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@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.