The regularly scheduled election of Board leadership posts took place during the Amnesty International USA quarterly Board meeting last weekend in Washington, DC. The organization’s Board is entirely elected by its grassroots membership across the U.S., and officers are elected by the Board. The new officers, comprising the Board’s Executive Committee, are:
Aniket Shah, Chair
Becky Farrar, Vice-Chair
Ann Burroughs, Treasurer
Ilgu Ozler, Secretary
Terry Kay Rockefeller, Member at Large
In addition to the officers, the full Board of Directors also includes: Rana Abdelhamid, Govind Acharya, Ali Arab, Donnie Bierer, Reza Fakhari, Hadar Harris, Angie Hougas, Janet Lord, Elizabeth Jennings, Adriana Sanford, and Diana Jones Wilson.
“Amnesty International works to ensure that all people’s human rights are respected – no matter who they are or where they are. I’m honored, humbled, and energized to lead the Board of Directors during this pivotal moment for human rights,” Shah said. “Our work is more important than it’s ever been, and we’ve grown over the last few years to be strong when we’re needed most.”
In 2016 alone, Amnesty International USA helped win the freedom of 153 people around the world who were imprisoned for exercising their human rights; helped persuade the U.S. government to let 110,000 refugees rebuild their lives in this country; helped pass a law to reduce gun violence in Minnesota; helped abolish the death penalty in Delaware and stop death sentences in several individual cases; and helped end a government program that could have been used to start a Muslim registry.
“Aniket has been a leader in Amnesty International for 15 years, and he has been a key partner in our growth over the last few years,” said Ann Burroughs, who has come to the end of her four-year term as the organization’s Board Chair and will serve as Treasurer for the next year. “He is smart and strategic, with a strong vision for how Amnesty International USA can protect human rights in the U.S. and around the world.”