This month: Stamp of approval - Price of belief

Stamp of approval

  Since the late 1920s, the BMS Stamp Bureau has been raising money for BMS World Mission by gathering and selling used postage stamps and other collectibles.

  In 1928, this first appeared in the BMS accounts as a contribution of £60.  Now, with your help, it raises several thousands of pounds each year.

  As you send stamps and other collectible items, such as coins, medals and cards, to BMS Stamp Bureau, we collate and sell them on to collectors and dealers.  The income raised is passed on to BMS to support their work of changing lives around the world. So, please:

* Encourage friends or church members to keep the stamps from their letters and even from the schools, offices or shops where they work.

* Ask people to cut round the stamps, leaving around 3mm (1/8 inch) of the envelope showing all round, but be careful not to damage any part of the stamp including the perforations.  Any envelopes with first day issues or unusual postmarks should be left intact - they may be especially valuable.

* Some groups organise stamp-trimming sessions as an opportunity for a chat and a coffee together.

* Please sort the stamps into ‘British’ and ‘other countries’.  'Others' includes stamps from all foreign countries and those of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.  If there are stamps you think may be special or unusual, please keep them apart.

  When you have enough stamps, put them in the ‘Stamp’ box in the church vestibule.  The church’s ‘stamp co-ordinator’, Dave Goulding, will forward them to the BMS Stamp Bureau and similar bureaux, such as that operated by Leprosy Mission..

  The Bureau also welcomes stamp collections, in whole or in part; stamp albums; stockbooks, and stamp collecting equipment of all types.  Please send any collections separately with a letter giving details of the gift and giver.

  In addition, the Bureau accepts items such as:

* Coins and notes - foreign and pre-decimal British.
* Medals and badges - especially those of the military, police or fire service.
* Postcards - especially older ones.
* Cigarette and tea cards.
* Pre-1950 greetings - Christmas or birthday - cards.

From The BMS Stamp Bureau.

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Another ‘fact that should change the world’.

Price of belief

  Wherever in the world you live, it can take courage to stand up for what you believe in.  But, in some countries, the simple act of declaring your beliefs, practising your religion or expressing your pride in your ancestry can be considered a subversive act - and punishment can be severe.

  In 2002, 35 countries were detaining confirmed or possible prisoners of conscience.  These people are often held in appalling conditions, sometimes tortured, but they have committed no crime.

  There is an estimated 300,000 such prisoners detained in the world today.  Many are political prisoners, detained without change or trial in direct violation of human rights laws.

  In 1991 Layla Zana became the first and only Kurdish woman to be elected to the Turkish Parliament.  As required by Turkish law, she recited the oath of loyalty, then added in Kurdish that she would strive for Kurdish and Turkish peoples to be able to live together in a democratic framework.

  Branded as a ‘witch of separatism’ her use of Kurdish was seen as a call to arms.  She was sentenced to 15 years jail in 1994 - and a further two years were added for letters she wrote to her people, urging them to remain faithful to the struggle for recognition.

  Vietnamese journalist and pro-democracy activist, Nguyen Dinh Huy, has spent only 21 months outside prison since the fall of Saigon in 1975.  He is now 72 and is still detained in a prison camp.

  The former First Secretary of Syria’s Communist Party Political Bureau, Raid al-Turk, was released in June 1998 after spending 18 years in solitary confinement.  Denied visitors, his family didn’t know where he was.  He survived by forgetting about the outside world.  He would pick tiny stones out of his daily lentil soup and use them to create intricate patterns on his cell floor.

  In 2001 he was detained again.  This time, he served another 15 months in prison.  At 78, he remains determined to fight for freedom and democracy.

  Arrests on grounds of conscience happen in the West too.  In 2002, Finland and Switzerland were reported to have detained people who had refused to take part in compulsory military service.

  Many of the countries that hold prisoners of conscience are signatories to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR).  States that have signed the CCPR promise to safeguard people’s rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; to hold opinions without interference, and to express themselves through any medium of their choice.

  But even if governments have not signed the CCPR, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states the case for those freedoms.

  The international community can apply pressure through sanctions, diplomatic processes and by passing resolutions through the UN Commission on Human Rights.

  This body meets once a year and spends six weeks debating the human rights standards in various countries.  But there are concerns that the commission has been hijacked by a bloc of governments whose human rights records are less than exemplary.

  Human Rights Watch called these governments an ‘abusers’ club’: Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe joined forces with China, Cuba and Russia to oppose several important initiatives.

  In 2003, the Commission elected Libya as its chair, despite that country’s human rights record being described as ‘appalling’.

  Although the 2003 Commission meeting did pass resolutions condemning abuses in North Korea and Turkmenistan for the first time, there are still concerns about its credibility and its ability to address the world’s serious human rights problems.

  As we marvel at the bravery of people who carry on their struggle in the face of repressive regimes, we should condemn the cowardly governments who think it acceptable to lock up those who don’t agree with their dictates.  A strong and confident government may not like its critics, but it should be able to withstand a robust public debate.

  The right to be who you are and express what you feel is one of the most fundamental rights of human existence.  Governments that lock up dissenters are showing contempt for all their citizens.

Abridged from ‘50 facts that should change the world’ by Jessica Williams (ISBN 1-84046-547-6) and supplied by Aneurin Little.