Amnesty International USA

On May 14, 2009, Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy, and two of her assistants were taken from her home to Insein Prison following an incident in which an American man allegedly swam across a lake to her house and stayed there for two days. Suu Kyi was subsequently put on trial for breaching the terms of her house arrest, and was sentenced to an additional 18 months under house arrest.

Amnesty International is concerned that Chinese Internet service providing companies, including Baidu, Sina and Sohu, are complying with Chinese government requests and demands to censor content online and otherwise repress the rights to freedom of expression and privacy. Call on these companies to ensure the Internet fulfills its potential to empower and educate and to create global communities.

Amnesty International is concerned about the ways Microsoft may be aiding the repression of freedom to information and expression in China. According to recent reports, Microsoft's search engine blocks searches under key words such as "freedom", "democracy", "human rights", "Falun Gong", and "demonstration", among others. Users of Microsoft Spaces are also prohibited from using these and other words on the weblogs they create.

Ebrima B. Manneh was arrested in July 2006 at the offices of the newspaper Daily Observer by plainclothes officers, thought to have been from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). He has been held in incommunicado detention without charge or trial for over two years. Please call on Gambian authorities to release Ebrima Manneh, a prisoner of conscience.

For peacefully raising a flag at an annual Indonesian ceremony, Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage may spend the next decade or more in prison. Amnesty International considers Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage to be prisoners of conscience who have been detained for the peaceful and legitimate exercise of their right to freedom of expression. Please urge the President of Indonesia to bring about the immediate and unconditional release of Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage.

Iran is one of the only countries in the world that still executes children and child offenders. At least 15 child offenders have been executed in Iran in the last two years. On October 16, 2008, The Government of Iran announced an end to this shameful practice, but on October 18 Iran clarified that this directive would not apply to child offenders sentenced to qesas or retribution. The vast majority of the more than 130 juveniles sentenced to death in Iran still face execution.

Malik Medjnoun and Abdelhakim Chenoui were taken into custody in September 1999, after which they were held in secret, unacknowledged detention, respectively for seven and six months. Both allege that they were tortured during this period of enforced disappearance.

Amnesty International USA, in partnership with the Save Darfur Coalition, is calling on President Barack Obama to turn his promises on Darfur into concrete action. We're collecting one million signatures to deliver to the White House to reinforce the need for Darfur to be a top-priority issue on the Obama administration agenda.

On Wednesday, March 18, 2009, Governor Bill Richardson signed into law a bill to repeal the death penalty in New Mexico. With this bill, sponsored by Representative Gail Chasey, New Mexico has now become only the 2nd state in over 30 years to legislatively abolish the death penalty, and brings to 15 the number of states in the U.S. that are now death penalty free! Write to Gov. Richardson and Rep. Chasey today and thank them for their unprecedented leadership.

On January 1, 2008, a UN-African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID) was deployed to Darfur with the mandate of protecting civilians. Many countries pledged troops and military hardware; but more than a year since its initial deployment, UNAMID remains severely under-resourced and just over 60% deployed. Urge key international actors to fulfill their pledges and do everything in their capacity to ensure that UNAMID can successfully protect the people of Darfur.

On March 4, 2009, the government of Sudan expelled and suspended the operations of humanitarian aid organizations that provide the bulk of life-saving aid, including food, water, and medicine to millions of vulnerable people in Darfur and across Sudan. This apparently retaliatory action came soon after a decision by the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Belarus is the last country in Europe and in the former Soviet Union that still carries out executions. Amnesty International estimates that as many as 400 people may have been executed since Belarus gained its independence in 1991. At least four people were executed and one more sentenced to death in 2008. Sign the appeal to ask President Lukashenka to declare an immediate moratorium on executions.

Ask your Representative to support H.R. 2271, the Global Online Freedom Act, which would prevent U.S. companies from carrying out or facilitating the suppression of online speech in repressive countries.

For over four decades, Indigenous communities have witnessed multinational oil companies cut through their ancestral lands in search of the country's vast petroleum resources. According to the report "Amazon Crude", Texaco alone was responsible for dumping 19 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the region contaminating the drinking water of Ecuador's Amazon communities.

