By Joshua Cooper, Hawaii Legislative Coordinator, Amnesty International USA
The United States underwent its third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) one week after the recent election.
For two years, civil society organizations across the country drafted stakeholder submissions, met with UN Missions in Geneva and New York to share specific recommendations, and hosted side events in New York, Washington, D.C. and Geneva (virtually) to provide vital voices from directly impacted people to diplomats.
For most hard-core human rights activists — even from Amnesty International — the UPR is not widely known. However, every country around the world participates regularly in the three+ hour review and it’s an important opportunity to organize around for what we hold dear as civil society. …
By Roger-Mark De Souza, Chief Movement Building Officer, Amnesty International USA
On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each year, people throughout the world observe December 10 as Human Rights Day, many by taking action for human rights. At Amnesty International, we mark this day through our Write for Rights campaign. We come together in over 150 countries and territories to send letters of support to, and on behalf of, individuals who have been detained, imprisoned, attacked, and disappeared for peacefully exercising their rights and for defending others’ human rights.
When you participate in Write for…
By Nate Smith, Chair, AIUSA Military, Security and Police Transfers Coordination Group
It’s easy to miss other news from around the globe while a pandemic rages, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable among us and turning millions of lives upside-down. The recent news that the Trump Administration plans to sell a massive $27 billion worth of advanced weapons to the UAE is a shocking and grim reminder that there are other ongoing crises around the world happening during this raging pandemic, multiplying the tragedy for millions of families. …
The crisis the Biya government wants the world to believe
By Alagie Jammeh, 2020 Almami Cyllah Fellow
In recent years, many authoritarian governments have applied broad definitions of terrorism to any form of political dissent, objective journalism, and the right of every person to criticize its own government. This is what is happening in Cameroon right now.
Nearly 700,000 people have been displaced, 3.9 million are in need of humanitarian support and several thousand have been killed in Cameroon, as a result of three crises (the insurgency of the armed group Boko Haram, the widening conflict between the government and armed separatists who are demanding greater freedoms and autonomy, and the culture of impunity that has been created by the 38-year administration of Cameroonian President Paul Biya). …
by Magdalena Medley, Women’s Human Rights Coordination Group, Amnesty International USA
The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international campaign that starts on November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until December 10th, Human Rights Day. The United Nations adopted a specific resolution to protect Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) acknowledging that a key challenge for WHRDs is the systemic and structural discrimination and violence they face. Women defenders are subject to the same types of risks as any human rights defender, but as women, they are also targeted for or exposed to gender-specific threats and gender-specific violence. …
by Alice Dahle, Women’s Human Rights Coordination Group, Amnesty International USA
The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international campaign that starts on November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until December 10th, Human Rights Day. The United Nations adopted a specific resolution to protect Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) acknowledging that a key challenge for WHRDs is the systemic and structural discrimination and violence they face. Women defenders are subject to the same types of risks as any human rights defender, but as women, they are also targeted for or exposed to gender-specific threats and gender-specific violence. …
by Kaitlyn O’Shaughnessy, Women’s Human Rights Coordination Group, Amnesty International USA
The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international campaign that starts on November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until December 10th, Human Rights Day. The United Nations adopted a specific resolution to protect Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) acknowledging that a key challenge for WHRDs is the systemic and structural discrimination and violence they face. Women defenders are subject to the same types of risks as any human rights defender, but as women, they are also targeted for or exposed to gender-specific threats and gender-specific violence. …
By: Nancy Galib, Myanmar Country Specialist for Amnesty International USA
Five years ago, the world watched with great hope when the National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in Myanmar’s parliamentary elections. That hope turned to horror when three years ago the world watched as the Myanmar military unleashed a campaign of violence against the Rohingya. Amnesty International has documented in detail how the campaign was marked by crimes against humanity, and gathered recent evidence of indiscriminate attacks on civilians in Rakhine State that continue today, and supports calls for the investigation and prosecution of atrocity crimes — that is, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. …
By AIUSA Co-group Writers
Today, we’re highlighting “enforced disappearances” — a horrific crime where a government or its agents detain someone and then deny all knowledge of their whereabouts or fate. Enforced disappearances are used to spread terror in society, often during periods of armed conflict or repression. Once largely used by military dictatorships, they now occur in every region of the world and in a wide variety of contexts. The UN Secretary General has said that new cases are reported almost daily to the U.N., including disappearances of environmental defenders.
August 30 is the International Day of the Disappeared. In this blog post, we’ll give some examples of enforced disappearances, from Uyghurs in China to businesspeople in Pakistan and journalists in Sri Lanka. On a related note, we’ll discuss femicide in Mexico, which often involves disappearances of the victims. For each example, we’ll have opportunities for you to take action. While many of the disappeared never return and are presumed killed, that’s not always the case. We’ll show you how human rights activism can make a difference for the disappeared. The families and friends of the disappeared continue to campaign for their loved ones. Please join us in supporting their efforts to achieve justice. …
By Karen Burkhart, AIUSA Indiana State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator
I joined Amnesty International in the 1970’s while a moratorium existed on the death penalty in the US. States gradually adjusted their death penalty statues and executions resumed with the voluntary execution of Gary Gilmore in 1977.
As a member of Amnesty, I wrote many letters on death penalty cases in many countries. The experience working on the cases solidified my objection to any killings by government whether judicial or extrajudicial. Since that time, I have been active in Amnesty as both a group death penalty coordinator and a state death penalty coordinator. I have been to numerous vigils at prisons in Ohio and Indiana. …
About
