Amnesty International USA

Of the four Kuwaitis incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than 7 years, three remain there. The government of Kuwait has long been pressing the U.S. government for the prisoners' return. Each of these cases was assigned to an Amnesty group in the United States, and those groups have been urging the U.S. government to either release the men or charge them with a crime and try them in Federal civilian court.

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.

Please take action to help protect the safety of women in Afghanistan.

Amnesty International recently published a report expressing concern regarding the Burundian authorities' failure to adequately address the problem of sexual violence against women. Take action now and urge Burundian authorities to prevent and investigate rape, and provide justice to the victims.

Over three years ago, the Justice Department (DOJ) required that all cases of detainee abuse by private military and security contractors be handled by one US Attorney’s Office. As of today, that office has declined to prosecute almost all of the cases referred to it, with little explanation. Urge your representatives in Congress to pressure the DOJ to prosecute human rights violations committed by private military and security contractors.

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.

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.

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.

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur. Some organizations and United Nations member states are calling for the UN Security Council to suspend the execution of the arrest warrant. Write to Secretary of State Clinton and UN Ambassador Rice today to urge the U.S. to continue to oppose any calls to bargain justice away.

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.

60 percent of people living with HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa are women. In South Africa, women under 25 are 3-4 times more likely to be infected with the virus and have the highest rate of new infections. Women and girls subjected to violence are at greater risk. Many women lack access to the free health care they are legally entitled to. Ask South Africa to reduce HIV and AIDS and address gender based violence.

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.

Press investors in Sudan’s oil industry to follow the lead of companies like Morgan Stanley and T. Rowe Price to take a stand for the people of Darfur.

Jamie Leigh Jones was reportedly drugged, gang-raped and imprisoned in a container by fellow KBR co-workers in 2005 while working in Iraq on a U.S. Defense Department contract. Like the Abu Ghraib torture victims who still have not seen justice after more than four years, the abuse Jones says she suffered at the hands of private contractors over two years ago has not seen the light of a criminal trial.

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.

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.

Early in 2006 Google launched a self-censoring Chinese search engine, google.cn, that blocks search results for topics such as human rights, political reform, Tiananmen Square and Falun Gong, among others. Amnesty International is concerned about the ways Google is aiding the repression of freedom to information and expression in China, and the implications this may have for the way the company operates everywhere in the world.

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.

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.

According to testimonies,the Tamil Tigers were responsible for using civilians as human shields during the final stages of the armed conflict with the government of Sri Lanka. However, there is evidence that many civilians were killed as a result of shelling. The Sri Lankan military continued to use heavy weapons despite promising previously that it would stop using them.

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.

Natalia Estemirova, one of the leading human rights defenders who worked in the North Caucasus region, was abducted in Grozny, Chechnya on July 15th on her way to work. She was dragged into a car by several men and driven off in an unknown direction. According to witnesses, Natalia Estemirova managed to shout out that she was being abducted. Her body was found several hours later in the neighboring Republic of Ingushetia with gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

Real health care reform could help bring the U.S. government closer to fulfilling the human right to health care. Yet Congress, and particularly the Senate, continues to treat health care as a market commodity, rather than a public good. The Senate must stop pandering to the insurance industry and instead provide a Medicare-like public plan that is accessible to everyone.

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.

Urge the Obama Administration to actively support reintroduction and passage by Congress, this fall, of the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA).

Call on the Sri Lankan government to release journalist J.S. Tissainayagam immediately and unconditionally and 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.

The State of Ohio has announced new lethal injection procedures and is looking to resume executions. It is seeking to execute Kenneth Biros on December 8. Six executions are scheduled for the first 6 months of 2010. But the death penalty can never be humane, regardless of the method of execution. Call on Governor Strickland to esstablish a moratorium on ALL executions in Ohio.

Since 2006, at least 14 media workers have been killed in Sri Lanka, with no one held accountable for these murders. Call on the Sri Lankan government to ensure Dileesha Abeysundera’s safety and to investigate the intimidation attempted against her and other Sri Lankan journalists and media workers.

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.

250,000 people displaced by the fighting in Sri Lanka are held by the government in de facto detention camps. They cannot leave the camps, which are overcrowded and lack basic sanitation facilities.

Urge President Obama and the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry to continue to press the Afghan government into upholding its’ commitment to the Afghan Constitution and the international treaties and conventions it has signed, including The Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

On October 27 2006, US video journalist Brad Will was shot and killed in Oaxaca City, southern Mexico as he filmed a clash between members of a local protest movement (Asamblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca, APPO) and supporters and officials of the local governing party.

Artist and community activist, Marlon Magwaza, was harassed and threatened by ZANU-PF youths after he organized a community cultural event that had prior clearance from the police. The event was conducted to promote peace and tolerance. He was shoved by the police before being taken to the police station where he was detained for about seven hours. The arrest took place after ZANU-PF youths alleged a participant at the event had 'insulted' President Mugabe.

Maternal mortality claims the life of one woman every minute – more than half a million women every year. This is a human rights scandal. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is a crucial guarantee of the right to maternal health. The United States is one of only eight countries not to have ratified CEDAW. While Secretary Clinton's State Department supports ratification, the Senate needs to act now. Urge the Senate to ratify CEDAW!

Equality and non-discrimination of opportunity and treatment in employment is fundamental human right. Add your support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

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.

Support Guantanamo closure by calling your Senator to support the move of detainees to federal prisons in the US and charge them in US.

Recent actions taken by the Moroccan government against the press and Western Saharan rights activists suggest backsliding on core human rights such as freedom of speech, press, association and movement. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was recently in Morocco but generally praised Morocco’s human rights record despite this disturbing trend. Call on the US government to press Morocco to quickly address these recent abuses