Employees and individual contractors of US government contracted companies are alleged to have abused, tortured and killed people in areas including Iraq and Afghanistan, but not a single one has been brought to justice. Tell Congress to demand accountability of contractors in the "war on terror."

In February 2007, Egyptian blogger Karim Amer was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for the "crime" of publishing on the internet material critical of Islam and President Mubarak.

Tell your Representative and Senators and President Obama to expose abuse and hold perpetrators accountable. Momentum for an independent investigation into torture is growing. However, without your help, we may not achieve a strong, independent commission with the force of law that can expose the torture and abuse committed in our name and that can help prevent the U.S. from torturing in the future.

Call the Obama administration on its recent backsliding in rejecting the rule of law and ask for a new kind of task force - a commission of independent, bipartisan experts to examine, report, and come to their own informed conclusions about the policies and actions related to the detention, treatment, and transfer of Guantanamo detainees.

Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist, is serving a ten-year prison sentence for sending an email to the U.S. Yahoo! helped put him there. They provided information to the Chinese Government, which led to his unjust imprisonment. Yahoo! needs to hear from people like you and me in droves. And they need to hear from us today. Tell Yahoo! that we won't stand for violating privacy and ask them to use their influence to secure Shi Tao's release.

Last month, the House of Representatives voted to authorize the Office for Global Women's Issues at the State Department. Now, we need the Senate to vote for this office, giving it the thrust of legislative authority and ensuring its permanency at the State Department.

Urge the Nicaraguan government to repeal the criminalization of access to abortion services, even where continuation of a pregnancy endangers a woman's or girl's life or health, or where the pregnancy is a result of rape.

Although Peru is a middle-income country, its maternal mortality rate is the second worst in South America. Low-income, rural, and indigenous women are most at risk. Peru has been a focus of the human-right-to-maternal-health community, and President Alan Garcia has promised better equity in maternal health funding. But he has yet to fulfill that promise.

Across the United States, thousands of people, including U.S. citizens, immigrants and asylum seekers, languish needlessly in detention facilities every day without even the right to a hearing to determine whether their detention is necessary. While detained, they are often held in poor conditions with limited access to family, medical care, or attorneys.

President Obama and a number of members of Congress have resisted full accountability for torture, and have endorsed indefinite detention and unfair military commissions. There is an alternative: call on President Obama and Congress to respect human rights.

Call on the Sri Lankan government to strike down the conviction against journalist J.S. Tissainayagam and grant him an unconditional release. Ask the Sri Lankan government to amend existing legislation so that it is not misused to arbitrarily restrict freedom of expression.

Call on the Chadian government to immediately cease all forced evictions and ensure that the rights of victims of forced evictions are respected

Troy Davis has been scheduled for execution three times without ever having a hearing on evidence that he may be innocent. On August 17, the US Supreme Court finally granted him that hearing. While this is welcome news, we must continue to let Georgia authorities know that we support full justice for Troy Davis. Sign the petition today!

More than 10,000 families in Luanda have been made homeless after being forcibly evicted from their homes since July 2001.

From May to July 2005, government security forces launched Operation Murambatsvina (Restore Order), a program of housing and informal business demolition that displaced approximately 700,000 people. The evictions and demolitions were carried out without adequate notice, court orders, due process, legal protection, redress or appropriate relocation measures.

In Equitorial Guinea, about 1,000 families have been forcibly evicted from their homes to make room for roads, up-market housing and hotels and shopping centers since 2003.

In July 2009, more than 3,000 residents of Githogoro Village were made homeless when the government, with only 72 hours’ notice, evicted them and used bulldozers to demolish their homes. A program to clean up the Nairobi River Basin threatens to displace more than 127,000 people who live nearby. On World Habitat Day on October 5, ask President Kibaki to stop all forced evictions in Nairobi, consult with local communities about alternatives, and relocate and compensate those displaced.

In Nigeria, more than two million people have been forcibly evicted from their homes in different parts of the country since 2000.

Following the botched and ultimately failed execution of Romell Broom on September 15, the State of Ohio introduced a new lethal injection procedure and has now resumed executions. Three men have been put to death with the new method, and 8 more executions are scheduled through October 2010. But the death penalty can never be humane, regardless of the method of execution. Call on Governor Strickland to establish a moratorium on ALL executions in Ohio.

Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu continue to live under the threat of trial and imprisonment since their arrest on charges of disturbing the peace on October 16, 2008. On that day, hundreds of WOZA members demonstrated in Bulawayo in support of the government declaring a national emergency and distributing food aid to the nation's hungry citizens.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child sets forth basic standards which individual nations agree to pursue on behalf of children. With 193 nations having ratified it, the Convention is the most widely adopted human rights treaty in history. The United States is the only nation that has not ratified the Convention, other than the failed state of Somalia.

Not only do the deaths of women tarnish the image of the Mexican city of Juárez, but also the disappearance of soldier Miguel Orlando Muñoz Guzmán demonstrates the flaw in the state of rights and justice in this region of Mexico.

The body of Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani was discovered in a room at Tehran police headquarters on 10 November 2009. Help ensure a proper investigation, as it is essential that the investigation be fully transparent and that reputable independent experts be called in to insure its integrity.

Abdollah Momeni, the spokesperson for the Alumni Association of Iran has been sentenced to 8 years in prison. He was one of the more than 100 people charged in a mass trial before a Revolutionary Court with inciting the post-12 June election unrest in Iran. It is feared that he has been ill-treated in detention.

Petition calling on the President of the General Assembly to make the United Nations more effective in realizing women’s rights.

On 4 January 2009, two people were killed and others injured when an armed crowd raided a building inhabited by refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants in Durban city centre, KwaZulu-Natal province. However, police did not intervene until after the attackers had left. Urge the Police Commissioner to conduct and impartial investigation and protect the rights of refugees and migrants

Amnesty’s latest report, “Mexico: New reports of human rights violations by the military”, presents several recent cases of human rights violations committed by the military. These cases are illustrative of a pattern of serious human rights violations committed by members of the armed forces deployed to fight organized crime.

Azerbaijani bloggers Emin Abdullayev and Adnan Hajizade were arrested on charges of “hooliganism” in July after reporting to police that they had been assaulted. Their arrest came over a week after Adnan posted a YouTube video critical of the Azerbaijani government. A court sentenced Adnan to two years, and Emin to two and a half years. Call on Azerbaijan’s government to ensure that the bloggers receive a fair appeal hearing scheduled for December 22, 2009.

At a time of uncertainty in health care reform, Congress should take guidance from human rights principles. Urge Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi to take concrete steps toward fulfilling the human right to health care by expanding Medicare, Medicaid and community health centers.

Academic and dual Iran-U.S. national Kian Tajbakhsh was arrested at his home in Tehran on 9 July. Kian Tajbakhsh, a 47-year-old social scientist who taught urban policy at the New School University in New York and who previously consulted for George Soros' Open Society Institute, was arrested on the night of 9 July by agents of the Security Police.

Two men were arrested in Malawi after a 'traditional engagement ceremony'. They were reportedly beaten by police while in custody. The arrest of the two men solely for their real or perceived sexual orientation is discrimination in violation of their rights to freedom of conscience, expression, and privacy. Laws that criminalize homosexuality are in violation of treaties signed by Malawi.

South Korea was one of the first Asian countries to guarantee the rights of migrant workers - but today migrant workers in the country are exposed to abusive work conditions including discrimination, verbal and physical abuse.

Conscientious objector Enver Aydemir was arrested by police on 24 December 2009 in Istanbul while on his way to a conference on the right to conscientious objection. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience and is concerned about reports that he has been beaten in prison.

Thank President Obama for granting Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a form of protection provided to foreign nationals whose countries have experienced environmental disasters, to ensure that Haitians in the US can work and provide support to their families in Haiti.

For the past 26 years, a civil war has ravaged Sri Lanka. The war ended in May 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE. Detainees suspected of links to the LTTE remain in custody without any legal protections.

Ayatollah Sayed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi, a 50-year-old Shi’a cleric, is currently imprisoned in EVIN PRISON IN TEHRAN for his peaceful religious opinions. Amnesty International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience.

Japan is one of only two developed industrialized countries that retains the death penalty and continues to carry out executions. Urge Japanese officials to bring Japanese law surrounding the death penalty in line with international standards.

