Tag Archives: Amnesty Members

Russia’s Most Prominent Political Prisoner Freed After Ten Years Behind Bars

December 22, 2013 at 3:02 PM
Mikhail Khodorkovsky was charged with embezzlement and tax evasion. He spent 10 years in prison until his unexpected pardon by Russian President Vladimir Putin (Photo Credit by Sean Gallup/Getty Images).

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was charged with embezzlement and tax evasion. He spent 10 years in prison until his unexpected pardon by Russian President Vladimir Putin (Photo Credit by Sean Gallup/Getty Images).

By Ludmila Gordon, Amnesty USA Russia Country Specialist, Eurasia Cogroup Co-Chair

Amnesty International is happy to share the great news of the release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s most prominent political prisoner who spent over 10 years behind bars.

On December 19, 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly announced at the annual news conference that he decided to pardon Mikhail Khodorkovsky after he received a petition from Khodorkovsky asking to be pardoned due to family reasons. Shortly after, Khodorkovsky was released from a prison colony in the Karelia region of northwestern Russia and immediately flown to Germany.

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The U.S. Government’s Dirty Little Secret About Drone Strikes

December 12, 2013 at 3:22 PM

AI_DroneReport_Cover_101613By Pratap Chatterjee, executive director of CorpWatch and a member of Amnesty USA’s Board of Directors. He is the author of Halliburton’s Army and Iraq, Inc.

In October 2012, Mamana Bibi was killed in front of her grandchildren while gathering vegetables in her family’s large, vacant fields in Pakistan. She was blasted into pieces by a drone strike that appears to have been aimed directly at her.

Bibi’s death was just one of many cases of potentially unlawful killings documented in Amnesty International’s recent report, “Will I Be Next? U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan.”

For this report, Amnesty International reviewed all 45 reported U.S. drone strikes that occurred between January 2012 and August 2013 in North Waziristan, a region in northwest Pakistan which has seen the vast majority of this type of targeted killings. The organization conducted detailed field research into nine strikes, based on rare access to the region and more than 60 interviews with survivors, eyewitnesses, residents and officials.

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Our Call to the Next Honduran President

December 10, 2013 at 10:59 AM
Supporters of Honduran presidential candidate for the LIBRE party, Xiomara Castro hold flags and a sign reading "We demand justice. Nobody stops the people” (Photo Credit: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images).

Supporters of Honduran presidential candidate for the LIBRE party, Xiomara Castro hold flags and a sign reading “We demand justice. Nobody stops the people” (Photo Credit: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images).

By Stacy Suh, Member Women’s Rights Coordination Group

As I write, the outcome of the November 24 presidential elections in Honduras is still being contested. There were eight candidates to the presidency, out of which two have been expressing concerns on the official results provided by the Electoral Tribunal and respective complains have been filed. Regardless of the eventual outcome of these legal challenges, Amnesty International is still calling upon the next president to commit to protecting human rights, as outlined in an open letter to all candidates.

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Little Known Link Between Militarism and Violence Against Women

December 9, 2013 at 12:41 PM
Faced with a spike in sexual violence against female protesters, Egyptian women are overcoming stigma and recounting painful testimonies to force silent authorities and a reticent society to confront “sexual terrorism” (Photo Credit: Mahmud Khaled/AFP/Getty Images).

Faced with a spike in sexual violence against female protesters, Egyptian women are overcoming stigma and recounting painful testimonies to force silent authorities and a reticent society to confront “sexual terrorism” (Photo Credit: Mahmud Khaled/AFP/Getty Images).

By Tarah Demant, Amnesty International USA Co-Chair, Women’s Human Rights Coordination Group

It took Miriam Isaura López Vargas several weeks to piece together what happened to her after she was tortured and raped by Mexican soldiers. On February 2, 2011, the 30-year-old mother of four had just dropped three of her children at school in the city of Ensenada, in northern Mexico, when two men wearing balaclavas forced her into a white van and took her away.

“They tortured me. They repeatedly put wet cloth over my face and poured water over it so I couldn’t breathe. They gave me electric shocks,” she explained.

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The Greatest Way to Honor Nelson Mandela’s Legacy

December 5, 2013 at 7:59 PM
Nelson Mandela poses after receiving the Amnesty International "Ambassador of Conscience" Award in Johannesburg on November 1, 2006 (Photo Credit: Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images).

Nelson Mandela poses after receiving the Amnesty International “Ambassador of Conscience” Award in Johannesburg on November 1, 2006 (Photo Credit: Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images).

Sarah Hager, Chair of the Southern Africa Co-Group, contributed to this post.

A few hours ago, the world learned of the passing of Nelson Mandela. There are few people in the world who inspired so much reverence and devotion. Through all he did to advance human rights issues, Mandela became a living symbol of love and forgiveness, perseverance and redemption.

Mandela’s courage helped change our entire world. His life of political struggle and self-sacrifice became, and remains, an example to millions around the globe. His name is now synonymous with the struggle of people everywhere for freedom, equality and justice and is a reminder that we must stay determined to confront injustice.

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The Power of Us

October 24, 2013 at 4:31 PM

game of drones

As I write this, Amnesty International activists across the U.S. are preparing to come together for Regional Conferences. They are crafting booths for Ideas Fairs, writing curricula for workshops on effective advocacy, researching complex human rights issues around the globe. They are organizing their communities to come together and build a movement.

At Amnesty, I am continually struck by the Power of Us – the theme of this year’s Regional Conferences. Everywhere I look, Amnesty activists are building a larger and stronger “us” with even more grassroots power.

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Whatever It Takes: Ending the #GameOfDrones

October 11, 2013 at 3:03 PM

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This post is part of a series written by Amnesty USA’s National Youth Program Coordinator Kalaya’an Mendoza from the road of the Game of Drones tour. Follow the tour on Tumblr and take action to prevent extrajudicial killings with drones and other weapons.

The rain falls hard in the north. In fact, it’s rained in every city we’ve visited. It poured all afternoon as we rode the long stretch of highway away from Ithaca and crossed the New York-Pennsylvania border. The rain finally stopped when we reached our motel for the night, and the supplies we have strapped to the roof of our car were soaked.

We checked in, and walked into our dark room, another room in another city. Across the darkness, I saw the red block numbers of the clock glaring at me. It was past midnight. We set to work unpacking, drying, and refolding hundreds of t-shirts. When I finally sat down hours later to work out the details of the next direct action training and finalize the next day’s agenda, I could feel the exhaustion of the road in my bones. Wearily, I looked at the clock. It was almost 3 a.m.

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