By Aquib Yacoob, Student Area Coordinator for New York

Last Monday afternoon, I joined my fellow students from Townsend Harris High School’s Amnesty International chapter, lining the steps of the Queens Library Flushing Branch in silent protest of the use of torture by the US government and standing in solidarity with torture survivor, Maher Arar.

Our hour-long demonstration captured the attention of passersby as we stood – blindfolded and dressed in orange prison suits – surrounding a life size imitation of the prison cell where Maher Arar spent almost a year of his life.

June is torture awareness month, and to advocate against the illegal, and immoral use of torture by the US government, and governments around the world, I’m organizing two “Torture Galleries” around New York City. The aforementioned was the first of two demonstrations calling on President Obama and Congress to investigate and prosecute US torture, and to apologize to torture survivor Maher Arar; a call to courage to reinstate the values that once made the United States the great nation it was known to be.

The use of torture is a grave abuse of human rights, and flies in the face of international and local statues ranging from the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the United States Constitution.  Torture is an immoral, dehumanizing form of interrogation, one that has for thousands of years been proven unsuccessful, and ineffective. It is difficult to understand why, here and now in the 21^st century, we still practice these draconian acts against humanity. It is time we stand up and end this vicious cycle.

I became motivated in the fight for justice after learning of the great abuses of human rights and human dignity in the name of our “war on terror”. Basic security has been denied to countless people around the world in what was supposed to be an attempt to protect our security. That’s just not right; no one human should be valued over another. I heard the call for action with the launch of the Human Rights Ambassador Challenge for Torture Awareness Month. It didn’t take much of an effort to motivate my student group to stand up and call for justice.

My Townsend Harris High School student chapter of Amnesty Intentional, a group of approximately 35 activists, answered the call after learning what it meant to be a victim of torture. I shared with them the horrifying ordeal faced by Maher Arar, one of many torture survivors, and it led them to the harsh realization that torture, by any other name, is still torture. After viewing a few videos from Amnesty International’s 2008 “Unsubscribe Project”, the students were convinced that treatment of this sort was not suited for any living creature, and they were convinced that we need act in hope of changing this vicious practice.

Encouraged and renewed by their newfound passion for the fight against the use of torture, I began planning what was to then be my last (of many) social justice actions with my Townsend Harris Amnesty Chapter, which I’ve led for the past three years. The action was to take the form of a simple, silent line demonstration outside of the Flushing Library. After contacting Zeke Johnson, the Campaigner of the Security with Human Rights Campaign in search of orange prison suits, I was informed that the SWHR team was also looking to host a torture awareness demonstration. We decided to pool our resources and work together to coordinate a larger, more demonstrative event on the 26^th of June, International Day in Support of Victims of Torture; and so, our “Gallery of Torture” was underway.

I hope you join my Townsend Harris High School chapter, along with several other Amnesty International student chapters from New York in Union Square Park this Sunday, June 26^th, as we demand justice and call for accountability for the use of torture, including for torture survivor, Maher Arar.

Interested in hosting your own event? Contact security@aiusa.org

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the most prominent global anti-poverty initiative ever undertaken.  The goals set out targets for alleviating extreme poverty, including reducing maternal deaths by 75% (MDG5), by 2015. However, even this modest target will not be met by the deadline unless efforts are significantly stepped up.

Meeting the maternal mortality target, for example, would require a 5.5% annual reduction in maternal deaths since 1990, and the world has seen only 2.3% annual improvement.  A woman still dies from complications of pregnancy or childbirth every 90 seconds.

Casualties of this too-slow progress are women like the mother of José Meneses Salazar, from one of the poorest regions of Peru, who died in childbirth when José was 15. Fearing staff would mistreat her, she did not go to the health center for prenatal care. When she went into labor, the midwife at the nearest health post was on leave, so José’s father and other relatives delivered the baby themselves—but they didn’t know what to do when she suffered a retained placenta (when part or all of the placenta stays inside the mother’s uterus after child birth), and she died two hours later.

Troublingly, stories like this are not uncommon. While the Peruvian government has made efforts in reducing the country’s maternal mortality ratio, many populations – like the poorest of the poor, minorities, and rural women – are being left behind.  Though the country saw a 61% drop in maternal mortality rates between 1990 and 2008, poor and Indigenous women remain at much greater risk.

As documented in Amnesty International’s report, From Promises to Delivery: Putting Human Rights at the Heart of the Millennium Development Goals, truly incorporating human rights into the MDGs would help ensure that marginalized populations aren’t left behind in development.  Putting human rights at the heart of the MDGs would mean that countries would:

• Ensure that the human rights of all people are promoted in development
• Ensure that those living in poverty are active participants in development
• Ensure accountability and compliance with human rights standards in development policies and programs

Human rights advocates now have two urgent tasks.  First we must push governments to incorporate human rights into current MDGs policy, between now and 2015.  And second, we must lay the groundwork to ensure that the development framework that succeeds the MDGs after 2015 – the “MDGs 2.0” – has human rights at its heart.  Sign our online action  today and join the thousands of activists around the country who wrote action cards this Mother’s Day season to urge Secretary of State Clinton to endorse a human rights approach to MDG 5, and U.S. MDGs policy more broadly.

A woman holds a photograph of Tatia Oden French, who died in 2001 after an induced labor.

This year, Mom won’t be the only person receiving a Mother’s Day card.

Giving birth in the United States is more dangerous than in 49 other countries. In the last 24 hours, around the world, almost 1,000 women have died from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Maternal health is a human right — and there’s no better time than Mother’s Day to let Congress and other leaders around the world know that you care about the lives of women worldwide.

Join the fight for maternal health by requesting Mother’s Day action cards to send to U.S. and world decision-makers. Let us know how many cards you’d like by registering online (they come in sets of six).

These Mother’s Day cards aren’t destined for the shoebox or the refrigerator. Send them back to us and we’ll take them straight to your Members of Congress, urging them to support the Maternal Health Accountability Act, which would take vital steps to improve maternal health in the U.S. We’ll send other cards to leaders in Peru and Burkina Faso, urging them to improve their countries’ troubling maternal health records.

From now through May 22, please join other Amnesty activists across the country who are mobilizing in support of maternal health. Your cards will form the foundation of a greater lobbying, research and awareness effort to fight unnecessary deaths in pregnancy and childbirth.

Every 90 seconds a woman dies giving birth, and the rate of maternal death in the United States is increasing. Many of these deaths can — must — be prevented.

This Mother’s Day, Amnesty is giving you the tools to do something about it.  Five hundred members and groups have already registered to write Mother’s Day action cards, host film screenings, and more in support of the right to maternal health. Are you or your Amnesty group part of this world-wide effort? There’s still time to register to receive our event planning kit, including Mother’s Day action cards, buttons, stickers, and more.

Every year, more than 350,000 women die from pregnancy-related complications.  This Mother’s Day, join us in fighting this human rights crisis! Write for mothers worldwide — request your Mother’s Day cards today.