty International, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) and Oxfam – for tighter legislation on the international arms trade.
With less than 50 days to go before world leaders gather at the UN in New York for crucial talks, Amnesty’s lobby is intended to send a strong message to the Government that the British people backs the call for tighter controls on the brokering and trading of arms internationally. An international Arms Trade Treaty would reduce the chances of weapons ending up in the hands of those who use them for torture, unlawful killings or other gross human rights violations.
Simon Ware of Amnesty International’s Central Birmingham group said:
“It’s really important that as many people join us on 10 May. We need to tell the Government that people in Birmingham do care about the way arms are traded globally.
“When you consider that one thousand people are killed every day by armed violence, it’s clear that existing arms controls aren’t working. An international Arms Trade Treaty will end the arms trade free-for-all and help save people’s lives.”
MPs and campaigners will have an opportunity at the lobby to add their name and face to the world’s largest visual petition – the Million Faces Petition – which will be delivered to the UN Review Conference on Small Arms and Light Weapons in June. Over 945,000 people have already signed up around the world.
To find out more about being part of Amnesty’s mass lobby, please call 020 7033 1777 or visit www.amnesty.org.uk
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Amnesty International UK was responsible for the Kuwait Incubator lies
08.05.2006 03:11
An international Arms Trade Treaty would reduce the chances of weapons ending up in the hands of those who use them for torture, unlawful killings or other gross human rights violations.
UNQUOTE
You mean like the US, UK and Israel? You'd think from this Amnesty press release that the US wasn't currently spending more on its military projects than the rest of the World combined. A press release about weapons that FAILS to mention this fact- what a remarkable omission.
But then famously, Amnesty was the organisation that co-published the FILTHY LIES about Iraqis throwing babies from incubators, directly assisting every subsequent act of butchery aimed at the people of that nation.
Amnesty also blamed the people of Fallujah for Blair's genocide of that city.
If you care about animals, you certainly DON'T give the RSPCA the time of day, and if you care about human rights, Amnesty International should be your last port of call.
Any big, static, centralised so-called pressure group will be targetted and neutralised by the state as a matter of high priority, even in times less depraved than now. When really evil people are in power, as with Blair or Hitler, they fully expect to turn these mock-independent pressure groups fully to their propaganda advantage.
It is notable that a recent Amnesty report was used by the Mass Media to attack Iran. The trick here is that Amnesty produces a report designed to be read by almost nobody but the same small bunch of 'liberals'. However, at a glance, a simple-minded person might think the report balanced, since it attacks the US record on its death penalty. Amnesty knows, however, that its report will be selectively quoted in the media targetted at the general population. Thus the parts mildly critical of the West are discarded, and the anti-Iran rhetoric given maximum publicity aiding Blair's path to genocidal war. When questioned about this, Amnesty can smirkingly throw up its hands and state that it isn't their fault if they are selectively quoted. An age old propaganda technique.
Read the press release again. Amnesty is asking you to lobby the very people DIRECTLY responsible for the murder of 500,000+ humans in Iraq via the very worst War Crime, namely waging Aggressive War, to do something about the international arms trade. Is this supposed to be some kind of sick joke? British politicians have ONLY one concern about arms- namely when 'our boys' or those of our allies are sent into someone elses land to butcher the humans there, that our side has as many 'arms' as possible, and their side has as few as possible.
If ANY organisation claims a concern about World affairs, but fails to target as a matter of highest priority Blair and Bush, that organisation actually serves the aims of Blair and Bush. The same principle has always applied in history. Today, when researching a past regime, the validity of a supposedly non-government organisation is clearly revealed by the stance that it took against the govenment of the time. Stalinist Russia, nazi Germany, (and indeed today's China) were/are littered by pretend pressure groups that magically fail to find serious fault with their own regimes, and yet claim to be concerned with issues where their own regimes are clearly the biggest abusers.
If the lazy approach to life worked, Blair would already be defeated by the various "pay-a-sub and trust someone else to fix it" liberal schemes. However, it should now be apparent to even the slowest that Blair got there first, and owns ALL the easy options. The remaining options are far from easy, and far from pleasant. Our side now consists of just us- our voices and our thoughts, but no structure or organisation. Blair has all the power, all the money, all the arms, all the Mass Media, and all the formal political structures, including every major non-governmental organisation.
We have the numbers, and we have the morality, but do we have the courage. Time after time in Human History, a tiny number of monsters have ruled the rest of us, treated us like dogs, and slaughtered us like cattle. These monsters usually maintain a 'priest class' to inform us that our masters are divine, and above our judgement. Rather like telling us that we shouldn't judge OUR masters for their use of arms to Mass Murder in Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran, but we should ask our masters to do something about other people's use of arms. Boy, they certainly have me fooled.
"Sheep, please request a treaty to control Johnny Foreigner, so that when 'our boys', who are of course allowed to operate outside of any treaty, need to stick the boot in, Johnny Foreigner will get his face kicked in as quickly as possible".
France, UK, China, Israel, US, and Russia each place themselves above any real treaties. Israel and the US make no effort whatsoever to hide this. The others prefer to hide the fact behind tiny fig leaves. Such lawlessness means only one thing (always has and always will), and that is war. We stupidly call the gaps between the wars 'peace' but that is a perfect act of self-delusion. We, as individuals, live under the rule of law, but we fail to extend this principle to those that claim the right to be our masters. Because we FAIL to ensure that those that have power or wealth ALSO live under the same rule of law, we define ourselves in their eyes as sheep. As sheep, we are judged simply by our ability to enrich our masters. And as sheep, when not being consumed, we are to be ruthlessly controlled, which brings me back to the article to which I am replying.
twilight