Human Rights, San Francisco, And You

Calling all human rights activists and supporters!

You’re invited to San Francisco, March 18-20, 2011
for Amnesty International USA’s biggest and most exciting annual conference yet. This year, we’ll celebrate our 50th anniversary – that’s 50 years of hard work by you, our members and activists, in shining a light on human rights.

Take advantage of special early bird rates by registering now!

It’s not just an amazing event for connecting with fellow Amnesty supporters from around the country, it’s a valuable opportunity for gaining essential skills in human rights advocacy, volunteering and community organizing.

Here’s just a taste of what you’ll find in San Francisco:

Amazing speakers – including Amnesty’s brand new International Secretariat Salil Shetty, prominent human rights leaders, and special celebrity guests.

Powerful panels – discussing our core human rights campaigns and new strategies for mobilizing the human rights movement on both local and national levels!

Memorable experiences – looking back at the legacy of our work; the challenges we’ve overcome to reach key human rights victories — and setting a course for another 50 years of protecting all rights for all people.

Register now for our 50th Anniversary conference — let’s celebrate 50 years of hard work and strategize for our continued fight for human rights everywhere.

Can’t wait to see you in San Francisco.

AGM's one minute

This year’s AGM was a huge success! Over 600 Amnesty supporters were in attendance, ranging from staff to interns, to student activists and newly recruited members. At this year’s AGM 2010 All Rights for All People Conference, we decided to give Amnesty supporters one minute to share their excitement about the event.

We want to thank all who attended and made this event possible, and for those that missed out, here’s your one minute peek at this year’s AGM.


Watch other Amnesty supporters  give their “Amnesty Minute!

All Rights for All People Kicks Off Today!

AGM_smToday, we’re gathering with human rights advocates from around the world in New Orleans to demand and fight for all human rights for all people!  While the challenges facing human rights activists are great, the energy and determination to meet them are even greater. We’ll be mobilizing with those assembling in New Orleans to attack injustice from Burkino Faso to Biloxi, and grow an even stronger human rights movement.

Already the word is getting out:  today we’ve seen a spike in coverage about our reporting on the human rights abuses of Hurricane Katrina victims.  New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has become synonymous with the marginalization of people living in poverty in the richest country in the world.  The U.S. government and Gulf Coast states have consistently violated the human rights of hurricane victims since Hurricane Katrina killed about 1,800 people.  Check out the buzz:

> Amnesty: US guilty of Katrina-related abuses (The Washington Post)

> Amnesty International: Hurricane Katrina Victims Had Human Rights Violated (The Huffington Post)

Science for Human Rights Program Unveils New Toy

AGM Countdown: In the run up to Amnesty International’s Annual General Meeting in New Orleans this weekend, the Science for Human Rights program will be posting a new blog entry every day this week. All of the projects presented this week—and many more—will be at display in New Orleans.

For this year’s Annual General Meeting, the Science for Human Rights Program (SHR) is unveiling a cool new toy. This new toy, which we’re calling the “SHR Explorer,” enables you to check out a selection of the satellite images we have acquired and analyzed over the years, and lets you really see the extent of human rights violations in all different parts of the world. By using the slider, you can really see the striking differences between before and after images taken of the same exact place.

Screenshot of the SHR Explore. Copyright 2010 DigitalGlobe. CLICK IMAGE TO GO TO SITE

Screenshot of the SHR Explorer. Copyright 2010 DigitalGlobe. CLICK IMAGE TO GO TO SITE

Images from Zimbabwe and Chad show the extent of housing demolitions in select areas of those countries. In both Porta Farm, Zimbabwe, and N’Djamena, Chad, housing demolitions have caused immeasurable pain and suffering to people who have been made homeless by their own government.

In Lebanon, Georgia and Nigeria, violence has caused widespread damage and destruction to civilian infrastructure. Satellite images of Beirut, Lebanon, appear to prove that Israeli forces used cluster bombs in civilian areas during the August 2006 conflict, and those of Tskhinvali, Georgia, show many missing rooftops as result of the war between Georgian and Russian forces in August 2008. In Nigeria (our most recent project) the images show how many structures in the city of Jos have been destroyed by fire during recent clashes in the region.

And in New Orleans, aerial photographs demonstrate the slow pace of reconstruction in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The first aerial image shows the flood that happened right after Katrina hit, and the second image shows what the same area looks like 4 years later, in 2009.

The Explorer is really going to be a powerful new tool as we continue to document and monitor, and do advocacy and campaigning work on various human rights abuses all over the world.

Check it out today!

Mapping the U.S. Maternal Health Care Crisis

AGM Countdown: In the run up to Amnesty International’s Annual General Meeting in New Orleans this weekend, the Science for Human Rights program will be posting new blog entries throughout the week. All of the projects presented this week—and many more—will be on display in New Orleans.

