UNA Warwick & District: Defending Human Rights in UAE

Guest Speakers:
Mansoureh Mills - Amnesty International
Lucy Barnet - Amnesty International

Mansoureh has worked for Amnesty for nearly four years, and worked in the  
individuals at Risk Team, then the Security with Human Rights team,(both in the
campaigns programme) and have been working in MENA for nearly three years
as a Research and Campaign Assistant where she worked for a short period on
North Africa but have worked mostly on Iran, Kuwait, UAE. She went on mission
to UAE in November 2013 where she met the family of  Mohammed al-Roken.
She also met the families of other POCs who were unfairly tried with him in the  
"UAE 94" trial. She is currently writing on a report on the UAE, which is about the
crackdown on freedom of expression and association since 2011. It will be
published on 18 November.

Lucy Barnet is the Bahrain and UAE country coordinator for Amnesty UK.
She has previously been chair of the Leeds group (2012-2014) and been a
member of the International Issues sub-committee (2010-2014). Lucy is also a
school speaker for Amnesty in Yorkshire and has attended two ICMs since
becoming involved with Amnesty International at university.

Story of Mohammed al-Roken:
Dr Mohammed al-Roken is a well-known and respected human rights lawyer
from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He is currenlty in prison in
 speaking out against authorities in the UAE.
Mohammed is serving his second year of a ten-year jail sentence. He is a 
prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for his work as a lawyer and 
activist, defending others whose rights have been denied, and for 
speaking critically of the UAE authorities.
He has been held in solitary confinement and at times denied from seeing
his family.

Mohammed also has a close connection with Warwick and Leamington, as he studied law at Warwick University.

This is a joint meeting with local Amnesty Group to commemorate UN
Human Rights Day which is on 10th December every year.

Mid-Warwickshire Amnesty will also be having a Write for Rights stall, where
you will be able to send a solidarity message to people suffering from human
rights abuses from around the world.

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting.