Tag Archives: UN

Ivory Coast on Brink of Human Rights Catastrophe

March 31, 2011 at 12:51 PM

Months after disputed presidential elections in Cote D’Ivoire, the country seems to move towards the final showdown. Hundreds of thousands of people have already fled the spreading crisis, and the new escalation is likely to displace more people or put them at risk of being caught in the crossfire.

With violence escalating and forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara advancing toward the Ivory Coast capital of Abedjan, Amnesty International warned today that the capital city faces a human rights and humanitarian catastrophe and urged the international community to protect civilians. We have learned of retribution attacks and uncontrolled armed elements looting and burning homes and shooting civilians in the west.

Salvatore Saguès, Amnesty International’s researcher on West Africa, made the following statement:

Abidjan is on the brink of a human right catastrophe and total chaos. Côte d’Ivoire is facing a major humanitarian crisis. The parties to the conflict must immediately stop targeting the civilian population. The international community must take immediate steps to protect the civilian population.

Since the beginning of the week, the Republican Forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara have launched a general offensive against the forces loyal to outgoing president Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to cede power.
As the Republican forces advance in the west and in the center of the country, violence has escalated. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

War Crimes in Sri Lanka: Time for UN to Act

February 24, 2011 at 11:07 PM

Delivering the petition to the UN

Last May, Amnesty International launched a global action calling on the UN to establish an international investigation into war crimes and other abuses committed during the war in Sri Lanka.

Both the Sri Lankan government and the opposition Tamil Tigers were responsible for massive human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war during the 26-year conflict.

In response to Amnesty’s call for action, over 52,000 people signed our petition to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanding an international investigation as a first step toward accountability for these crimes.

This past Tuesday, Feb. 22, I had the privilege of accompanying Yolanda Foster, the Amnesty researcher on Sri Lanka, and Dr. Kasipillai Manoharan, the father of one of the “Trinco 5” students killed by the security forces in 2006, to the UN offices in New York as we delivered the signed petitions to the UN.  We pressed the UN to act on our petition without delay and let them know we would be following up to make sure an international investigation is promptly established.

The U.S. government has not yet joined Amnesty in our call for an international investigation.  We could use their support.  Please write to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and ask that the U.S.  government encourage the establishment by the UN of an international investigation into war crimes and other abuses in Sri Lanka.  For Dr. Manoharan’s sake and that of all the other families of the victims, we cannot stop campaigning until they receive justice.

Satellite Images Show Grave Crimes Continue in Darfur

February 2, 2011 at 8:34 AM

UPDATE: Please take action to ensure accountability  for crimes committed in Darfur

While the whole world is watching the outcome of the South Sudan referendum, Darfur continues to burn. New satellite images released by Amnesty’s Science for Human Rights Program provide shocking evidence that grave human rights violations continue in Darfur 8 years after the outbreak of the conflict. The situation has deteriorated in the run up to the referendum in South Sudan last month.

More alarmingly, the escalation in violence has been largely ignored by the international community, which is focusing on the formation of a new state in the south of the country.

Click to see full graphic

The Negeha region of South Darfur
The images were analyzed by our partners from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and show irrefutably that civilians were targeted in the Negeha region of south Darfur with whole villages burned to the ground as recently as December. We have previously reported that in December alone more than 20,000 people were displaced by government attacks, including in Dar Al Salam, Shangil Tobaya and Khor Abeche displacement camps in north and south Darfur.

Based on new reports of offensives in the Negeha region in December 2010, we sought to document any apparent violations of international law through the targeting of civilian dwellings. According to reports, the villages of Negeha and Jaghara were burned in December 2010, resulting in more than 7,000 internally displaced persons. Satellite imagery of the region was collected and compared from three time periods: December 2005, January 2010, and December 2010.

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Keeping Maternal Mortality on the Agenda at UN Human Rights Meeting

November 3, 2010 at 1:11 PM

Linda Coale died of a blood clot a week after giving birth to her son, Ben, by c-section. The infant welcome packet included extensive information about acclimatizing pets to a new baby, but had failed to adequately alert her to warning signs of complications, despite the heightened risk due to her surgery.

On Friday, the United States will appear before the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) for its “Universal Periodic Review” (UPR).  The UPR is a process through which the human rights records of all 192 UN Member States are reviewed once every four years.

I have come to Geneva to monitor the US’s participation in the UPR and to educate both the US government and those of other member states, on Amnesty International’s concerns about the state of human rights in the United States. In April, Amnesty submitted a written report to the HRC detailing our US human rights concerns, ranging from the use of the death penalty, to the need to establish a commission of inquiry into all war on terror-related detention policies and practices, the need to bar racial profiling in law enforcement, and the need for a human rights executive order to help establish a domestic human rights infrastructure.

Today I had the opportunity to speak about another tragic human rights issue that Amnesty has been focusing on: maternal mortality in the United States.  At the event, hosted by the Center for Reproductive Rights, I featured the findings of our report, Deadly Delivery: The maternal health care crisis in the USA and discussed the maternal health crisis in the United States, particularly among marginalized communities.

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African Activists' Struggle to Improve Maternal Health

September 20, 2010 at 9:12 AM

Activist Juliette Compaoré says the MDG summit will have an impact in Burkina Faso © Amnesty International

New UN statistics released last week show that world leaders are struggling to keep their promise of cutting the maternal mortality ratio by 75 per cent by 2015. For activists in Sierra Leone, the slow progress is no surprise.

“Many people don’t understand that maternal health is a human rights issue and so many other factors contribute to these deaths. Discrimination, lack of facilities, domestic violence and poverty… if these underlying issues aren’t addressed, it will undermine the good work that is being done,” says Victor L Koroma, an activist based in the capital Freetown.

Koroma’s small organization, the Campaign for the Promotion of Health and Human Rights Activities, campaigned to abolish medical fees in Sierra Leone. In April, the government took the landmark step of introducing free healthcare for pregnant and breastfeeding women.

However, Koroma warned world leaders gathering this week in New York to discuss progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that more still needs to be done.

“We need to go beyond free healthcare because there are lots of problems. Many midwives are not properly trained and drugs and blood are not available. Nutrition is completely ignored. Drugs are unevenly distributed and there is discrimination – whether on the basis of tribe, gender, social status or political affiliation.

“World leaders, donors, the UN and the World Bank all need to do their bit if a country like Sierra Leone is to be saved from the ravages of pregnant women dying every day.”

Koroma paints a harrowing picture of the scale of the maternal health crisis facing MDG decision-makers.

“Sexual and gender-based violence is rampant; women and girls as young as five are being raped. Many then become infected with HIV. Yet the government does nothing. In the last year only two people have been sentenced for violence against women out of probably thousands of cases,” he says.

The UN statistics show an average annual decline of 2.3 per cent since 1990, falling way short of the 5.5 per cent decline needed to reach the 2015 target. Although a woman is no longer dying every minute, the new statistics show that one woman is still dying every minute and a half.

Severe discrimination and the low social status of women also fuel the high rate of maternal deaths in Sierra Leone, where women’s health needs are given low priority by their own families and community leaders.

Most maternal deaths in Sierra Leone take place in rural areas cut adrift from hospitals. Most women die in their homes. Some die on the way to hospital; in taxis, on motorbikes or on foot.
SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Pakistan's Floods: A Crisis of Empathy

August 16, 2010 at 3:07 PM

Pakistani flood survivors gather at a makeshift tent camp in Sultan Kot on August 16, 2010.

It is being described by the United Nations as the worst catastrophe in its history, with nearly fourteen million people affected and a third of Pakistan’s territory under water.   Nearly 1600 people died in the immediate aftermath of the floods but hundreds and possibly even thousands more are expected to perish as deadly diseases begin to spread through the displaced populations spread through the affected populations.  According to U.N estimates nearly 3.5 million children are at risk of water borne diseases and thousands of cholera cases are expected in the next few days.  The weather forecast continues to be unrelenting with further flooding expected as rains continue through the week.

Catastrophe of this magnitude visited upon a country already flailing under the weight of terrorist attacks and poor governance is an indescribable tragedy.  But the dimensions of Pakistan’s calamity have been exacerbated not simply by the vagaries of nature but by the inability of the world to join the effort to save Pakistan’s submerged millions.

After a tour of the affected areas U.N Secretary General Ban ki Moon once again urged the international community to come to Pakistan’s aid pointing out that only a quarter of the 459 million dollars in aid have actually arrived.  In the meantime, six million people are still living under the open sky without potable water or any food supply often scrambling under any available shelter and scrounging for food.   With the Pakistani Government mired in its own ineptitude and problems of logistics and corruption Pakistani NGOs and other citizens are essentially coordinating the flood relief effort on their own using virtual mapping to allow anyone who is helping to report incidents to see where help is needed.