On March 12, 2010, we released Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Crisis in the USA, our groundbreaking report on maternal health in the United States. Deadly Delivery lays out a clear case for the ways in which the U.S. health system is broken, and how we can fix it to fulfill the right of all women to maternal health.

Map of US maternal mortality ratios, based on information in Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Crisis in the USA. © Amnesty International. Produced by AAAS. <strong>CLICK TO SEE FULL MAP.</strong>

Map of US maternal mortality ratios, based on information in Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Crisis in the USA. (c) Amnesty International. Produced by AAAS. Click to see full map.

 

One of the most shocking facts, illustrated in this map, is that the numbers vary immensely from state to state. A woman in Washington, DC, is almost 30 times more likely to die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth than a woman in Maine. Maine is one of only five states (the others being Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Vermont) that have met the Healthy People 2010 goal of 4.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Most states’ ratios are far above that, and maternal health statistics in the USA have not improved in 20 years.

Inequalities abound. Amnesty International researchers found that women in the United States faced barriers to quality health care that included discrimination, language barriers, cost, bureaucratic hurdles, shortages of health care providers, and a lack of standardized national protocols to prevent and respond to life-threatening complications. Women of color are disproportionately affected, as are rural women, women in the inner cities, and women who do not speak English. African American women are nearly four times more likely to die of pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications than white women.

With a map like the one above, some of these disparities become immediately apparent. With such blatant inequalities from state to state, the United States needs better coordination and accountability on maternal health at the national level.

That’s why Amnesty International is calling on Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and President Obama to create an Office of Maternal Health in the Department of Health and Human Services. The office would ensure comprehensive data collection and effective nationwide review; ensure access to timely prenatal care; issue evidence-based protocols to prevent, recognize and respond to the leading pregnancy complications; encourage home visits after childbirth; vigorously enforce federal nondiscrimination laws; and recommend regulatory and legislative changes to ensure quality maternal care for all women.

Take action now by writing to Secretary Sebelius!

Mapping CIA Black Sites

AGM Countdown: In the run up to Amnesty International’s Annual General Meeting in New Orleans this weekend, the Science for Human Rights program will be posting a new blog entry every day this week. All of the projects presented this week—and many more—will be at display in New Orleans.

In its most extensive study of secret detention practices to date, the UN released a 222-page report on the practice of secret detention in dozens of countries. The report was to be presented to the Human Rights Council in March but the Council has agreed to postpone the discussion until June. The detailed study conducted by four independent UN human rights experts accuses the Bush administration of utilizing practices in severe violation of international law.

Map of US secret detention facilities, based on information provided by a recent UN Human Rights Council report. (c) Amnesty International. Producend by AAAS. CLICK TO SEE FULL MAP

Map of US secret detention facilities, based on information provided by a recent UN Human Rights Council report. (c) Amnesty International. Produced by AAAS. CLICK TO SEE FULL MAP

Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. began to limit and remove mechanisms protecting human rights in the context of the Global War on Terror. Lumping the United States with the likes of Stalin and Pinochet, the study cites the U.S. practices as an “unprecedented departure” from established international humanitarian and human rights law, specifically pointing to the Geneva Convention.

The report focuses on the CIA run secret detention facilities and the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on high value detainees.  While the U.S. has generally refused to disclose the locations of these facilities, the specifics have slowly leaked out.  The study found evidence confirming CIA “black sites” in 20 locations around the world, including Thailand, Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Kosovo.

During the operation of these sites, the U.S. used secret flight plans, charter aircraft and subcontracting agreements to remove evidence of U.S. government involvement. Individual case reports have begun to fill in the missing details of the locations and use of enhanced interrogation techniques at these secret detention sites. Amnesty International has created a visual representation of the UN study mapping the locations of the reported secret detention sites.

Shahna Esber contributed  to this blog.

"Finding Goodness Where You Least Expect It" – Interview with WOZA Founder Jenni Williams

Jenni Williams © Scott Langley & Amnesty International

Jenni Williams © Scott Langley & Amnesty International

Anyone who met Jenni Williams and her colleague Magodonga Mahlangu at AIUSA’s Annual General Meeting this Spring knows what amazing, uncrushable spirits these women have, despite having been jailed, beaten, and threatened repeatedly by Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe. But if you weren’t fortunate enough to meet them, or you’d like to get a deeper look into what makes the women of WOZA keep going, check out this great interview with WOZA founder Jenni Williams that was published in the Guardian this past Sunday. She is truly an amazing woman.

Although Jenni and Magodonga expected to have had their trial by now, the trial date has been postponed until July 7th, so they remain in limbo, but they also remain unstoppable!

An Interrogator Speaks

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I’m still alarmed about that today.

The quote is from former interrogator Matthew Alexander’s piece in the Washington Post last November, “I’m Still Tortured By What I Saw in Iraq.”

Mr. Alexander is the author of “How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Burtality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq” and we’ve recently confirmed that he’ll be one of several speakers at Amnesty International USA’s Annual General Meeting, March 27 – 29, in Boston.

Hope to see you there.