Bulletproof Arms Control

Amnesty Denmark’s campaign Manager Jakob Silas Lund talks at the AIAU info evening about Amnesty’s Arms Trade Treaty campaign.

On Wednesday, 11 April 2012, AIAU organized an info evening regarding Amnesty Denmark’s Arms Trade Treaty campaign. The event took place at Studenterhus Café and AIAU invited Aarhus University students and all others interested to a talk about Amnesty’s work and endeavors regarding the campaign given by Amnesty Denmark’s campaign manager Jakob Silas Lund.

After a welcome and an introduction to the evening and the issue by Christoph Zimdahl, campaign manager Jakob Silas Lund elaborated on the problems of the uncontrolled spread of arms and the challenges that the agreement on an international arms trade control faces:

Every minute the use of weapons causes the loss of one human life. Every day weapons are used to suppress and engage in violence against people in different parts of the world. Yet today there are stricter rules for trade in bananas and cucumbers than for an international arms trade.

War crimes, unlawful killings, torture, rapes and other serious human rights abuses have been committed around the world using a wide range of weapons, munitions and military and security equipment. These are often provided to perpetrators in almost unlimited supply, encouraging and prolonging unlawful violence.

For this reason, Amnesty International spent both spring and summer 2012 working on putting this problem on the international agenda and getting the UN to agree upon an arms treaty.

During the evening participants had the opportunity to  engage in a discussion, sign the Amnesty petition regarding the Arms Trade Treaty and urge politicians from different countries to promote the development of a more regulated arms trade worldwide.

After the talk and the discussion, many interested students were able to attend a movie screening of a political documentary on the uncontrolled widespread of small arms, which rule and ruin the lives of a growing number of people in developing countries. The film ‘Dealing and Wheeling in Small Arms’ was part of the Amnesty Arms Trade Treaty campaign.

For the trailer of the film click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Ei49NDNcs.

More info about the Amnesty campaign: http://www.amnesty.org/en/campaigns/control-arms

AIAU Student Group

‘Our School’ Movie Screening

On Wednesday, 07 March 2012, 19:00, AIAU organized a movie night regarding the Amnesty Fall 2011 campaign on the segregation of Roma kids in Eastern Europe. The event had already been planned to take place in September 2011 together with AI campaign coordinator Helle Jacobsen. As the movie had been accepted to take part in a Danish documentary festival a few days prior to the event, the group was not able to show it before the festival took place. As a result, the movie evening had to be postponed.

Before the movie there was an introduction to the evening by Christoph Zimdahl and talks about the segregation issue by Alice Jean Blanc, Friederike Stoehr and Alexandra Miruna Ionescu. Further than that, we were happy to have  Sofie Marseen and Jakob Hansen of Silba joining us for the event. Silba is a Danish organization that works to promote freedom and democracy in the new EU member states and other Eastern European countries. Sofie and Jakob told us about the work of Silba and their experiences in relation to the segregation of Roma during the organization’s election observations in Eastern Europe.

The evening turned out to be a big success, with about 40 interested people showing up for the event.

For more info about the movie, check out: http://www.ourschoolfilm.blogspot.com/

AIAU@Amnesty Denmark meeting for local groups

AIAU was represented at the Amnesty Denmark meeting for local groups and associations the 5th of November 2011. 
The purpose of the meeting was to exchange ideas, discuss the structure of Amnesty in Denmark and to hear news from the Danish committee.
Here are some of the most important points from the meeting (we cannot guarantee for accuracy).

ICM 2011
The ICM stands for International Council Meeting and is the highest organ in Amnesty International. It takes place every second year and all countries with an Amnesty section are represented. This year they discussed 4 main topics:

• Finance: they decided that there should be a bigger transfer from bigger sections to small ones
•  Governance: new ideas for AI’s democracy
•  Organization: a stronger focus on helping local groups from different countries to work together
• Human rights strategy: The ISP (Integrated Strategy Plan) is in function until 2016, but they discussed some suggestions for future focus; climate change, access to medicine and children’s rights

Read more about the ICM here.

Results from earlier campaigns

AIAU members collecting signatures for the Roma campaign.

In general it is hard to measure results from AI campaigns – they will often be indirect and long-term.

However, there are some good results: Amnesty Denmark has helped a lot of vulnerable asylum seekers to get new verdicts, for example by providing documentation from doctors.

As a result of the Nicaragua campaign there were big demonstrations in Nicaragua and the abortion-movement seems to be stronger now. Internationally Amnesty got 262.156 signatures, 35.000 in Denmark. The results of the Roma- and Saudi Arabia campaign are not yet available.

Amnesty Denmark has also pressured Lundbeck (a Danish medicine company) to make sure not to sell medicine to buyers who are using it for the execution of death penalties, as has been the case in the USA.

Future campaigns

Unlike the last years, Amnesty Denmark is only going to run three campaigns in 2012 – the purpose is to have some more time for each campaign.

The three campaigns will be:

• Work for a FN weapon treaty: to stop trade with weapons to countries where it will lead to human rights violations
•  The Arab spring: the campaign is to promote human rights in the period of transition to a more democratic rule in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and other countries where crises are taking place, e.g. Syria and Yemen
• “Skriv for liv”  in December

Good ideas
One of the repeated ideas was cooperation with other associations/groups, for example as a part of the “verdens bedste nyheder”-campaign (read more here). Some of the other groups have had great experience with that – both advertising for their own group and at the same time participating in a campaign with a good cause. In line with this was the idea of participating in large arrangements such as festivals, concerts, cultural events and so on. Some groups have also cooperated with a cinema, getting admission to use it for showing a movie about human rights.

A more specific advice is to make a folder with help from AI in Denmark. They have something called Aktiv-service where you can order some folders with a text about out group and about a specific campaign or Amnesty in general.

Another thing to pay attention to is Amnesty’s lifeline. The concept is to make signature petitions using mobiles – you get a SMS with a short text about a case of human rights violations, and you sign by answering it. Sign up now here!

In general we had a very good meeting and people were very happy to see us there. Unfortunately we are still the only university-based group – most of the other volunteers are 50+ and have been a part of Amnesty for many years. Hopefully there’ll soon be other university groups in Amnesty, but AIAU can still gain a lot from participating in the local group meetings.

Creative ads from our Swedish colleagues

 

AIAU@Humanity in Action Youth Activism talk

AIAU were invited to a talk about youth activism organized by ‘Humanity in Action’. Three activists from Sudan, Venezuela and Belarus spoke about the youth groups they are involved in, why they are active and the challenges they face.

To find out more about Humanity in Action, visit their website.

Below you can find a summary of the talks provided by Dearbhla Ryan and Christoph Zimdahl. AIAU cannot guarantee for accuracy.

About us

The Amnesty International Aarhus University (AIAU) group consists of English-speaking Danish students  and international exchange students working for human rights based at Aarhus University, Aarhus,  Denmark.

As a student body affiliated with Amnesty International Aarhus, we embrace a multicultural approach to human rights activism. We strongly encourage a diverse range of students to work side by side to deliver Amnesty’s message  to the AarhusUniversity campus.

Amnesty International is the world’s largest human rights organisation: A global movement of 3 million supporters across150 countries, independent of government funding or political parties.

In Denmark, 100 000 supporters work for Amnesty to defend human rights and dignity.

Last year alone global statistics showed that:

• 1 in 6 people in the world still live in slums.

• Every 5 minutes somewhere in the world a child is still dying of extreme poverty.

• Torture abuses are still condoned in 111 countries.

• And 55 countries in the world still practice unjust trials for human rights abuses.

We have regular meetings for active members and hold events such as petition signing, holding talks with guest speakers, film screenings and social events for the wider student body on campus.Our message is one of hope triumphing over global injustice through positive activism and the promotion of equal human rights with targeted seasonal campaigning.

This blog will share with you our work and the work of Amnesty International in the fight for human rights.

We also have a Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AIAUstudentgroup/
And you can follow us on Twitter: @AmnestyIntAU