Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Last year I ran  the Edinburgh Marathon to raise funds for Amnesty International. Thanks to generous support from family, friends and colleagues I managed to raise over £1000, which was well above my target of £600.

This year I will be running in the London Marathon, again for Amnesty. This time my pledged amount is £1800. It's a lot but I hope you agree it is for a good cause.

An example of the work done by Amnesty is the  campaign for justice for three human rights defenders in Turkmenistan.

 

Ogulsapar Muradova, Annakurban Amanklychev and Sapardurdy Khadzhiev–all connected to the human rights organisation the Turkmenistan Helsinki Foundation – were detained in June 2006. The three were sentenced shortly afterwards, in August 2006, to between six and seven years'  imprisonment for "illegal aquisition, possession or sale of ammunition or firearms" following an unfair trial. Amnesty believes that the charge against the three was fabricated to punish them for their human rights activities.

In September 2006 Ogulsapar Muradova’s family received the terrible news that she had died in custody.  Arrested in June dead by September.  Her fellow human rights defenders remain in prison.

Ms Murodova’s relatives reported seeing ‘marks on her neck’ and a ‘huge wound on her forehead’ when they viewed her body. Amnesty is concerned that she may have been tortured in detention. I've included a photograph of Ogulsapar Muradova (see the second of my photos above). For more information please open this link to a BBC article:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6201669.stm

Amnesty is campaigning  to achieve justice for these three human rights defenders.They are  urging the authorities in Turkmenistan to conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the cause and circumstances of Ogulsapar Muradova’s death, and to release Annakurban Amanklychev and Sapardurdy Khadzhiev immediately and unconditionally.

This is just one example of the cases pursued by Amnesty to defend human rights throughout the world and so bring hope to people who are often in terrible circumstances.

The money which I raise will not go directly to this campaign. However please remember these women when making a donation and consider visiting the Amnesty Web Site to support their work on this case.

The money which I raise will go to support the work of AI , which relies on donations from individuals. For example.

£5/10 CHF pays for four faxes to be sent as part of an Urgent Action campaign to help someone in imminent danger of torture or execution.

£30/60CHF supports researchers in continuing country missions to investigate human rights abuses.

£200/400CHF can pay to run a crisis response mission for one day.

 

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

From Switzerland you could as an alternative make a donation to the AI Schweizer Sektion in Zürich:

Amnesty International

Schweizer Sektion

Regionalkonto

8000 Zürich

Konto 80-46815-2 (Postcheck-Konto)

Please include as reference "David Burns; London Marathon"

So please dig deep and donate now. Thank you.