Newsroom

Update

This Wednesday, an amazingly historic hearing will begin here in Savannah, Georgia where I will be all week.  The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Savannah federal district court to hold an evidentiary hearing to give death row prisoner Troy Davis an opportunity to present his innocence claim. I visited Troy along with his family yesterday and asked him how he was doing.  He seemed fairly calm, but not sure how to feel.  His life has been on a rollercoaster ride ever since he was implicated for the murder of a police officer twenty-one years ago.  Three years ago, when Amnesty…

June 21, 2010

Update

Mohammed Mohammed Hassan al-Odaini remains detained in Guantanamo despite being cleared for release. Matthew Alexander, former U.S. senior military interrogator, argues that holding Odaini is, in fact, making America less safe.

June 21, 2010

Update

The DoD risks hiring unscrupulous arms brokers who are not bound to same laws as prime contractors. As the DoD purchases foreign arms, additional controls are urgently needed.

June 21, 2010

Update

Since the brutal police beating of businessman Khalid Said on June 6, 2010, protesters have taken to the streets all over Egypt to draw attention to the curbs on civil rights imposed by the Mubarak Government.  In a statement issued on June 14, 2010 Amnesty International is calling for an immediate in investigation into Khalid’s death at the hands of security forces. (Click here to take action.) According to news reports, Khalid Said, a young businessman was apprehended and beaten outside an Internet café in Alexandria.  Videos and photographs of the brutal killing show Khalid’s face severely disfigured by the…

June 20, 2010

Update

The Sri Lankan journalist J.S. Tissainayagam (often referred to as "Tissa") is finally free!  As I wrote on this site earlier, Tissa had been sentenced last year to 20 years' hard labor, after an unfair trial, for criticizing the Sri Lankan government's conduct of the war against the Tamil Tigers in a couple magazine articles.  Amnesty International had adopted Tissa as a "prisoner of conscience," since he was being prosecuted solely for his legitimate journalistic activities.  While the Sri Lankan government had announced on May 3  that President Rajapaksa had decided to pardon Tissa, as of June 9 the pardon still hadn't been…

June 20, 2010

Update

Yesterday, Kyrgyzstan’s interim President, Roza Otunbayeva, visited Osh, the site of violence that began the 10 June 2010, killing hundreds and displacing nearly 400,000.  The violence erupted between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyzs in the south of the country and lasted for six days, spreading to other cities in the southern region. Although the reported number of deaths was approximately 200, Otunbayeva stated that the death toll is actually much higher, closer to 2,000. Also yesterday, the Holocaust Museum's Bridget Conley-Zilkic made the case that the racial violence could have been prevented. At this time, the UN estimates that 1 million…

June 19, 2010

Update

Amnesty International believes the Gaza blockade imposes a collective punishment on 1.4 million Palestinians in clear violation of international law. It must be completely lifted without delay.

June 18, 2010

Update

Over the past few months, your activism has helped us ensure that Congress would act on conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo. So it’s great news that House and Senate sponsors of the original bills have agreed on great language to be included in the Wall Street Reform bill. The language would ensure companies are subjected to audits and required to disclose where the minerals they use come from – helping stem the flow of conflict minerals from the DRC. But companies are pushing back, putting pressure on conferees not to pass the bill. We need you to make your…

June 18, 2010

Update

On the afternoon of June 9th, 14 men, including six armed municipal policemen and a state court official, arrived at a shelter that works to protect women and children at grave risk due to extreme violence in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, northern Mexico. They demanded entry into the shelter, claiming they were searching for a girl who had been kidnapped. They carried with them official court documents, none of which referred to the women’s shelter. The men were denied entry because the shelter’s protocol strictly prohibits men on the premises in an effort to ensure the protection and confidentiality of…

June 18, 2010

Update

On Monday, June 14th, Ronnie Lee Gardner was denied clemency by the Utah Board of Pardons and Paroles.  Much of the attention since, and really before, has been on Gardner’s chosen method of execution – the firing squad.  Yet there are many other issues that we should not lose sight of in our morbid fascination with old timey methods of state killing. Following the Utah Board’s decision, Gardner’s attorneys filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court questioning the fairness of the clemency process, because the state Attorney General’s Office was simultaneously pursuing Ronnie Gardner’s execution while serving as legal…

June 17, 2010

Update

We only have until this Friday to get Peruvian president Alan García to sign a much-needed bill that will provide Peru's indigenous peoples with their long-awaited right to consultation on laws that will affect them.  We are excited that Peru's Congress approved the Law on the Right of Indigenous People to Consultation, but without President García's signature, the bill will have no effect. Indigenous peoples in Peru have faced a lot of discrimination and unfair treatment over the years.  The government has been criticized for neglecting the rights of indigenous peoples to land and resources, specifically through the passing of…

June 17, 2010

Update

On June 14th the Supreme Court denied a petition of review from Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen who was abducted by the U.S. Government in 2002 and rendered to Syria where he was held for almost one year without charge and tortured.

June 16, 2010