Newsroom

Update

On November 21, Kentucky is set to execute Marco Allen Chapman, who was sentenced to death for the murder of two children in 2002.  He rejected efforts to defend him at trial, and has refused to pursue any appeals.  Since the moment of his arrest, when he asked police to shoot him in the head, Chapman has been trying to commit “state-assisted suicide”, or “suicide by Court”.  Next Friday, Kentucky may well grant him his wish. Such voluntary executions are not a rare occurrence.  About 130, or more than 10% of all executions since 1977, have been “volunteers”.  In some…

November 11, 2008

Update

Every day across the world people make the difficult decision to leave their homes. War, persecution, environmental disaster and poverty are just some of the reasons why a person might feel that they have to leave their family, community or country. Refugees leave their country because they have no other choice and fear for their own life or safety or that of their family. Refugees also flee their country when their government will not or cannot protect them from serious human rights abuses. Right now, as you read this, millions of people around the world have fled and are waiting…

November 10, 2008

Update

On Saturday, November 8, Indonesia executed three men (Amrozi bin H. Nurhasyim, Ali Ghufron, aka Mukhlas, and Imam Samudera) known as the “Bali Bombers”, because of the bombings for which they were convicted on the island of Bali which killed over 200 people, many of them tourists from Australia.  The days leading up to these executions were fraught with high drama, with opinions on all sides coming in from Indonesia, Australia and beyond.  Arguments about whether the executions would make martyrs out of the Bali Bombers dominated the discussion.  Although the long-term impact remains to be seen, one of the…

November 10, 2008

Update

While African and UN leaders today discuss the recent spike in violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, civilians continue to suffer on the ground. The unraveling of the fragile ceasefire over the last hours further increased the urgency for the international community to step up its effort to help. The UN peacekeeping force MONUC remains the last hope of hundreds of thousands of affected civilians, mainly women and children. However, the force is thinly stretched and cannot enforce its mandate of stopping attacks against civilians, protect humanitarian operations and enforce the UN arms embargo. The absolute priority for…

November 7, 2008

Update

I can sit in my ergonomic chair as I type, comforted not only by the lower back support, but by the knowledge that whatever I type here will not get me thrown into the local jail. But others are not so lucky..... ...they don't have an ergonomic chair.  Yeah, maybe Raja Petra, Malaysian political commentator for the blog Malaysia Today, doesn't have an ergonomic chair by his computer. But that's not biggest denial of human rights he has suffered as a journalist. Raja was detained in September, his second time in prison for blogging. His "devious" crime? He wrote of wrongdoing by Malaysian goverment officials. But they arrested him under…

November 7, 2008

Update

I was asked today about Amnesty International’s increasing calls for the UN Security Council to act to reinforce the peacekeeping force currently in DRC (acronym MONUC…it’s French and I can’t find the circumflex character to spell it out). Given the awful situiation in the East of the country, calling on the Security Council to, in his words, “put more guns” in the Kivus was “not going to help in the long run,” he offered. After quickly noting that Amnesty’s call is to strengthen the ability of MONUC to protect civilians…which include more police and armed personnel, but also trucks, aircraft, training to help victims of sexual violence, and…

November 7, 2008

Update

With all the patriotic spirit and flag-waving (and questions about lapel pins) that we've been seeing lately surrounding the Presidential election here in the United States, it can be easy to forget just how powerful a symbol a flag can be, and how heavy a price can be exacted for raising the wrong one. But as election season draws to a close and we in the Individuals at Risk Campaign prepare for the annual Global Write-a-thon, I've been thinking a lot about Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage, whose case is featured in this year's Write-a-thon. On December 1, 2004, some…

November 7, 2008

Update

Below is my reply on the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Piece of Nov. 4, 2008: Guantanamo Revelation. I served in the military for 14 years, including three deployments to the Middle East. My last deployment was to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom and I remain deployed in Baghdad after its fall until December, 2003. As an Arabic speaker, I worked closely with Arabs of nearly all nationalities. I had many frank discussions. In discussing the difference between the US and Saddam's Iraq, I could always point to the legal system in the US as a venue for any citizen to protest their…

November 6, 2008

Update

In the middle of all the interest in the American election, there was an election halfway around the world last week that got me thinking about a brave young woman from the Maldives named Jennifer Latheef. I met her at an Amnesty meeting two years ago where she spoke at a panel of former prisoners of conscience.  I didn't know where the Maldives were or anything about the islands, other than they are a popular resort for celeb weddings.  (I'm sure I'm not alone -- here's the google map link.) It was one of those meetings that Amnesty International makes…

November 6, 2008

Update

A jury in New Hampshire has just sentenced a white millionaire businessman named John Brooks to life without parole for the capital murder of Jack Reid in 2005. This was New Hampshire’s first death penalty trial in 49 years; New Hampshire has no one on death row and has not carried out an execution since 1939, and the refusal of this jury to vote for a sentence of death begs the question:  why does New Hampshire have the death penalty? A second death penalty trial is also underway in New Hampshire, where African American Michael Addison is charged with killing…

November 6, 2008

Update

The situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo remains fragile, after rebel forces and local militia clashed north of Goma. More than 250,000 people have been displaced by the recent fighting and the humanitarian situation remains catastrophic. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is currently trying to find out what happened to the 50,000 people that were previously housed in the area. "As we feared, three internal displacement sites run by UNHCR near the town of Rutshuru in eastern DRC (...) have been destroyed and emptied," David Benthu Nthengwe, UNHCR external relations officer, told IRIN "We and our partners are…

November 5, 2008

Update

< p class="MsoNormal" style="none;"> Last night’s record voter turnout and victory for Senator Barack Obama are a powerful demonstration to me that the American people are passionate about hope for the future and are willing to work to bring about the change they desire. It was inspiring to witness so many people turn out to exercise one of the most fundamental human rights. This historic election also reaffirms my belief in the strength and effectiveness of grassroots organizing and the power to build a decentralized movement for change. That is the model on which Amnesty International was founded, and still…

November 5, 2008