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Amnesty International USA Memo to Congress on Foreign Policy Human Rights Priorities For Next Congress

August 24, 2020 Dear Representative: On behalf of Amnesty International USA, I am writing to share our top foreign…

September 8, 2020

Demonstrators in Paris hold photos of Iran — Photo by Frederic Stevens/Getty Images

Report

Detainees in Iran flogged, sexually abused and given electric shocks in gruesome post-protest crackdown

Iran’s police, intelligence and security forces, and prison officials have committed, with the complicity of judges and prosecutors, a catalogue…

September 1, 2020

Press Release

AFRICOM Yet to Compensate Somali Families, Despite Casualty Admissions

In response to a quarterly civilian casualty assessment report issued today by U.S. Africa Command, Brian Castner, the Senior Crisis…

July 28, 2020

6 men stand around a grave with shovels — Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images

Press Release

Fact-finding mission to investigate crimes in Libya is a welcome step

We call on all parties to the conflict and their allies to fully cooperate with the fact-finding mission’s investigation team and help facilitate their work with a view to bringing all those responsible for these violations to justice.

June 24, 2020

Press Release

Police Failing to Ensure Right to Protest, Endangering Lives

"U.S. police across the country are failing their obligations under international law to respect and facilitate the right to peaceful…

May 30, 2020

MAIDUGURI, NIGERIA - APRIL 20: A woman carries firewoods inside an IDP camp on April 20, 2019 in Maiduguri, Nigeria. General elections were held in Nigeria on 23 February 2019 to elect the President, Vice President, House of Representatives and the Senate, which the incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari won. In Maiduguri, the capital city of Borno State in northeastern region, saw democracy working by electing the president, governor, and other cabinet members, despite the military tensions with Boko Haram, a Jihadist group which began its military insurgency in 2009. Ten years into the insurgency, the city has become relatively safer than before; however, it still possesses tens of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons of the armed-conflict who could not return their home villages. (Photo by Jean Chung/Getty Images)

Report

‘We dried our tears’: Addressing the toll on children of Northeast Nigeria’s conflict

Boko Haram has repeatedly attacked schools and abducted large numbers of children as soldiers or ‘wives,’ among other atrocities. The…

May 27, 2020

Press Release

Anniversary marks two-year detention of women human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia

Amnesty International is calling on King Salman bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia to release several notable women’s rights defenders, two…

May 14, 2020

Jess Kemp holds a smartphone showing webpage where customers can directly order plants from at Sandiacre Nursery near Guildford on May 4, 2020. - The nursery is a third generation family-owned business. Started in 1945 after the second World War it now sells bedding plants to garden centres around the southeast of England. Nursery owner Royden Kemp said, that the lockdown couldn't have come at a worse time. "I have incurred all the expense of the crop but stand to lose all of the income if the shutdown continues through May" he said. To raise the cash for wages, Kemp has set up an online ordering service supplying local gardeners rather than their core business selling wholesale directly to garden centres. (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS / AFP) (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Press Release

Privacy Must Not Be ‘Another Casualty’ of the Virus in the UK

UK Government plans to introduce a COVID-19 tracing app with a potentially centralized contract tracing system are deeply concerning and…

May 4, 2020

Vietnamese activist La Viet Dung holds up a phone with the screen displaying an open letter to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg in Hanoi on April 10, 2018. A group of 50 Vietnamese activists and rights organisations have written an open letter to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg suggesting his company may be colluding with communist authorities to scrub out online dissent. / AFP PHOTO / - (Photo credit should read -/AFP via Getty Images)

Press Release

Facebook Must Cease Complicity with Government Censorship in Vietnam

Facebook must immediately reverse its decision to censor posts deemed critical of the government in Viet Nam, said Amnesty International…

April 22, 2020

Sadnaya - Syria detentions - Collaboration with Forensic Architecture. Illustrations taken from the Forensic Architecture Platform. Saydnaya Military Prison is located 30km north of Damascus, Syria. The prison is under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Defence and operated by the Military Police. Saydnaya became notorious for the use of torture and excessive force following a riot by detainees in 2008. There are two buildings on the Saydnaya site, which between them could contain 10,000-20,000 prisoners. In April 2016, Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture travelled to Turkey to meet a group of survivors from Saydnaya prison. Since 2011, journalists and other monitoring groups have been unable to visit the prison and speak with prisoners from Saydnaya, so this was an opportunity to tell their stories. As there are no images of Saydnaya, we were dependent on the memories of survivors to recreate what happened inside. Using architectural and acoustic modelling, we helped witnesses reconstruct the architecture of the prison and their experiences of detention. The interview techniques were developed by Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London, in consultation with the university’s Forensic Psychology Unit.

Press Release

Torture Trial in Germany a ‘Historic Step’ Towards Justice in Syria

The first trial of two former officials of the Syrian government’s security service charged with crimes against humanity marks an…

April 22, 2020

Two people walk among the burning rubbles in the Koudoukou market, in the PK5 district in Bangui on December 26, 2019, after clashes erupted when traders took up arms to oppose taxes levied by militia groups. - At least 11 people were killed in fighting between militiamen and traders in a restive district of Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, two security officials and an imam said on December 26, 2019. The security sources said between 11 and 14 people died after clashes erupted late on December 25, 2019, while the imam, Awad Al Karim, said "16 bodies" had been brought to the local Ali Babolo mosque. (Photo by FLORENT VERGNES / AFP) (Photo by FLORENT VERGNES/AFP via Getty Images)

Press Release

Armed conflicts and state repression in Africa fuel cocktail of human rights violations

HUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRICA: Protesters across sub-Saharan Africa have braved bullets and beatings to defend their rights in the face…

April 7, 2020

Cambodian soldiers carry aid, to be used to combat the spread of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus, from a Chinese military plane as a Chinese soldier wearing a protective suit looks on at Phnom Penh International Airport on April 1, 2020. - China's Ministry of Defence provided on April 1 medical equipment to the state-run Preah Ket Mealea military hospital to support the fight against the COVID-19 novel coronavirus. (Photo by TANG CHHIN Sothy / AFP) (Photo by TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP via Getty Images)

Press Release

Proposed Emergency Powers in Cambodia Would Obliterate Human Rights

The Cambodian authorities must urgently withdraw or substantially redraft the egregious State of Emergency Law which poses a grave threat…

April 2, 2020