Meeting - Amnesty International

On Sunday morning I turned on the radio and was shocked by the news that Saddam Hussein had been sentenced to death by hanging. As I digested this information and tried to work out why I felt so appalled by it, my six-year-old son asked me what ‘death by hanging’ meant. I explained in the nicest way I could, but my platitudes could not erase the horror of the barbarity ‘hanging’ actually entails and I think my unease was evident to him.

Later I read on the Amnesty International (AI) website that Hussein did not receive a fair trial and that he was denied legal representation for a year during his imprisonment. I wasn’t sure that these facts actually made a lot of difference to me at first but Malcolm Smart’s (Director of AI’s Middle East Programme) words have continued to resonate with me, “Every accused has a right to a fair trial, whatever the magnitude of the charge against them. This plain fact was routinely ignored through the decades of Saddam Hussein's tyranny. His overthrow opened the opportunity to restore this basic right and, at the same time, to ensure, fairly, accountability for the crimes of the past. It is an opportunity missed, and made worse by the imposition of the death penalty.” If you share Smart’s sentiments you’ll be glad to know that Amnesty is reforming in Lewes after an absence of six years and their first meeting is on Monday night. New Chair Sara Birch says that Norman Baker MP is “90% sure he’ll be there” - will you? KA