We are now up to our fifth book since the Cardiff Amnesty Human Rights Book Club began and we continue to cover a range of thought-provoking material. Our last read, I Didn’t Do It For You by Michela Wrong, focused on the long and complex history of the country of Eritrea. This book provided an important insight into a country that has been the subject of colonisation, exploitation, civil war, human rights abuses, and a country that now accounts for a large proportion of the asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. We were also lucky to be joined by Alex Jackson, AIUK’s Country Coordinator for Eritrea, who provided first hand knowledge of many of the topics that the book raised. 

Our next book club meeting will be on Monday 20th September at 7pm. The book that we will be reading will be Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat. This book is a first hand account of an Iranian woman’s experience of being detained at a notorious prison in Tehran and the fallout that followed. 

The blurb…

‘Aged sixteen, Marina Nemat was arrested for reasons she didn’t understand and taken to Evin, Tehran’s notorious prison. Her world was about to change forever.

Marina was interrogated, tortured and finally sentenced to death. At the last moment, her prison guard snatched her from the firing-squad bullets but demanded a shocking price in return: marriage to him and conversion to Islam. She spent her time in jail as his secret bride, always hoping she would be able to go home and be free of her horrific memories of Evin’.

This book is sure to be powerful in its own right, but also links in with some of the work of Cardiff Amnesty. Over the last five years, Cardiff Amnesty has been campaigning for the release of dual British-Iranian nationals that are detained in Iran, notably so in the cases of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori. Like Marina Nemat, both Nazanin and Anoosheh have been held at Evin prison at some point in their detention and we continue to campaign for their release. This book will highlight the urgency and importance of this work.

We hope you can join us on Monday 20th September at 7pm to discuss this book! 

The book club is held separately to the usual Cardiff Amnesty Group meetings and is open to everyone, regardless of whether you are a member of Amnesty International or not. If you would like to join us, please get in touch with our Group Secretary, Tomos, at amnesty.cardiff@btinternet.com.