Encourages Membership to Watch Upcoming Documentary ‘Dirty Wars’
Contact: Christina DiPasquale, 202.716.1953, [email protected]
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Today, Amnesty International unveiled a new campaign that calls on President Obama and Congress to drop the “global battlefield” legal theory explored in the upcoming documentary Dirty Wars and repeal the infamous law at its heart: the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).
The campaign also calls for independent investigations of alleged extrajudicial executions and remedy for the victims of any killings found to have been unlawful.
In the film, Dirty Wars investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill tells the story of 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi, killed in a drone stike in Yemen in 2011. His family is seeking redress within the US legal system.
Amnesty International further demands the immediate release of Yemeni journalist Abdul Ilah Haydar Shayi’ also featured in Dirty Wars. This journalist has been imprisoned, with the Obama administration’s blessing, since 2010 for his work to report the effects of an alleged US missile strike in 2009.
Amnesty International encourages all of its members and supporters to watch Dirty Wars and take part in the campaign and urgent dialogue at amnestyusa.org/dirtywars, with more actions to be announced in the coming months. The campaign asserts that we all have the right to security from and justice for attacks by armed groups and individuals – but security and justice come from upholding human rights, not extrajudicial executions.
Said Zeke Johnson, Director of Amnesty International’s Security with Human Rights Campaign:
“Dirty Wars puts a human face on a key issue invisible to most Americans: human rights violations committed in their name based on a fundamentally flawed “global battlefield” theory. Amnesty International encourages everyone to see the film and join our campaign to repeal the law at the heart of the theory: the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.”
To speak with campaign organizers at Amnesty International or to learn more about the Sundance award-winning documentary Dirty Wars, please contact Christina DiPasquale at 202.716.1953 or [email protected]. Click here to watch the film trailer and here to find it in theaters.
Amnesty International is a global movement of people fighting injustice and promoting human rights. We work to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied. Currently the world’s largest grassroots human rights organization, we investigate and expose abuses, educate and mobilize the public, and help transform societies to create a safer, more just world. We received the Nobel Peace Prize for our life-saving work.
Jeremy Scahill, producer and writer of the Sundance award-winning documentary Dirty Wars, is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, an award-winning investigative journalist, and the author of the bestselling Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Nation Books, 2008). His latest book is the bestselling Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield (Nation Books, 2013). National Security Correspondent for the Nation, he has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, the former Yugoslavia, andelsewhere across the globe.