The Campaign Against Torture
Today, torture still occurs in two-thirds of the world's countries and someone is at risk of torture every minute of every day. The third International Campaign against Torture will mobilize Amnesty International's one million member activists to stop torture worldwide.
Over the years, Amnesty International has counted on people like you to help us save thousands of individuals from the brutal hands of torturers. Fast action can stop torture. Torture is exposed faster; the torture stops sooner.
The Campaign Against Torture begins October 18, 2001 with an unprecedented cyber-launch of the new Fast Action Stops Torture (FAST) network. Whenever AI hears about an imminent threat of torture, this system immediately contacts our network of activists via email to computers, pagers and mobile phones, urging people to log on to our Web site to send an instant letter of protest to prevent the torture. (link to FAST)
The Campaign Against Torture will mobilize activists to:
- Demand that torturers always be stopped and brought to justice - either in their own countries or in others.
- Support torture survivors and organizations that work with survivors of torture while urging the US to pass a full appropriation for the Torture Victims Relief Act.
- Confront violence against women that constitutes torture. Work to end the torture of children. Work to end the torture of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered people.
- Urge the UN World Conference on Racism to take concrete steps against torture.
- Work with grassroots organizations to combat torture in 21 targeted countries including the United States.
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The Death Penalty
Three years ago, the American Bar Association called for a national moratorium on use of the death penalty in the United States. Today, there is an unprecedented opportunity to contribute to the national debate on this issue. While Amnesty International supports moratoria efforts as a tactic toward abolition, our focus remains on the death penalty as a violation of human rights.
This has been a pivotal year in the national death penalty debate. Illinois Governor George Ryan's moratorium on executions in January 2000 sparked an intense national focus on the issue and generated new momentum for moratoria in other states. In June 2000, Maryland Governor Parris Glendening commuted the sentence of Death Row Inmate Eugene Colvin-El to life in prison without parole. Also in 2000, a bill was passed in New Hampshire legislature supporting the abolition of the death penalty, only to be vetoed by Governor Shaheen. In July, the European Union (EU) requested a moratorium on federal executions. In a letter delivered by the French Ambassador, the EU urged President Clinton to grant clemency in the case of Juan Raul Garza, the first scheduled federal execution in nearly 40 years.
In Tennessee, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the executions of Robert Glen Coe and Philip Workman, the first scheduled executions in the state since 1960. In spite of the efforts of Amnesty International and other human rights advocacy groups, Coe became the first person executed in Tennessee in forty years.
These actions demonstrate a growing concern nationwide regarding the application of the death penalty. Already by October 2000, there have been 70 executions in the US -- an average of two a week. Thirty three of these have been carried out in Texas, which now accounts for 232 of the 668 prisoners put to death since the US resumed judicial killing in 1977. Ninety-eight prisoners were executed in the US in 1999 alone, a total exceeded only by China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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