Newsroom

Report

Amnesty International today published its policy on protecting sex workers from human rights violations and abuses, along with four research reports on these issues in Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong, Norway and Argentina.

May 23, 2016

Report

This policy has been developed in recognition of the high rates of human rights abuses experienced globally by individuals who engage in sex work; a term that Amnesty International uses only in regard to consensual exchanges between adults. It identifies the most prominent barriers to the realization of sex workers’ human rights and underlines states’ obligations to address them.

May 23, 2016

Press Release

Following the verdict in the second of several trials related to the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, Amnesty International USA called for widespread reform of laws governing the use of lethal force by police.

May 23, 2016

Press Release

Vietnamese authorities must end their crackdown on peaceful protesters and release all prisoners of conscience, Amnesty International said today.

May 23, 2016

Report

Formally the sale or purchase of sex in Buenos Aires is not illegal; but in practice, sex workers are criminalized through a range of laws that punish related activities, and which fail to distinguish between consensual sex work and human trafficking.

May 23, 2016

Report

In Norway, purchasing sex is illegal but the direct act of selling sex is not. Other activities associated with sex work are criminalized including “promotion of prostitution” and letting premises used for selling sex. Despite high levels of rape and violence by clients and organized gangs, sex workers have a high threshold for reporting violence to the police.

May 23, 2016

Update

Sub-Saharan Africa is facing a growing trend of evaporating political space. Non-governmental organizations are being heavily and often violently restricted, and newspapers, bloggers and other voices of dissent or criticism are being silenced or intimidated into exile.

May 22, 2016

Press Release

The Bangladeshi authorities’ treatment of a prominent 81-year-old journalist, who has been held in solitary confinement for several weeks and denied medical care for chronic and life threatening health conditions, is an act of cruelty, Amnesty International said today.

May 22, 2016

Press Release

Amnesty International condemns the execution of Kho Jabing, a Malaysian national convicted of murder, mere hours after his last chance for a reprieve was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

May 20, 2016

Press Release

A Syrian national who arrived on the Greek island of Lesvos has won an appeal against a decision that would have led to his forcible return to Turkey, underscoring the fundamental flaws in the migration deal agreed in March between the European Union and Turkey, Amnesty International said today.

May 20, 2016

Press Release

The Vietnamese authorities have cracked down heavily in response to a series of demonstrations taking place throughout the country in May 2016, organized following an ecological catastrophe that has decimated the nation’s fish stocks. Wide-ranging police measures to prevent and punish participation in demonstrations has resulted in a range of human rights violations including torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment, as well as violations of the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of movement.

May 20, 2016

Press Release

The Kazakhstani authorities must immediately and unconditionally release almost three dozen activists after dramatic wave of arrests, apparently aimed at blocking peaceful demonstrations from going ahead this weekend, Amnesty International said.

May 20, 2016