Below you’ll find breaking news as well as reports, updates on our campaigns, and victories.
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Update
Reggie Clemons Needs More Letters!
Over 3,000 Belgian citizens have handwritten and mailed in letters appealing on behalf of Reggie Clemons, an American who was sentenced to death in St. Louis as an accomplice in a 1991 murder. Can YOU help that number grow even bigger, and prevent the execution of a man who has maintained his innocence for almost 20 years?
November 18, 2010
Update
Canada Endorses the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
On November 12th, Canada joined the majority of the world in supporting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The Declaration is a non-legally binding human rights instrument which affirms universal standards for the survival, dignity, and well-being of all Indigenous Peoples. Adopted by the United Nations in 2007, the United States was one of four countries, along with Australia, New Zealand, and Australia, that voted against the Declaration. Australia and New Zealand reversed their initial positions, and now, with Canada’s endorsement, the United States remains the only country that has not yet endorsed the UNDRIP.…
November 18, 2010
Update
Freedom of Expression, Incessantly Suppressed in Latin America
The Inter American Press Association has been calling attention to numerous governmental acts intended to censure and inhibit freedom of expression in Latin America. As political leaders in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela have been leading the efforts in funding media outlets that do little else than disseminate political propaganda, the problem is spreading fast throughout the entire region. In Ecuador, the federal government seized the newspaper El Telégrafo, after they also confiscated the assets of banker and major shareholder Fernando Aspiazu, who was jailed on charges of fraud and unlawful activity in the now defunct Banco de Progreso he…
November 18, 2010
Update
A Moral Quagmire
The British government announced that it had reached a settlement to pay compensation to sixteen former Guantanamo detainees for the abuses they suffered in US custody.
November 18, 2010
Update
Old School Justice
Don’t be fooled by the mock outrage. The system worked. A real trial took place in lower Manhattan and Ahmed Ghailani was rightly convicted of his role in the horrific bombings of two US embassies in Africa.
November 18, 2010
Update
Rounded Up and Raped in the Congo
The mass rapes that took place in the Walikale region of the Democratic Republic of Congo this past August exposed the vulnerability of civilians and the urgent need to improve protection. We must stop rape from being used as a weapon of war in the DRC.
November 17, 2010
Update
Chinese Woman Sentenced to Year in Labor Camp Over Tweet
We're appalled that the Chinese authorities sentenced a woman to a year in a labor camp for retweeting a supposedly anti-Japanese message. They must release her immediately. Chinese online activist Cheng Jianping was sentenced to one year of ‘Re-education Through Labour’ on Monday for “disturbing social order”, having retweeted a satirical suggestion on October 17 that the Japanese Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo be attacked. Cheng disappeared ten days later, on what was to be her wedding day, her whereabouts unknown until it emerged this week that she had been detained and sentenced by local police. Sentencing someone to a…
November 17, 2010
Update
Immigration: A Human Rights Issue, Not a Political Issue
By Aida V. Nieto, Bill Archer Fellow for Amnesty International USA On November 5th, the United States appeared before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to review its human rights record. As a follow up, a Town Hall was held for activists and nongovernmental groups to ask questions and offer their criticism and recommendations regarding the U.S.’s human rights record. During this meeting a topic that continued to come up throughout the ninety-minute discussion was the lack of human rights protection in programs designed to enforce federal immigration law. Programs such as the controversial 287 (g) agreement and Secure…
November 17, 2010
Update
Desmond Tutu, Iraqi Prisons Scandal, and More
The winter issue of the members-only Amnesty International magazine is coming soon! You'll find in depth analysis of the Iraqi prisons scandal, a special essay by Desmond Tutu, and lots more.
November 16, 2010
Update
Most Voters Prefer Alternatives to the Death Penalty
A new poll demonstrates that U.S. voters don’t consider the capital punishment a wise use of their tax dollars. It also finds that most U.S. voters don’t consider the death penalty the most appropriate punishment for murder.
November 16, 2010
Update
Write a letter for human rights this December
Each year more and more people across the world are coming together to mark International Human Rights Day on December 10 by taking part in Amnesty International's Write for Rights Global Write-a-thon - the world's largest letter writing event.
November 16, 2010
Update
Another Presidential Flip-flop
The Obama administration is apparently considering holding Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other GTMO detainees indefinitely as Prisoners of War. Far from closing GTMO, the new Obama plan seems to be to institutionalize it as part of the national landscape.
November 15, 2010