THE home of Mount Everest beckons for a keen supporter of human rights.

Luckshan Abeysuriya has a new role with Amnesty International - to find out more about the human rights situation in Nepal.

Mr Abeysuriya, of Grange-over-Sands, has already been on a fact-finding visit to the mountainous country, and told the Gazette: "The human rights situation is pretty bad out there.

There is Communist-led insurgency, and there are quite a lot of violations of human rights."

The country coordinator for Nepal explained: "My role is gathering information, and also to lobby our Government to try to help the situation in Nepal.

It's a very, very poor country, even though it's a beautiful country."

Mr Abeysuriya, who has just retired from the board of Amnesty International UK, said torture was "quite common" in Nepal, and journalists and teachers were "constantly arrested".

"It's quite an exciting role.

I might be going again to Kathmandu when the weather is a bit better - it's quite wintry up there now."

Meanwhile, as chairman of the United Nations Association's South Lakeland branch, Mr Abeysuriya was guest preacher at Kendal's Unitarian Chapel on Human Rights Day.

He spoke about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which celebrated its 52nd anniversary this year.

Around 60 people attended the service.

Amnesty International's Cartmel and Grange group held a vigil in Grange to mark Human Rights Day.

The theme was support for asylum seekers, and for Amnesty's campaign to stamp our torture.

Despite rain storms - which eventually forced the vigil to be abandoned - up to 40 people signed cards calling on PM Tony Blair to encourage other countries not to practise torture.

Taking part was Mayor of Grange Pamela Monkhouse, an Amnesty member.

Amnesty's Kendal group held a vigil at the town's Birdcage, which attracted a lot of support from Christmas shoppers.