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Press Release

Renewed violence underscores the urgency of bringing to account those responsible for crimes under international law committed during South Sudan’s armed conflict, said Amnesty International and FIDH today, a year on from a faltering peace agreement. The peace accord was signed on 17 August 2015 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. It requires the African Union (AU) to set up a hybrid court for South Sudan to investigate and prosecute individuals suspected of committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity since the conflict began in December 2013. “Last month’s return to violence underscores the need to seek accountability for…

August 16, 2016

Report

Harrowing accounts of torture, inhuman conditions and mass deaths in Syria’s prisons The horrifying experiences of detainees subjected to rampant torture and other ill-treatment in Syrian prisons are laid bare in a damning new report published by Amnesty International today which estimates that 17,723 people have died in custody in Syria since the crisis began in March 2011 – an average rate of more than 300 deaths each month. ‘It breaks the human’: Torture, disease and death in Syria’s prisons documents crimes against humanity committed by government forces. It retraces the experiences of thousands of detainees through the cases of…

August 16, 2016

Press Release

Increased humanitarian assistance is urgently required to alleviate the suffering of millions of Iraqis displaced across the country and to provide basic services to hundreds of thousands of people who are expected to be displaced by military operations to recapture territory controlled by the group calling itself Islamic State (IS), said Amnesty International today following a three-week research trip to the country.

August 16, 2016

Press Release

The Saudi Arabia-led coalition’s aerial bombardment of a hospital supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Yemen is an atrocious attack that could amount to a war crime, Amnesty International said today.  The Abs Rural Hospital which was hit at around 3:30pm local time, has treated 4,611 patients since MSF began to support it in July 2015. “The bombardment of this hospital is a deplorable act that has cost civilian lives, including medical staff who are dedicated to helping sick and injured people under some of the most challenging conditions. Deliberately targeting medical facilities is a serious violation of international…

August 15, 2016

Press Release

Contact: Nidya Sarria, [email protected] Today the Department of Defense announced 15 detainees were transferred from the Guantánamo Bay detention site. Amnesty International USA’s Security and Human Rights Program Director Naureen Shah issued the following statement: “This is a powerful sign that President Obama is serious about closing Guantánamo before he leaves office. With these transfers, Guantánamo’s population will be reduced by one-fifth. “It is vital he keep the momentum. If President Obama fails to close Guantánamo, the next administration could fill it with new detainees and it could become permanent. It would be an extremely dangerous legacy of allowing people…

August 15, 2016

Press Release

A 10-year-old Syrian girl seriously wounded by sniper fire from a Syrian government forces checkpoint in Madaya was successfully evacuated last night for urgent surgery following international pressure, Amnesty International can confirm.

August 14, 2016

Press Release

Ghina Ahmad Wadi trapped in besieged town of Madaya and in excruciating pain. Her UK-based aunt issues appeal to UK government for help. Amnesty International is calling for Russia, the USA and the United Nations to arrange the humanitarian evacuation of a badly-injured ten-year-old girl from the Syrian town of Madaya, which is besieged by Syrian government forces. The girl, Ghina Ahmad Wadi, was shot in the leg by a sniper on 2 August at the Abdel Majed checkpoint when she was on her way to buy medicine for her mother. She was shot in her left thigh, causing a complex…

August 12, 2016

Press Release

The UN Committee against Torture (CAT) issued a wake-up call to Burundi today, said Amnesty International after the Committee flagged an increase in the use of torture and other ill-treatment since the beginning of the country’s current crisis in April 2015. In its concluding observations following a special report submitted at CAT’s request, the Committee’s 10 independent international experts expressed deep concern over hundreds of cases of torture alleged to have taken place in recent months in both official and unofficial places of detention. “The spike in torture cases we have seen in Burundi since the onset of the crisis…

August 12, 2016

Press Release

Responding to The Guardian's "Nauru files" leak today, Amnesty International's Senior Director for Research Anna Neistat said: "This leak has laid bare a system of 'routine dysfunction and cruelty' that is at once dizzying in its scale and utterly damning for the Australian authorities who tried so hard to maintain a veil of secrecy. "When Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch went to Nauru against the odds and saw with our own eyes the appalling and systemic abuses taking place, the Australian government tried to roundly deny our findings.  “The exposure of just how appalling the conditions on Nauru are - and…

August 11, 2016

Press Release

The Syrian city of Aleppo has been hit by a suspected chlorine attack, which would amount to a war crime if confirmed, and constitutes an alarming sign that Syrian government forces are intensifying their use of chemical weapons against civilians, Amnesty International said Thursday.

August 11, 2016

Update

Media reports indicate that in the Philippines number of people killed by the police could be as high as 400 to 800 in the last few weeks.

August 10, 2016

Press Release

Oman’s authorities have carried out a string of journalist arrests in recent weeks signaling a growing crackdown on freedom of expression in the country, said Amnesty International.

August 10, 2016