Newsroom

Update

Reporting directly from southern Israel, Amnesty International researcher Donatella Rovera answered questions submitted about the Gaza crisis. Our vote for the toughest question answered: How can AI even ask the question whether or not US military equipment was used in the killing of civilians. Also, your home page announcing all of this certainly seemed to try to equalize Hamas/IDF -- how can that be? First paragraph -- you never said that the deaths were caused by the Israeli ASSAULT not only the blockade.... Here is how to stop Hamas: END THE OCCUPATION!! And the toughest question left unanswered: Just what…

January 12, 2009

Update

This week we mark the 7th anniversary of the day the U.S. government first began warehousing “enemy combatants,” terrorism suspects and hapless wrong-place-wrong-time detainees at Guantánamo.  Since then, hundreds of detainees have been locked up and stripped of their legal rights, at least five have died in custody, and scores have attempted suicide (not to mention the more than 500 documented incidents of detainees trying to harm themselves).  The U.S. government’s malfeasance has metastasized all over globe to include torture, kidnapping and extraordinary rendition, as well as the CIA practice of “ghost detentions”—the secret and illegal imprisonment of in overseas…

January 12, 2009

Update

Last week, the UN passed a binding resolution calling for “an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire leading to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza." Resolution 1860 also calls for “the unimpeded provisions and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment” and “condemns all acts of violence and terror directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism.” In addressing the issue of arms trafficking into Palestinian territories, the resolution calls for “intensified international arrangements to prevent arms and ammunition smuggling The resolution passed, with fourteen members voted in favor.  The United States abstained.…

January 12, 2009

Update

Yesterday morning, a brave Sri Lankan journalist paid the ultimate price for freedom of expression.  Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper, was shot by unidentified gunmen  while on his way to work.  He died a few hours later of his injuries.  The Sunday Leader newspaper is known in Sri Lanka for its articles exposing political corruption in privatization deals and for drawing attention to human rights abuses in connection with the recent upsurge in fighting between the government and the opposition Tamil Tigers. This isn’t the first time that the Sunday Leader and its staff have come…

January 9, 2009

Update

After thirteen days of shelling Gaza in attacks that have killed over 683 Palestinians, the Israeli government has agreed to a daily three hour truce to allow for humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza. But is this sufficient? Consider the following: 1. Historical blockade of Gaza Avi Shlaim, a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford and a former Israeli soldier, writes in his Guardian article, How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of a humanitarian crisis:  “Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy of the Gaza Strip.  With a large population of 1948 refugees…

January 8, 2009

Update

As we enter the new year the U.S. State Department is finishing the touches on its annual human rights report. When I took over as Egypt country specialist for Amnesty back in the 1990s, Egyptian activists used to look forward to the report's publication.  It was a rare occasion that any official body of influence called the Egyptian government on its human rights abuses.  It gave their work particularly against torture, legitimacy and moral support. But this year, as in the past few years, the report will be ignored by my activist colleagues in Egypt.  Today's New York Times has…

January 7, 2009

Update

The below piece was written in January of 2009. Police continue to kill people with impunity in numbers close to 1,000 annually, disproportionally impacting black people. E-mail us at [email protected] to get involved in your state.   Today is Oscar Grant’s funeral.  He is the latest in a long string of unarmed black men to be killed by police.  The night he died, Oscar, 22, was out celebrating New Year’s Eve.  At around 2 a.m., he and friends were pulled off of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train- Northern California’s subway system- by police officers.  He was unarmed and…

January 7, 2009

Update

Amnesty International has called on the US State Department to suspend all transfers of military weaponry and equipment to Israel until it conducts an investigation into whether US weapons were used in human rights violations.  Israel has been using F16’s, Apache helicopters, gunboats and bunker buster bombs in a week-long series of devastating attacks on the Gaza Strip. Monitoring of the use of American-made weaponry is not unprecedented.  The State Department monitored the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories during the second intifada after Israel dropped a 2,000 pound bomb from an F-16 on an apartment building killing not only…

January 7, 2009

Update

So it ain’t breaking news that the Bush administration concocted a legal flip-flam to justify the kidnapping, capture, detention and torture of hundreds of people from around the world, under the guise of national security. But to witness how and exactly what they did in meticulous detail – legal memos, public statements (ie, lies) by administration officials, accurate re-enactments of torture, and testimony from a few extraordinarily strong men who survived death-defying treatment – was beyond maddening. This happened last night as my husband pulled me away from Facebook to watch Torturing Democracy, an excellent new documentary produced by National…

January 7, 2009

Update

When a good friend left for Iraq, I noticed I began to pay even closer attention to the daily news reports coming out of Baghdad. I emailed, but didn’t hear back. Then reports of more suicide bombings, killing dozens. Then the outbreak of extreme levels of violence in Israel/Palestine. And finally, a thought entered my mind: if I had the money, I’d hire a Blackwater guard and fly over there, see for myself, find those I care about and make sure they’re ok. Wait, what did I just say? I'd hire Blackwater? As soon as I entertained the thought, I…

January 6, 2009

Update

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c Strip Maul *Requires flash player version 10 Check out last night's The Daily Show segment on how the current Gaza crisis is being covered in the US media. It shows the one-sided US response to the conflict that Zahir outlined in his post yesterday. Amnesty is calling for the US to condemn both sides with equal vigor — including Israel for its vastly disproportionate response. Please take a moment to take action to stop the violence if you haven't already!

January 6, 2009

Update

I just got off the phone with a colleague in Mexico who has been working with the women of Atenco, and she told me she had come into her office after vacation to see that it was nearly filled with huge bags of mail. The bags were all stuffed with holiday cards bearing messages of solidarity and support for the women, sent by participants in AIUSA's 2008 Holiday Card Action. "There must be over 10,000 of them," she said, "the women will be so happy." Although New Year's and the other holidays have passed, it's not too late to take part…

January 6, 2009