Malawi Pardons Jailed Gay Couple

We spent hours yesterday collecting letters from people at Birmingham Pride on the case the Malawian gay couple sentenced to 14 years hard labour in prison. It seems the Malawian authorities fearing the deluge of letters from Birmingham, UK changed their minds and have now pardoned them. In reality I think the visit of Ban Ki-Moon was the reason for the decision being made yesterday. However, external pressure played a role and our work as Amnesty activists has contributed to this (our work didn’t start yesterday). The BBC report can be seen at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/10190653.stm – I say in the spirit of Peter Bennenson who launched Amnesty 49 years ago on Friday lets raise a toast to freedom 🙂

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