Covid-19: Government must protect those most at risk

Amnesty have launched a campaign calling on the UK government to protect the rights of individuals who are at particular risk as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

  • Essential workers – in hospitals, supermarkets, care homes and on public transport, among others  – still don’t all have the personal protective equipment they need to prevent them from getting coronavirus
  • Domestic abuse victims are forced to stay at home with their abusers,and migrant women are especially at risk as they are often not able to access services to support them
  • Many people are deterred from contacting public services because they fear being reported to immigration authorities. Refugees and migrants must have access to safe and secure accommodation, and to healthcare related to Covid-19.

Take Action

Tell the government to protect the most vulnerable during the coronavirus lockdown.

Take part in Amnesty Action

Nobody is safe until we’re all safe

You cannot stay home if you don’t have one or it’s not safe for you.

The key instruction from the government is for social distancing and self-isolation. But to do this many people need help.

Everyone needs to be able to support themselves at this time and know it’s safe to get treatment for coronavirus.

COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate on the basis of citizenship or immigration status and our governments mustn’t either.

Tell our government leaders now to make sure that those most at risk get the protection and help they need.

A&E

Russian woman charged with ‘producing pornography’ for sharing her drawings

Yulia Tsvetkova is a Russian LGBTI and women’s rights activist currently facing charges of creating and sharing “pornographic materials”, for sharing body positive drawings of women’s bodies on social media.

Yulia was also fined approximately 600 GBP in 2019, for acting as the administrator of two 18+ LGBTI communities on the Russian social media site, VKontakte.

During her most recent arrest, she said officers called her a “lesbian, sex trainer and propagandist leader”. She is facing up to six years in prison if convicted.

Take Action

Yulia has done nothing wrong. She is simply a victim of Russia’s anti-gay regime.

We cannot allow her to be sent to prison for her activism.

Yulia Tsvetkova is a prisoner of conscience, ask for her immediately release.

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/yulia-tsvetkova-russia-lgbt-activist-drawing-female-body

Further Details

LGBTI hate crime
Yulia has been victim to a homophobic hate campaign since March 2019 when an anti-discrimination play she directed led to a police investigation on charges of ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations among minors’, forcing her out of a job.

Since then she has been charged and fined heavily for running two LGBTI online groups.

Read more about Yulia’s campaign

LGBTI campaigner killed for her activism

Marielle Franco was murdered in a drive-by shooting in March 2018. Two years on, her killers and those behind the plot to assassinate her have still not been brought to justice.

As a black, bisexual woman born in the favelas in Brazil, Marielle faced a lifetime of abuse and injustice. But she dedicated her life to making Brazil a more fair and equal place and became a councillor for Rio city in 2016. She paid the ultimate price for defending human rights.

Take Action

Demand a full, independent investigation into her murder by signing Amnesty’s petition.

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/marielle-franco-murdered-brazil-lgbt-black-rights-activists

The investigation

The police investigation into Marielle’s death has been shrouded in secrecy.

It was reported that the bullets that killed Marielle were from a batch bought by the federal police.

What’s more, President Bolsonaro himself has been pictured with one of the murder suspects.

Read more about Marielle’s campaign

Help get Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe Home

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a British mum who has been unfairly jailed in Iran for more than 1000 days.

She is being treated awfully in prison.
She has been held in solitary confinement, and has been denied vital medical care.

 

Help pressure the Iranian government to #FreeNazanin.

Take Action

Take part in the Amnesty Action

Background

The British-Iranian mother has spent more than 1000 days in an Iranian prison after being convicted of spying in 2016. The Iranian authorities have no evidence to support this claim.

Her five-year-old daughter Gabriella is now back home in the UK with her dad – but this news is bittersweet. In Iran, Gabriella was allowed to regularly visit her mum. Now they’ll have to rely on phone calls to stay in touch.

The UK government has called for Nazanin’s freedom, and she was given diplomatic protection on 7 March 2019.

Iran must now allow her to finally go home and be reunited with her family.

Call on Iran to free Nazanin.

Read more details at Amnesty International website.