Student leader Majid Tavakkoli, a member of the Islamic Students Association, was arrested on December 7 after he gave a speech at a demonstration at Amir Kabir University of Technology in Tehran, marking Student Day. He was reportedly beaten during his arrest. His current whereabouts are unknown and it is feared he is being held in incommunicado detention, where he would be at risk of torture and other ill-treatment.

The war that had ravaged Sri Lanka for over 26 years ended in May 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE. However, there were credible reports of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including war crimes, committed by both sides, especially during the final months of the war.

Prageeth Eknaligoda, a Sri Lankan journalist and political analyst, went missing shortly after leaving work in Homagama, Sri Lanka on January 24th.

Iran is one of the only countries left in the world today that still executes children and child offenders (those accused of committing an offense when they were under eighteen years of age). As of May 2009, there were at least 137 known juvenile offenders awaiting execution in Iran, but the total number could be much higher as many death penalty cases in Iran are believed to go unreported.

Ask the Sri Lankan government to end its crackdown on journalists, human rights defenders and political activists within the country, and call on the Sri Lankan government to promptly conduct independent, impartial investigations into recent attacks.

The International Violence Against Women Act is the first comprehensive piece of legislation in the United States aimed at ending violence against women and girls around the world. It would improve our government’s response when women are victims of sex trafficking and rape during war and would provide aid to women’s groups on the ground working to help survivors of domestic and sexual violence. In some countries, it truly could mean the difference between life and death for a woman

Plans to mine bauxite in the Orissa threaten the very existence of the Dongria Kondh. The proposed mine could have grave repercussions for their human rights to water, food, health, work and other rights. Call for the government to do a full human rights assessment on the mining plans before clearing the project for approval.

Encourage your Congressman and Congresswomen to support the Conflict Minerals Trade Act that will reduce the trade in conflict minerals coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Dhondup Wangchen, a Tibetan filmmaker, was sentenced on December 28 in Qinghai Province to six years' imprisonment for “subversion of state power” after a secret trial by Xining City Intermediate Court.

In May 2006, over 45 women were arrested without explanation in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico. Many were subjected to physical, psychological and sexual violence by the police officers who arrested them and then held in prison for days before being released on bail. More than three years have passed and they are still waiting for justice.

Since Pakistan joined the U.S.-led war on terror in late 2001, hundreds of people suspected of links to terrorist activity have been arbitrarily detained and held in secret detention facilities, where they have no access to their families, lawyers or the courts, and are outside all protection of the law. Most, if not all, are tortured or otherwise ill-treated.

Pattani Razeek, a Sri Lankan human rights defender, has been missing since he was apparently abducted on February 11 in the town of Polonnaruwa, in Sri Lanka's North Central Province.

Iran made a defiant appearance before the UN Human Rights Council defending and promoting its human rights record. Iran continued to show its utter contempt for human rights by flat-out rejecting human rights recommendations made by the UN council.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is on the verge of introducing legislation that would block Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in U.S. federal court. Email key Senators and help defeat Senator Graham's legislation!

Call on the Mexican authorities to carry out a thorough and impartial investigation into the death of Brad Will, and into abuses committed by the security forces during the Oaxacan protests of 2006.

Urge Palestinian Authorities to release Saed Yassin, the head of an organization that assists Palestinian prisoners and their families

Demand that Zambia remove the death penalty from their new constitution before it is written into law.

Capital punishment in Missouri, and throughout the United States, is a fatally flawed policy that violates basic human rights. There has been only one execution in Missouri since 2005, and calls for a moratorium are increasing. Call on your state legislators to support HB 1683 and SB 930, bills that would stop all executions in Missouri while the death penalty is thoroughly studied.

President Obama is on the verge of reversing Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the 9/11 suspects in U.S. federal court, but real justice requires a real court.

Call on The Secretary of Health and Human Services to create an Office of Maternal Health to ensure that all women have timely access to quality maternal care.

Hengameh Shahidi, a journalist and women's rights activist, began serving a six-year prison sentence in Evin Prison in Tehran on 25 February 2010, after an appeal court upheld her conviction and sentence for "gathering and colluding with intent to harm state security" and "propaganda against the system." Amnesty International considers her to be a prisoner of conscience, held solely for her peaceful political and journalistic activities.

The Indonesian Government has sought to restrict peaceful political expression, particularly in areas like Papua province, where some seek greater political freedoms.