AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA
PRESS RELEASE

Friday, January 20, 2006


(New York)--In a letter sent to President Bush, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) urged the administration to ensure a strong United Nations Human Rights Council by supporting a system of genuine elections to determine membership -- and by using U.S. influence to help overcome the resistance of China, Egypt, Russia and Pakistan to such a system. The organization also mobilized its worldwide membership to send appeals to the president.

"The Council's membership will be improved if members are required to be elected through genuine contested elections that exclude regions from determining Council membership without taking into account a country's human rights record," Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of AIUSA, said in the letter. "To be effective the Human Rights Council must protect all human rights in all countries. No country has a claim to membership."

In the letter, AIUSA agreed with the assertion of John Bolton, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, that merely recreating the U.N. Commission on Human Rights under a different name would be entirely insufficient. However, the organization also noted that the Council must retain the current level of participation by non-governmental organizations as well as the system of independent human rights experts known as Special Procedures.

Dr. Schulz recognized President Bush's previous contact with China and other countries to improve human rights in North Korea and Burma, noting that "the same determination and effectiveness can now be brought to bear on creating a new human rights institution that will inspire confidence in the United States and throughout the world and that will have a longstanding impact on the protection of human rights everywhere."

Contact: Wende Gozan at 212/633-4247 or T. Kumar at 202/675-8578

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