Newsroom

Update

September 16, 2009 will be the second anniversary of the Nisour Square shootings, in which six Blackwater (now Xe) personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians outside Baghdad’s green zone. The bad media which surrounded the incident galvanized the U.S. Government to take some steps towards ensuring that the Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of State (DOS) better regulate PMSC operations in Iraq. But was it enough? The six Blackwater guards who allegedly indiscriminately opened fire in Nisour Square on September 16, 2007 were finally indicted late last year. The trial hasn’t even started but Blackwater/XE personnel are already…

August 22, 2009

Update

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said last Tuesday that no one should be above the law, including members of the police or armed forces.  This follows a widely publicized incident last week in Sri Lanka:  two youths were arrested by the police on August 12 and their bullet-ridden bodies were discovered the next day.  The killings sparked public anger and riots against the police.  Several police officers have since been arrested in connection with the murders. I dearly hope justice is done in this case and the killers held accountable.  But there remain thousands of cases of human rights violations…

August 21, 2009

Update

In an interview in next Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Secretary of State Clinton says: When it comes to our global health agenda, maternal health is now part of the Obama administration's outreach. ... Women die every minute from poor maternal health care. You know, H.I.V./AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria — those are all, unfortunately, equal-opportunity killers. Maternal health is a woman's issue; it's a family issue; it's a child issue. And for the United States to say to countries that have very high maternal mortality rates, "We care about the future of your children, and in order to do that, we…

August 20, 2009

Update

Amnesty International issued a report today about the ongoing crisis in Honduras following the coup d'etat which took place June 28. Many press outlets have covered the report and accompanying press release which comes at a crucial time as the crisis in Honduras must be kept in the attention of the mainstream media and general public. AI's main concerns with the crisis as cited in the report are: Excessive use of force Gender-based violence Use of military in civilian law enforcement Freedom of expression Curfew measures Safety of human rights defenders I'll let the words of Hondurans speak for themselves…

August 20, 2009

Update

The editor of Zambia's largest independent newspaper, The Post, is currently on trial for distributing pornography. Chansa Kabwela was charged in July for "circulating obscene matters with the intention to corrupt the morals of society," punishable by a five year prison sentence. What exactly did Kabwela circulate that was so dangerous to the moral character of Zambians? Pictures of a woman giving birth on the ground outside a hospital.  A recent nurses' strike led to dangerous medical conditions in the country, a fact Kabwela wanted to highlight. When she received pictures of the incident, she decided not to publish them in the paper, but instead sent copies…

August 20, 2009

Update

Riffing off of the news that President Obama is adding a moral component to his (heretofore mostly economic) pitch for health care reform, Desiree Evans, of the Institute for Southern Studies, writes: Finding fresh ways to talk about socio-economic issues is not new in the health care advocacy community. Even as the Obama administration searches for a new way to pitch their proposed health reform, human rights groups and grassroots social justice networks have already been hard at work trying to shift the language and the thinking surrounding health care in the United States. They are using an oft-overlooked notion…

August 20, 2009

Update

AFGHANISTAN – Election violence and a nod to “warlord politics” The world is looking to Afghanistan this week, where Presidential and Provincial Council elections will be held on August 20th. The Taliban are threatening to attack polling stations in the country’s unstable southern province. The government estimates that about 14 percent of the country’s polling centers are considered too dangerous for people to vote. Moreover, the risk of violence will increase should no presidential candidate reach more than 50 percent of the vote, leading to a mandatory run-off between the top two contenders. Nevertheless, US government officials are optimistic, stating…

August 18, 2009

Update

Over the weekend, the Obama administration may have weakened its support for a "public option" as one part of the health care package emerging from Washington. On Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius told CNN that a public option is not "essential", a day after President Obama, at a town hall meeting in Colorado, said that a public option is "just one sliver" of reform. Major media outlets wrote up what they saw as a shift in position: "Key Feature Of Obama Health Plan May Be Out", blared the Washington Post; "'Public Option' in Health Plan May Be Dropped",…

August 17, 2009

Update

Amnesty International today issued an urgent action appeal on the five Sri Lankan doctors currently being held by the government under emergency regulations.  We are concerned that they are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.  The doctors had provided medical services to civilians trapped in the war zone, during the last stages of the war earlier this year between the government and the opposition Tamil Tigers.  Before they were detained by the government on May 15, the doctors had provided eyewitness accounts to the media of the suffering experienced by the trapped civilians.  On July 8, while still under detention,…

August 13, 2009

Update

By Anna Phelan, Amnesty International USA’s Business & Economic Relations Group Among my picks for sleeper hits of the summer, is a powerful documentary film called Crude: The Real Price of Oil. The film is described as a real-life high stakes legal drama, set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. For the most part, the main characters aren’t actors... well, I mean Chevron's invested a lot of money and time in their web of lies, so maybe they’ve been taking acting lessons. And…

August 13, 2009

Update

A final analysis of satellite images – requested by Amnesty International USA’s Science for Human Rights project – was released by the American Association for the Advancement of Science today. It provides rare evidence of a conflict zone still inaccessible to independent observers. In addition to evidence of impact craters in close proximity to Internally-Displaced Person (IDP) shelters, the final analysis reveals two new alarming features: The new analysis shows large gravesites and evidence of mortars used in and around the so-called civilian save zone, which raises further questions about the military tactics deployed by the Sri Lankan Army and…

August 12, 2009

Update

A court in military-ruled Myanmar sentenced opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to three years in prison, a sentence which was immediately reduced to a year and half under house arrest.  The verdict was handed down in the country’s infamous Insein prison, where she was held since her arrest last May. If this shameful verdict will lead to wider unrest remains to be seen. There were apparently at least 2,000 security personnel deployed around Insein prison. Aung San Suu Kyi is a prisoner of conscience, locked up solely for her political beliefs. She should be…

August 11, 2009