On 23 October 2017, the Amnesty International Hillingdon Group celebrated 30 years of active engagement with human rights issues, in an event attended by the Mayor and Consort of Hillingdon, Councillor Carol Melvin and Mr Andrew Melvin.
BiE's Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos was an invited speaker at the event, along with Mr Graham Minter, Amnesty UK South America Team BRAVE campaign, who spoke on defenders of land and environmental rights in Latin America.
Dr Giannoulopoulos spoke about domestic human rights; the debate on the Human Rights Act, and the need to remain vigilant now that the Conservative government has promised to keep the UK in the European Convention on Human Rights, at least until the end of this Parliament. BiE's director highlighted the risk of treating fundamental human rights as commodities with a 'use-by date'.
Following the event, the Hillingdon group and BiE expressed a strong interest in initiating a collaboration which would also involve students studying international human rights at Brunel Law School.
Brunel Law students are invited to attend the next meeting of the group on 27 November 2017, at 8 pm (doors open at 7:45), at Quakers Meeting Hall, Belmont Road, Uxbridge (near Uxbridge Bus/Tube station and Sainsburys).
The group will enjoy seasonal refreshments and will write cards to victims of Human rights abuse around the world, as part of Amnesty's 'Write for Rights 2017' project.