• Press Release

Amnesty Joins Call on President Obama: End Secrecy on Drone Strikes

December 6, 2013

Contact: Gabe Cahn, West End Strategy Team, [email protected], Office: 202-776-7700, Cell: 202-412-1678

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – On December 4th, 2013, Amnesty International joined eight U.S.-based human rights groups in an open letter to President Obama urging him to end the policy of secrecy and ensure accountability for unlawful U.S. drone strikes. President Obama pledged increased transparency on drone strikes more than six months ago, in a May 23rd speech at the National Defense University. Yet since then, the Administration has failed to officially disclose any new information about drone policy, the legal framework or particular strikes.

The administration has still not publicly acknowledged and investigated cases of potentially unlawful drone killings documented by Amnesty International and other groups, including that of Mamana Bibi, a grandmother who was struck by a drone’s Hellfire missiles and killed while collecting vegetables in her family’s fields.

Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Administration to disclose who is being killed and on what basis, and to ensure investigations into all credible reports of unlawful drone killings. It has also called on Congress to launch a full investigation, and report any evidence of human rights violations to the public.

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 3 million members in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.