Monday, September 26, 2016

Excepts from "Keeping You Connected" - EMAIL/NEWSLETTER Sept 19, 2016

Angie Hougas
Member, AIUSA BD of Directors
Director & Co-Founder, Rhythm N' Rights

1  URGENT ACTION UPDATES
2  GOOD NEWS
3  ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT
4  AIUSA UPDATES - Guantanamo, Business & HR, Snowden Pardon, UN General Assembly in NY, UN Refugee Summit
5  MEDIA MENTIONS


 1 URGENT ACTION UPDATE:
STOP ACTION:  Bangladesh - Mir Quasem Ali,
a senior member of the political party Jamaat-e-Islami, was executed on 3 September. The Supreme Court rejected his review petition on 30 August and he did not seek clemency from the President. 
STOP ACTION:  Sudan - Two activists, Emad Al Sadig Ismael Hamdoun and his brother Erwa Al Sadig Ismael Hamdoun have been sentenced to six months and one year imprisonment respectively by a court in Khartoum, Sudan. Both were sentenced to time already served. Emad Al Sadig Ismael Hamdoun has been released while his brother will spend three more months in prison. The two have been in detention since their arrests on 14 December 2015 and 6 January respectively.

GOOD NEWS (Keep writing your Urgent Action Letters!)
Bangladesh - Shafik Rehman,
an 81-year-old Bangladeshi journalist who was arrested on 16 April, has been granted bail by the Supreme Court. He was released from prison on 6 September after spending more than four months detained without charge.
Egypt - Islam Khalil, a 27-year-old survivor of enforced disappearance and torture, was released on 31 August by the National Security Agency, 10 days after the prosecution ordered his release on bail.
Egypt - Prisoner of conscience Ahmed Abdullah was released on bail on 10 September after spending over four months in detention without trial.

ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT
  • AI Czech Republic has developed a new mobile application in connection with our work on Russia. Please feel free to have a look at  https://youtu.be/SkYu0rLymHM and pass along for use as appropriate to your activism or campaign staff. It works best on a mobile phone with "cardboard" or 3D glasses, but you can see a simplified web version at www.prisonexit.org. To read more about the experience, please see the attached letter "AI Czech Republic."
AIUSA UPDATES

  • Elizabeth’s letter to the editor on Guantanamo and torture was published in the New Yorker last week.
  • The Business and Human Rights Cogroup worked with communications staff to update Apple petition.  Campaigning continues on Apple and Samsung’s use of cobalt mined in the DRC under human rights violating conditions in their electronic products. Apple launched its iPhone 7 on September 7. 
  • AIUSA joins call for Snowden pardon 
  • UN General Assembly this week 
  • UN Refugee Summit
5 MEDIA MENTIONS
Click here for more information.