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Hello everyone, Amnesty International UK held their Annual General Meeting this last weekend April 9th - 12th . At the AGM, there were four motions on sanctions and their effects which were composited to one, the substance of which read "The AGM..........Decides that Amnesty International UK should support calls for Amnesty International to oppose human rights abuses arising from sanctions against states, and should press for this to be given high priority." The AIUK Board opposed the motion as they had already presented one to be discussed at the International Council Meeting in August, the substance of which is "The ICM ........... Decides that the present mandate review process will include, in its second phase, a consideration of whether Amnesty International should alter its postion on sanctions against states that violate or are alleged to violate human rights and report to the 2001 ICM." The original motion was defeated by 517 to 595 votes. The reason for the motion was that we need all the help we can muster on this campaign and having Amnesty International join, albeit 9 years too late, would be of assistance. I would appeal to all Amnesty International members to urge their sections to support the motion put forward by the Tunisian section at the ICM, the substance of which is "The International Council ...... Decides to oppose embargoes when their effect is to threaten the physical and mental integrity of populations or to threaten lives of innocent citizens." If you belong to sections who have already had their AGMs, you could write to the representatives going to the ICM to support this motion. Paul Abbey -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the whole list. Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html