Below you’ll find breaking news as well as reports, updates on our campaigns, and victories.
If you are a member of the press, please reach out to [email protected]
Report
If they can have her, why can’t we?
Police in the Dominican Republic routinely rape, beat, humiliate and verbally abuse women sex workers to exert social control over them and to punish them for transgressing social norms of acceptable femininity and sexuality, said Amnesty International in a new report released today. ‘If they can have her, why can’t we?’ chronicles the stories of 46 Dominican cisgender and transgender women sex workers, many of whom reported suffering various forms of violence, much of which amount to gender-based torture and other ill-treatment. The criminalized status of sex workers combined with profound machismo, fuels arbitrary detentions by police and enables these grave human…
March 28, 2019
Update
Amnesty International USA Statement on US State Department’s Foreign Policy Strategy and Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2020
March 25, 2019 The Honorable Eliot Engel Chairman Foreign Affairs Committee U.S. House of Representatives 2170 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 The Honorable Michael McCaul Ranking Member Foreign Affairs Committee U.S. House of Representatives 2170 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 RE: Amnesty International USA Statement on State Department’s Foreign Policy Strategy and FY20 Budget Request Dear Chairman Engel, Ranking Member McCaul, and members of the Committee: On behalf of Amnesty International and our more than seven million members and supporters worldwide, we hereby submit this statement for the record. Amnesty International is an international human rights…
March 25, 2019
Press Release
Saudi Arabia: Women activists persecuted under bogus charges. Speaking to Amnesty is not a crime
The prosecution of 11 women activists before a Criminal Court in Riyadh for their human rights work and contact with international organizations is an appalling escalation of the Saudi authorities’ crackdown on peaceful activism.
March 14, 2019
Press Release
Brazil: After a year of impunity, authorities must bring Marielle Franco’s killers to justice
One year on from the killing of the human rights defender and Rio de Janeiro city councillor Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes, Brazilian authorities are still failing to provide their families and society with adequate answers, and their inability to identify those responsible and bring them to justice continues to put other human rights defenders at risk.
March 10, 2019
Press Release
Syria: Women must play active role in shaping the country’s future
Syrian women must have an official and active role in shaping the country’s future Amnesty International said today, as it launched a new campaign highlighting the gender-based violations women have experienced during the conflict and the failure to include them in discussions and decision-making about the future.
March 7, 2019
Press Release
Egypt: Forcibly disappeared transgender woman at risk of sexual violence and torture
Fears are growing for the safety and well being of Malak al-Kashef, a transgender woman seized during a police raid from her home in Giza in the early hours of 6 March and who has not been heard from since, Amnesty International said.
March 7, 2019
Report
Give us respect and justice! Overcoming barriers to justice for women rape survivors in Denmark
Denmark’s reputation for gender equality masks a society with one of Europe’s highest levels of rape, where flawed legislation and widespread harmful myths and gender stereotypes have resulted in endemic impunity for rapists, Amnesty International said in a report published today. Give us respect and justice! Overcoming barriers to justice for women rape survivors in Denmark reveals that women and girls are being failed by dangerous and outdated laws and often do not report attacks through fear of not being believed, social stigma and a lack of trust in the justice system. “Despite Denmark’s image as a land of gender equality, the reality for women is starkly different, with shockingly high levels of impunity…
March 4, 2019
Report
Human rights in the Middle East and North Africa: A review of 2018
The international community’s chilling complacency towards wide-scale human rights violations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has emboldened governments to commit appalling violations during 2018 by giving them the sense that they need never fear facing justice, said Amnesty International as it published a review of human rights in the region last year. The report Human rights in the Middle East and North Africa: A review of 2018 describes how authorities across the region have unashamedly persisted with ruthless campaigns of repression in order to crush dissent, cracking down on protesters, civil society and political opponents, often with tacit support…
February 26, 2019
Press Release
Trump Administration Attacks Vital Healthcare in New Rule
Reacting to reports of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “domestic gag rule” draft around Title X, the nation’s program for affordable birth control and reproductive health care, Tarah Demant, Director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Identity Program at Amnesty International USA stated: “This rule will be deadly. It will restrict reproductive and sexual rights, putting the lives of all people at significant risk, especially women of color and low-income women who are under-insured or uninsured. “It is clearly aimed at specific reproductive health institutions, like Planned Parenthood, that provide care to over four million people in the United States…
February 22, 2019
Press Release
Nauru: Deterring essential medical transfers risks deadly consequences
Responding to news that the government of Nauru has passed a law severely restricting medical transfers to Australia for refugees and asylum seekers, Meghna Abraham, Director of Global Thematic Issues at Amnesty International, said: “This move by the Nauru government is a dangerous and callous act that could have deadly consequences for the women, men and children whom Australia has exiled there. “Nauru has failed to provide refugees with the health care they desperately need. Denying them medical transfers is yet another blow and demonstrates just how far the human rights of refugees have slipped down Nauru and Australia’s agendas.…
February 20, 2019
Report
No Shame in Diversity: The Right to Health for People with Variations of Sex Characteristics in Iceland
Individuals born with sex characteristics that vary from female or male “norms” face barriers to accessing appropriate healthcare, risking lifelong physical and psychological damage, Amnesty International said today. In a new report, “No Shame in Diversity”, the organization uses case studies in Iceland to show how the lack of rights-based healthcare protocols mean that people born with variations of sex characteristics – who sometimes describe themselves as ‘intersex’ - face stigma and discrimination and are often subjected to harmful surgery.
February 18, 2019
Press Release
Government sows fear among LGBTI people in Indonesia by boasting of Instagram user ‘removal’
Responding to Instagram’s statement that it did not remove an account featuring web comics about being gay in Indonesia, after Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication claimed that the company had done so at the government’s request, Amnesty International Indonesia’s Executive Director, Usman Hamid, said: “By falsely boasting of Instagram’s removal of a harmless account at their demand, the government has misled the public to sow fear among LGBTI people. This is just the latest example of state-sponsored homophobia in Indonesia. “At a time when LGBTI people in the country face routine repression, harassment and public humiliation from government spokespeople, from security…
February 14, 2019