Meeting for Sufferings: Quaker Concern for the Abolition of Torture
‘How do we continue… when we cannot find Friends to be under concern with us?’
MfS received another Area Meeting Minute on the work of QPSW, which it forwarded to its central committee, and then heard from the trustees of Quaker Concern for the Abolition of Torture (Q-CAT). The organisation has been busy recently, gaining parliamentary support for an amendment to the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act, to
maintain the criminal nature of torture. It had collaborated successfully with BYM staff on this, and recommended it as good way of working. But Q-CAT has been struggling to find people to support its work, and wanted to ask MfS for help: ‘How do we continue… when we cannot find Friends to be under concern with us?’
One Friend wondered whether the nature of the work, sometimes distressing, could put people off. But this couldn’t be fully investigated today, said MfS clerk Margaret Bryan. For now, it was MfS’s job to encourage Friends to consider whether they were able to ‘uphold and actively support Q-CAT in its important work’.
