Newsroom

Update

You see these peaks of opposition activity that get crushed, and then it flares up and gets crushed again, but the flares get a little higher each time and Mubarak gets a little older and more ill, and in my worst fears Egypt will be like that volcano in Iceland.

April 19, 2010

Update

This year’s AGM was a huge success! Over 600 Amnesty supporters were in attendance, ranging from staff to interns, to student activists and newly recruited members. At this year’s AGM 2010 All Rights for All People Conference, we decided to give Amnesty supporters one minute to share their excitement about the event. We want to thank all who attended and made this event possible, and for those that missed out, here's your one minute peek at this year's AGM. Watch other Amnesty supporters  give their "Amnesty Minute" !

April 19, 2010

Update

Ever since Amnesty International published its first report on Troy Davis in February 2007 the main ask has been for a court – any court – to hold a face-to-face evidentiary hearing.  Only this kind of a hearing would allow the multiple witnesses who have either recanted their trial testimony or implicated an alternative suspect to be fully heard.  The importance of this kind of face-to-face testimony was made clear by former FBI Director William Sessions in a November 2008 Atlanta Journal Constitution op-ed. "Only a full hearing, with all witnesses subject to rigorous cross-examination and a full exploration of…

April 16, 2010

Update

This post is by Cecilia Lipp, AIUSA San Francisco Organizing City Activist Leader. San Francisco hosted AIUSA's maternal health speakers tour at the San Francisco Public Library Wednesday night. Amnesty International executive directors from Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Peru and the United States presented the findings of AI's reports on maternal health in their respective countries, and outlined their campaigns to make every birth safe. The panel discussion, moderated by Diana Campoamor, president of Hispanics in Philanthropy, took us through from the international to the local level. The statistics at every level are shocking. But what stays with me most…

April 16, 2010

Update

Chances are, if we've met, you've heard me talk about Get On The Bus for Human Rights (GOTB)! I've got several versions under my belt -- the PowerPoint presentation, the 5 minute DVD, and a Twitter-friendly elevator pitch, but basically: "We are the largest grassroots event organized by Amnesty International USA members. Take action with us on the third Friday in April – that’s today! Speakers a.m. Rallies p.m." The idea was simple: Take your activism to the next level. Members of local AIUSA chapter Group 133 from Somerville, MA were working on the case of Ken Saro-Wiwa, who is…

April 16, 2010

Update

By Rachel Ward, Managing Director, Research Unit News coverage of the study published in The Lancet about declining maternal deaths worldwide largely ignored the appalling fact that the United States has shown no improvement in the rate of maternal deaths for two decades. Progress in reducing maternal deaths around the world should be applauded. Yet even if we accept the study's conclusion that there has been some progress on reversing maternal deaths worldwide, this should not lead us to the wrong conclusion -- that the problem is solved. Far from it. Women are still dying worldwide at an appalling rate…

April 15, 2010

Update

[UPDATE: 61 of the 65 members arrested outside ZESA headquarters in Harare earlier today have been released. Four members, Jenni Williams, Magodonga Mahlangu, Clara Manjengwa and Celina Madukani, remain in custody and will spend the night in cells. They are being charged with participating in an illegal gathering.] The leaders of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu and seventy other people, including juveniles, were arrested today in Harare following a peaceful march. The peaceful protests were mobilised to put direct pressure on the Zimbabwe electricity authority (ZESA) to provide a more efficient service and fair and affordable…

April 15, 2010

Update

As a mostly white person, I have decided that I would like to be the next colonial occupier of Zimbabwe. It's a great country-fertile land, fabulous people, rich mineral resources. I think I should be able to set up operations fairly quickly and I love to tell people what to do.  So my life's ambition to be a benevolent dictator will be satisfied far quicker than I ever dreamed possible. I always thought that to establish said benevolent dictatorship, I would have to buy a private island and import my friends to serve as my minions. So imagine my surprise at…

April 15, 2010

Update

Amnesty International is asking you to stand with Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Myanmar through a symbolic photographic action.  We are hoping to gather at least 2,100 photos by June 19 – Aung San Suu Kyi’s 65th birthday – to represent the 2,100 political prisoners detained in Myanmar. Myanmar is not a place that had crossed my radar until I traveled to Thailand in October 2008.  If you are like me, you might have heard about monks protesting and a devastating cyclone hitting the country, but mostly this is a place that remains shrouded in mystery.  Through…

April 15, 2010

Update

Wow, what fabulous news-- according to the United Nations, almost 564 million people in India have cell phones.  Sounds great considering how few people had access to telephones 10 years ago.  But, oops, the same study shows that only 366 million people in India have access to any proper sanitation.  So that means that about 200 million more people have telephones than toilets and that three-quarters of a BILLION people in what is supposedly a rising power in the world do not have access to proper sanitation.  It's not only a no-brainer that the state governments in India (the state…

April 15, 2010

Update

Today, Oxfam International and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative released a report on the rampant use of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The news is sobering: tens of thousands of women have been systematically raped by combatant forces between 2004 and 2008. Rape is an extremely effective wartime weapon. It is strategically used to shame, demoralize and humiliate the enemy. By systematically raping women and girls, armed groups assert power and domination over not only the women, but their men as well (page 7) Perhaps most shocking of all their findings is that gang rape is widespread…

April 15, 2010

Update

This blog was originally posted on Open Democracy. The weeks of popular protests by thousands of red-shirted demonstrators in the center of Bangkok reached a critical stage on the late Saturday evening of April 10, 2010. At that point, Thailand’s state-security forces began a crackdown against those who had gathered under the banner of the United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD). A longstanding political crisis that has divided Thais into bitterly opposed camps has now become a national tragedy. The immediate crisis had been escalating since mid-March 2010, when tens of thousands of members of the increasingly heterogeneous UDD…

April 15, 2010