The closing plenary of our 50th anniversary conference was packed with activists who were treated to a bit of organizational history by two Amnesty International veterans, Ellen Dorsey and Paul Hoffman. Ellen told the hundreds of predominantly young activists in the ballroom that she joined Amnesty International as a teenager 30 years ago “because I couldn’t learn about the world in my classes in the way that Amnesty would teach me about the world,” she said. “Amnesty has given back every step of the way and invested in me.”
When Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner took the stage, Dorsey seized the opportunity to ask him: “Will you please tell President Obama to close Guantánamo?” Her question brought a raucous cheer from the audience, and several hundred people rose to their feet. When the audience finally sat down, Posner, the former executive director of Human Rights First, said, “I will and have and will continue to tell anyone I can find in the administration that we have to take our word seriously. The challenge is that we are confronted by the political reality in this country. We hear all the time from people on the other side but don’t hear enough from people telling us to close Guantánamo now.” Amnesty International Secretary-General Salil Shetty reminded us that in order for Posner and other like-minded officials within the Obama administration to have influence, they need the backing of grassroots pressure from activists like us.