Below you’ll find breaking news as well as reports, updates on our campaigns, and victories.
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Report
Thailand: A culture of torture under the military
Since seizing power in a 2014 coup, Thailand’s military authorities have allowed a culture of torture and other ill-treatment to flourish across the country, with soldiers and policemen targeting suspected insurgents, political opponents, and individuals from the most vulnerable sections of society, a new report by Amnesty International said today. The report, “Make Him Speak by Tomorrow”: Torture and Other Ill-Treatment in Thailand, documents 74 cases of torture and other ill-treatment at the hands of soldiers and the police, including beatings, suffocation by plastic bags, strangling by hand or rope, waterboarding, electric shocks of the genitals, and other forms of…
September 23, 2016
Report
Nigeria: You have signed your death warrant
A Nigerian police unit set up to combat violent crime has instead been systematically torturing detainees in its custody as a means of extracting confessions and lucrative bribes, Amnesty International said in a report published today.
September 20, 2016
Press Release
Syria: Horrific attack on UN aid convoy is a flagrant violation of international law
Last night’s attack on a UN/Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid convoy, intended for 78,000 people in Aleppo, is a flagrant violation of the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, Amnesty International said.
September 20, 2016
Press Release
Nigeria: Special police squad get rich torturing detainees and demanding bribes in exchange for freedom
A Nigerian police unit set up to combat violent crime has instead been systematically torturing detainees in its custody as a means of extracting confessions and lucrative bribes, Amnesty International said in a report published today.
September 20, 2016
Press Release
Attacks on the rise in Honduras and Guatemala, the world’s deadliest countries for environmental activists
An insidious wave of threats, bogus charges, smear campaigns, attacks and killings of environmental and land activists in recent months has made Honduras and Guatemala the most dangerous countries on earth for those protecting natural resources, Amnesty International said in a new report six months after the brutal murder of Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres.
August 29, 2016
Report
We are defending the land with our blood: Defenders of the land, territory and environment in Honduras and Guatemala
An insidious wave of threats, bogus charges, smear campaigns, attacks and killings of environmental and land activists in recent months has made Honduras and Guatemala the most dangerous countries on earth for those protecting natural resources, Amnesty International said in a new report six months after the brutal murder of Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres.
August 29, 2016
Press Release
Egypt: Refusal to release survivor of torture and disappearance an outrageous blow
The Egyptian authorities’ refusal to release Islam Khalil who was tortured and subjected to enforced disappearance for 122 days is another alarming setback for human rights in Egypt, said Amnesty International.
August 25, 2016
Press Release
Colombia: End of negotiations over conflict brings hopes of peace
The announcement that the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have reached a deal to end the five decade-old armed conflict is a momentous and long-awaited development that brings hope that peace will at last be possible, said Amnesty International.
August 25, 2016
Press Release
Yemen: Huthi authorities must release detained Bahá’ís, end crackdown on minorities
The Huthi armed group in control of parts of Yemen must immediately ensure the release of all 27 members of the Bahá’í religion who have been detained in the capital, Sana’a, for a week without charge, in a blatant case of persecution of a minority faith, Amnesty International said today. Armed officers in balaclavas from Yemen’s National Security Bureau (NSB) intelligence agency, which works hand in hand with the armed Huthi authorities, stormed a Bahá’í youth workshop in Sana’a on 10 August and arrested 65 people, including 14 women and six people under 18 without an arrest warrant. Further arrests…
August 17, 2016
Press Release
Hundreds of thousands more risk displacement sparking fresh humanitarian crisis in Iraq
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
Report
‘It breaks the human’: Torture, disease and death in Syria’s prisons
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
Burundi: UN findings must be a wake-up call on torture
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