Archive for July, 2009

@amnestyuk vs @shelldotcom

29th July 2009 by ben 30 Comments »

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Categories: Shell




A simple Twitter message, repeated by just a few hundred users, and the world’s biggest company was scrambling to set up an online dialogue.

The request was for an opportunity to discuss Amnesty’s recent report ‘Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty’, which highlighted human rights abuses in the Niger Delta, where despite vast profits for oil companies, 31 million people are living in poverty.

The details were soon finalised. It was to happen on the Shell Dialogues site, with a parallel and open chat right here on Protect the Human.

On one side was Shell, with a panel of five senior staff, a slick introductory video and a well-oiled PR machine. On the other, the 445 individuals who had registered to take part, including experts from Amnesty, the Remember Saro-wiwa campaign, Friends of the Earth and local organisations based in Nigeria.

The stage was set.

What followed was an endless stream of questions about Shell’s human rights record, including why they continue with gas flaring despite a government ban, why they haven’t published their environmental assessments, and why they have failed to adequately clean up oil spills.

It didn’t take long before cracks began to appear in their positive PR machine, with country chair Basil Omiyi admitted that ‘Yes’, Shell does believe that pollution and environmental damage associated with the oil industry has contributed to poverty and conflict in the Niger Delta. Their assertion that ‘the oil industry’s footprint is impacting on small parts of the delta’ was an understatement of epic proportions, and their claim that ‘Shell is giving all spills immediate attention’ was completely dismissed by those working in the Niger Delta.

We should give Shell some credit for at least being willing to discuss these issues, though their rose tinted view fooled no one.

The next step is to watch this space, for a promised transcript of the dialogue, along with answers to the questions they didn’t have time to answer. In the meantime we are analysing their answers and plotting our next move.

If you’ve not yet sent an email to Shell’s new CEO, please take a moment to do this. If you have, why not send a message to @shelldotcom on Twitter, asking them to respond to the 3500+ emails that have been sent.

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The Shell web chat

16th July 2009 by Fiona McLaren 40 Comments »

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Categories: Site News Social Media & Campaigns

Thanks to everyone who took part in the Shell webchat. We’ll be analysing Shell’s responses over the next few days, so watch this space!

If you were involved, please add your thoughts as a comment below.

The background

Thanks to you, and the hundreds of messages you sent to Shell via Twitter, we got them listening.

Shell agreed to host a webchat on their site Shell Dialogues about the Niger Delta. We took this opportunity to ask tough questions about Shell’s human rights and environmental practices in the Niger Delta.

We pulled together a bunch of information, from key facts all the way through to our full report to help you ask some hard questions, like “Will Shell commit to cleaning up all oil spills in the Delta?‘

Full Report (PDF) |  Summary (DOC)

NEW: 20 questions Shell won’t answer (DOC)

Find out more about our campaign

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The Container play – a review

16th July 2009 by agnes Comments Off

Categories: Arts and entertainment Refugees and asylum

‘The Container play is performed to just 28 audience members who are locked inside a shipping container, providing the vivid experience asylum seekers must endure to reach our country. ’

 Literally enclosed in a metal container situated on The Cut outside the Young Vic theatre, you are not just being performed to, you are part of the performance- sharing the space with the actors  in such intensely close proximity that you forget it’s a play and become enthralled in their stories.

All the characters are refugees journeying in a lorry to Britain, but they are all from different countries – as the play unfolds, their stories and reasons for risking their lives to come to Britain become more distinct, from escaping the Taliban to wanting to be with family.  Its a very powerful reminder that refugees are not just a homogeneous group 

The sense of danger is palpable throughout the play, as the characters constantly fear their volatile agent, being found by police and worse – being sent back to where they have escaped from. Whilst all of the characters’ stories involve desperation and grief, perhaps the most tragic part is their hope of being treated well in England - which as we all know is sadly not always the case. 

True to life, some of the characters disclose more about their past than others.  Not to ruin the story for you, if you get to see the play - which I would highly recommend -  but there is an incredible performance by a young girl who plays the part of a Somali refugee with a heartbreaking backstory. Her youth puts a different spin on the play, emphasising her defencelessness and again hitting home the range of people who become refugees. 

So in conclusion, if you are up for a unforgettably powerful performance – or ’experience’ - which explores refugees’ issues, go and see the play for yourself. If you can’t see the play, you can always find out more about refugees and asylum and take action to end the destitution of refused asylum seekers on the Amnesty Refugee and Asylum page

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Media Awards: A view from the next generation

13th July 2009 by SamSam Comments Off

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Categories: Uncategorized

At last month’s Media Awards we asked a few student journalists along to get their take on it.

Here are the thoughts of Kat Lay, Editor of London Student

“The mood in Western journalism, in blogs, books and even chats over cups of tea, is very bleak and downbeat at the moment.

All we hear about are cutbacks, with journalists mindlessly rewriting endless press releases without taking (or indeed having) the time to check facts, let alone do any real investigations.

So attending the Amnesty International Media awards a couple of weeks ago was a breath of fresh air.

The stories up for recognition did just what every hopeful journalist aspires to do – they shone a light into dark places and revealed information that someone wanted to keep hidden. By no stretch of the imagination did this constitute churnalism.

And the number of Britain-based stories on the list was a particular inspiration. There’s definitely a tendency to think that human rights issues are only news for the foreign pages, but a Guardian feature into neighbours trying to save immigrants from deportation (among others) put paid to that.

The journalists recognised in the ‘Journalism Under Threat’ category were even more of a jolt out of the cosy world where a journalist’s biggest concern is a budget cut. Eynulla Fәtullayev, Ebrima B. Manneh and Pablo Pacheco Avila all faced far more severe difficulties, and still kept publishing.

That said, the winners’ acceptance speeches almost all included a plea for commissioning editors not to cut the budget for human rights journalism. The type of story recognised by the Amnesty awards is too important to lose. Let’s hope they were listening.”
Naturally, you can see some of the nominees and winners on ProtectTheHuman.com

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