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On Fri, 25 Feb 2000, Mark Parkinson wrote: > AI USA has a petition to the UNSC (on its website) addressing the > humanitarian situation in Iraq. > > http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/iraq/ Thanks for posting this, Mark. I've been meaning to write to the list about this for a while. Beth Ann Toupin, of the AI USA Middle East Coordination Group, wrote this when I asked her about the petition: > Actually, the petition IS an "official" AI action. Right now, we are in > the midst of a section-level action on Iraq -- sent out from London to all > sections. One of my other pieces of business when I came to your > conference was to spend time at the Secretariat pushing for this petition. > I wanted it to say more, but this is as much as the powers that be feel we > can say within our current mandate constraints. I do think that it is > better than saying nothing. It became clear at your conference that some > people who are active on this issue have taken AI's silence as a statement > that nothing is wrong with what is going on in Iraq. We don't want that! > So, we are saying what we can. > > The researchers managed to attach this "humanitarian action" as an addendum > to the section-level action. While -- for obvious reasons -- the US and UK > are not being asked to actively participate in the broader action, we have > been asked to push this petition action. The petition has been sent to all > AI sections and groups (in countries without sections). The end of the > action is scheduled for March 30. > > I hope this is clear now. If you have any more questions, please feel free > to contact me. I do think (hope) that AI-UK has this petition and is > acting on it. If you know anyone there, you could check on this. Has anyone seen any sign of AI UK issuing the petition? It might be good for people to write to AIUK and ask about it... (and indeed sign it) cheers seb -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full archive and list instructions are available from the CASI website: http://welcome.to/casi