About Us

We are one of a number of local groups who promote Amnesty International’s campaigns at a local level. The groups are run by volunteers who are passionate about human rights. We don’t have an office but we do meet monthly to discuss issues on the second Thursday of the month. We’ll be putting some faces to names quite soon:

• Chair – Pete Doubtfire
• Vice Chair - Bill Miller
• Finance Officer – Tim Gilbert
• Secretary – Bill Miller
• New Member Coordinator – Chutinder Thandi
• Co-ordinator for Middle East (Syria/Iran) – Ellis Brooks & Sarah Teversham
• Co-ordinator for Death Penalty – Chuti and Natalia
• Social Network Manager (Facebook) – Tom Davenport
• Media Officers (including Flickr and Youtube) – Lauren Hulin and Karen Dhesi
• Online Librarian – Jon Andrews

The group can be contacted by email at amnestybrum@gmail.com We are on Twitter at www.twitter.com/amnestybrum and we have a Central Birmingham Amnesty International group on Facebook too.

History of the Group (founded Thursday 17th March 1977)

The intention to start the group came in 1976 when Frank Rock wrote to David Simpson of British Amnesty. The very first preliminary meeting was on Wednesday 12th January 1977 where nine people were present at Christine Harries’ house, including Roger Laurence who was the then Regional Representative.

On Thursday 17th March 1977 thirteen people met at Christine Harries’ house with the setting up of Central Birmingham Action Group with Christine Harries as Chair, Martin Powell as Treasurer and Frank as Secretary. In April of that year they adopted their first prisoner of conscience who was transferred from Wythall Group. His name was Ragmila Marhoagan. On Wednesday 1st March the group had a meeting with twenty-one people attending where they decided to request ‘adoption’ status which I believe meant becoming officially affiliated to Amnesty International and this was accepted.