Newsroom

Update

“Now I don’t have a house. The weather is nice and I can sleep in the garden, but I don’t know what to do when the rain comes. Nobody is helping me.” A former teacher, Kazbek Djiloev, shared his hardship with us a few months ago as he stood before the ruins of his home in Tskhinvali. His house was one of many that were shelled during the recent Georgia-Russia conflict.   We captured this man’s story as an example of how such a military clash impacts civilians. He echoes the voices of thousands more civilian victims, many of whom…

December 17, 2008

Update

One of Amnesty International's most important responsibilities is to support the human rights activists doing the difficult work on the ground in the countries around the world.  Increasingly, particularly in the Middle East, it's become the opinion of Amnesty International country specialists that our ability to change the world depends on our ability to create space for these grass-root activists to exist. One such activist is Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad, a 57 year old Egyptian lawyer and one of the founders of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, named after another Egyptian human rights lawyer.  He has been an engine driving…

December 16, 2008

Update

Change.org wants you to change our government.  Inspired by President-elect Obama’s commitment to “open the doors of government,” Change.org is offering people an opportunity to send ideas to the incoming administration that will bring real, tangible solutions for our country.  They will then present the “Top 10 Ideas for America” to the Obama administration on Inauguration Day and work with partner organizations to turn those ideas into specific policies. At Amnesty, we know that one of the most important changes our nation can make is to restore its respect for human rights and the rule of law.  A crucial first…

December 16, 2008

Update

Last week Portugal offered to accept some Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared for release by the Pentagon but who cannot return to their home countries. In a letter to his counterparts in other European Union countries, Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado urged them to do the same. Portugal’s commendable initiative is based on a recognition that it is no longer acceptable for European governments to sit back and carp from the sidelines. Closing Guantanamo simply cannot be accomplished without other governments’ assistance in resettling some of the detainees.  According to the New York Times, Luis Serradas Tavares, a legal…

December 15, 2008

Update

According to a UN Panel of Expert’s report released last Friday, government security forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are providing arms and ammunition to the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) in violation of the UN arms embargo on DRC.  In addition, the DRC government continues to be a major source of weapons for other armed groups in the DRC. Mainly a Rwandan Hutu armed insurgent group that contains remnants of forces allegedly responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide, FDLR has been responsible for mass atrocities, including the unlawful killings of civilians, abductions, and rape, and continues…

December 15, 2008

Update

Yesterday, the U.N. General Assembly marked Human Rights Day by unanimously adopting the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR). This historic step fills in a crucial gap in the human rights framework; former High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has described the OP-ICESCR as making human rights whole. But to the media this looks like U.N. inside baseball, and they haven't so much as mentioned it. (ReliefWeb, a U.N. humanitarian information portal, covered it; and here's AI's press release.) So what's it all about? In a word, it provides a means for redress…

December 12, 2008

Update

The New York Times reported yesterday that “[t]he Australian government plans to test a nationwide Web filtering system that would force Internet service providers to block access to thousands of sites containing questionable or illegal content, prompting cries of censorship from advocacy groups.”   Not surprisingly, according to the article, Australia is using the same tried-and-true justification of needing to protect itself (and its citizens) from terrorism and child pornography.   It’s not to say that child pornography and terrorism aren’t legitimate concerns. It’s just that these are the same, all-too-often abused excuses used to cast a much wider net…

December 12, 2008

Update

Today, the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment made it official, formally recommending in its Final Report that Maryland repeal the death penalty. The report’s final recommendation concludes: “For all of these reasons—to eliminate racial and jurisdictional bias, to reduce unnecessary costs, to lessen the misery that capital cases force victims of family members to endure, to eliminate the risk that an innocent person can be convicted—the Commission strongly recommends that capital punishment be abolished in Maryland.” The Maryland General Assembly (which created the Commission) will take up the issue when its 2009 session begins about a month from now, on…

December 12, 2008

Update

The Death Penalty Information Center has released its Year End Report (pdf) for 2008.  It reveals clearly that the trend towards growing skepticism and diminishing (and more regional) use of capital punishment is continuing.  There were 37 executions in 2008, the lowest total since 1994, and there were only 111 death sentences passed.  For the second straight year, this was the lowest number of death sentences since capital punishment was reinstated since 1976.  (In the peak year, 1999, there were 98 executions and 284 death sentences.) Four men were exonerated for America’s death rows this year, increasing already substantial public…

December 11, 2008

Update

CongressDaily reports yesterday: "The House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat said Tuesday he has recommended that President-elect Barack Obama keep the country's current national intelligence director and CIA chief in place for some time to ensure continuity in U.S. intelligence programs during the transition to a new administration. Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said he also recommended to Obama's transition team that some parts of the CIA's controversial alternative interrogation program should be allowed to continue. He declined to say what he specifically recommended, however." Personnel issues aside, the Obama team needs to send a clear message, that it repudiates the…

December 11, 2008

Update

The practice of “mock execution”, where prisoners are led to believe they are going to be killed by their captors, only to be spared at the last minute, is widely recognized as a form of torture.  So when a scheduled execution is stayed at the last minute, does that constitute torture? Last week in Iran, an unnamed man was pardoned by the victim’s family just moments after his hanging began.  He was cut down and rushed to the hospital and ultimately saved.  Amnesty International has issued a statement pointing out that in other circumstances: “Any person subjected to similar treatment…

December 10, 2008

Update

Today is a day when I feel especially grateful for all my rights--that I can write this blog entry, that I am free, that I am not in prison just for expressing my beliefs, that I can choose my religion, that I am able to make my own choices about marriage and family, that I have an education, that I can work, that I can rest, and that I can get care when I'm sick. Human Rights Day is not a happy day for everyone, though. Right this minute, there are prisoners of conscience languishing in cells, people on death…

December 10, 2008