So most people my age get jobs for the summer and maybe go away somewhere. This year I have failed to find a job, but I have been to Vienna with friends, and I hate to admit it at my age, but I’ve also been to summercamp. Out of the people that attended, we figured out that the average age was 20.4 years, so I was younger than most people there but summercamp was something I thought I had left behind in my childhood with jelly-sandels, touching hot-plates, corned beef and ketchup sandwhiches and of course the 90s.

We, the three Irish delegates arrived on Monday morning with enough time to acclimatise to our new surroundings before going to registration and the evenings events. The Irish Section

Over the past week, I have helped to run our Ice-Breaker exercise on Monday evening of making a human knot- where everyone in the circle joins the hands of other members in the circle making one big human knot with the objective of unravelling it eventually, and I ran the warm up exercise in Melanie’s Creative Campaigning workshop.
Between workshops and talks I’ve learned about Amnesty’s new global ‘Human Dignity’ campaign which will be launched next year, so it will focus on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, like the right to housing, education, nutrition, employment etc.

I’ve also gotten another insight as to the human rightrs violations currectly being committed in China in the run-up to the Olympics, which we had a flahsmob yesterday in Paris for. We focused on the case of Ye Guozhu, a Chinese restaurant owner who was evicted from his business without any compensation in order to use the location it was on for the building of infrastructure for the Olympics. In the same area more than 6,000 families have been evicted and this is by no means an isolated issue in the country, the number of people displaced is growing. Ye Guozhuwas arrested for requesting premission from the authorities to peacefully protest the evictions. He was sentanced to four years imprisonment and was due for release this month, but the datehas been pushed back futher til after the end of the Olympics. Because this is a case where several human rights were violated (right to employment, freedom of expression) we campaigned for Ye Guozhu.

Pont des Arts
From Marly le Roi, we took a bus to where our protest took place in the Paris city centre, on the Pont des Arts, where for some time we mingled among the Pariseans and tourists, before hearing the signal to don our yellow t-shirts, bibs, sashes, while covering our mouths with both hands to symbolise the violation of the human right of expression. We then rushed to the centre of the bridge where one group lined up against the railings unveiling a long yello banner coverd in our signatures and the message that every person has the right to freedom of expression. This banner stayed up during the entirity of our protest.
Ye Guozhu
Another group performed a short drama on the case of Ye Guozhu, while those of us left unoccupied sat in a semi-circle around the performers creating a stage space, before rising up with our placards in cries of ‘Freedom!’ in our own mother tounges before joining united in a chorus of “Liberté maintenant!”
The beating of Ye Guozhu
Protesting for Ye Guozhu
For a protest that was organised in under a week, I think it went fantastically. It was clear who we were and what we wanted so I think we made an impact with the shock tactic of the flashmob, and many people were gathered around watching the play of Ye Guozhu, plus we had good press coverage thanks to Adrian’s Press Release. So go team Amnesty! 🙂
Part of the banner

Apart from making friends, learning more and more about amnesty and our campaigns, and eating mainly salads and cheese for the week ’cause they were the safest veggie option, I had a nametag with “Jennifer Tope” on it ’cause she was the girl originally meant to go and they didnt make a new one for me. I’ve also managed to piss off my back again. Not sure how exactly. I reckon it might have something to do with dragging my bag over paris to the subburbs plus having what i reckon is a total of 20 hours sleep in four days probably just ticked off the back injury i got during the last fencing comp i was in….so It’s looking like a week or two of pain killers til it stops hurting.

I hear one of my nephews rang to thank me for the card I sent, but I missed it since I was away so tell him I said hello and I have a postcard from France for them.

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