Amnesty International Student Society (AISS)

The University of Buckingham's Amnesty Student Group forms a part of Amnesty's grass root membership.

Why Amnesty International?

Every year over half the world's states demonstrably torture some of their citizens.

On average one person is killed in violence involving small arms every minute.
On average across the globe one woman in three will experience violence because of her gender at some point in her life.
Every year many thousands of people in all the corners of the world are executed, tortured, or imprisoned having committed no criminal offence.

Amnesty International has been preventing executions and torture, freeing political prisoners and upholding human rights around the world since 1961. It is the world's largest human rights NGO, with now nearly 2 million members and supporters in over 150 countries and territories.

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How do we campaign, and what do we hope to achieve?

Amnesty International is a movement of ordinary people standing up for humanity and human rights across the world. Our vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards.

Amnesty International's mission is to undertake research and action aimed at ending and preventing specific, grave human rights abuses. We achieve this goal through a variety of means. In AIUK we classify our work further into two areas:

stopping specific human rights abuses directly.
promoting fundamental human rights generally.

It is important to realise that the second of these is an indirect way of achieving what we set out to do directly in the first. The promotion of human rights helps in achieving our goals only if we are able to influence somebody who then in turn exerts an influence to stop specific human rights abuses.

For any other information on Amnesty International and various campaigns please visit Amnesty UK's website (external link).

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Student Chapter at the University of Buckingham

The student network here at Buckingham actively works to raise awareness of critical human rights violations by holding various events including film nights, guest speakers, fundraisers, and court trips. For further information on Buckingham events visit our Facebook page (external link). For inquiries regarding membership and to help support our campaigns, contact the executive team at Buckingham: amnesty-international-society@buckingham.ac.uk.

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Past events and activities

Wednesday 28 April 2010: Visit to Baha Mousa public inquiry in London.

Thursday 15 April 2010: Human Rights and Film Series: BURMA VJ. This event is preceded by a book sale at the Verney Park Foyer. 18:00, F06.

Tuesday 16 March 2010: Parliamentary style debate (Joint Law Society event): "This House believes that civil liberties no longer exist".

Thursday 18 February 2010: Annual Amnesty lecture: "Pluralism: A Weapon against Intolerance". Maajid Nawaz, Co-director of the Quilliam Foundation with Ed Hussain.

Monday 8 February 2010: Kate Jessop, Solicitor with Immigration Legal Services, Brighton:"Problems for Children in the UK Asylum System".

Wednesday 4 November 2009: Amnesty International Student Society Lobby MPs to Stop Violence against All Women.

Monday 26 October 2009: Open floor human rights panel: "Human rights. Do they matter?”"(Panelists: Professor Susan Edwards; Mr Irving Stevens; Dr James Slater).

Tuesday 6 October and Wednesday 7th October 2009: Photo Exhibit at the Law School: "Slave Britain" Reveals Human Misery of People Trafficking in the 21st Century Britain. A powerful exhibition at the Law School, organized by Amnesty International Student Society, revealed the horror of people trafficking - a truly modern day slave trade. The exhibition, "Slave Britain: the Twenty-first century trade in human lives", was displayed in the law school Foyer. The purpose of the exhibition was to reveal the extent of trafficking into the UK in all its forms.

Thursday 20 August 2009: Human rights and Film Night: "Provoked" based on R v. Ahluwalia; Guest Speaker: Professor Susan Edwards – discussed the importance of the Ahluwalia case and the Defence of Provocation (Event organized to support Legal Procedure students in their moots).

Friday 31 July 2009: Amnesty Summer BBQ.

Wednesday 6 May 2009: Human Rights and Film Series: "Water" – In support of Amnesty's Campaign to stop violence against women. Q & A session followed the film.

Wednesday 15 April 2009: Human Rights and Film Series: "Waltz with Bashir".

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