Shockingly the cavalcade of bereft images, emaciated men clutching driftwood, women grasping half naked babies and villages and towns inundated in the ubiquitous murky brown have all failed to arouse the world’s sympathy.  While millions around the globe opened their coffers for the victims of the Asian Tsunami and the Haitian earthquake, few have done so for Pakistan.  Hollywood stars, usually quick to rally around victims of humanitarian catastrophe have been eerily silent in coming to the aid of millions of Pakistan’s hapless flood victims.

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North Korea's Dire Lack of Food and Health Care

July 15, 2010 at 11:03 AM

Amnesty International released a disturbing new report today detailing the crumbling state of health care in North Korea.  The  report paints a bleak picture of barely-functioning hospitals void of medicines and epidemics brought on by malnutrition.

In addition, our researchers found that the North Korean government has been unable to feed its people and, in violation of international law, has refused to cooperate fully with the international community to receive food aid.

Thousands are estimated to have starved to death in North Korea as recently as February © Korea Press

Even though North Korea claims to provide healthcare for all, the latest estimate from the World Health Organization shows that North Korea spent less on healthcare than any other country in the world – under US$1 per person per year in total. In fact, many witnesses have stated that they have had to pay for all services since the 1990s, with doctors usually paid in cigarettes, alcohol or food for the most basic consults, and taking cash for tests or surgery. Because North Korea has failed to provide for the most basic health and survival needs of its people, many North Koreans bypass doctors altogether, going straight to the markets to buy medicine, self-medicating according to their own guesswork or the advice of market vendors.

Thousands are estimated to have starved to death in North Korea as recently as February this year after a botched currency revaluation. Crippling food shortages, exacerbated by government policies in North Korea, have caused widespread illness as well as people are forced to survive on “wild foods” such as grass and tree bark. Hwang, a 24-year-old man from Hwasung, North Hamgyong province, was homeless and lived alone from the age of nine. Foraging for wild foods was his only option to avoid starvation.

“I ate several different kinds of wild foods, such as neung-jae, which is a wild grass found in the fields. It’s poisonous – your face swells up the next day. Other kinds of grass and some mushrooms are also poisonous so you could die if you picked the wrong one,”

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It's here – UN Women!

July 2, 2010 at 10:36 PM

Today the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution creating a new entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women, otherwise known as UN Women. Amnesty has been campaigning for a stronger UN agency for women’s issues for some years and today our goal became a reality. On June 17th, 2010 Amnesty joined a delegation representing the GEAR Campaign, a global network of over 300 organizations, to deliver 34,555 signatures from 165 countries to the President of the UN General Assembly urging him to prioritize the establishment of a new UN agency for women (over 4,000 of those signatures were collected by AIUSA – so a big shout out to all of you activists who signed the petition!).  Your action made a difference and today, UN Women was established.

Amnesty International joined the GEAR campaign delegation that delivered the petition to the President of the UN General Assembly.

There are currently four seperate agencies in the UN dealing with women’s issues: the Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), and the Office of the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women (OSAGI).  UN Women will consolidate all of these bodies into one, a change that women’s and civil society organizations around the globe have been striving for since 2006 . We are very hopeful that the new body will necessarily strengthen the UN’s work on women’s issues, and more effectively support the rest of the UN system and governments to better protect and promote women’s human rights.

Furthermore, governments can take advantage of UN Women in implementing their women’s human rights obligations.  For example, the new body could help to integrate human rights into government implementation of all UN Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), including MDG 3 on gender equality and MDG 5 on maternal health.

The GEAR campaign will continue advocating in support of UN Women, to make sure that an experienced leader, who is committed to women’s human rights is appointed.  The Secretary-General is now considering candidates.  It is our role to keep up the pressure and make sure that gender equality and the empowerment of women remains a top priority for the UN.

UN names war crimes panel on Sri Lanka

June 22, 2010 at 8:12 PM

A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that the Secretary-General has appointed a three-member panel of experts to advise him on the issue of war crimes reportedly committed in Sri Lanka during the war between the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels.  Is this the international investigation that Amnesty International has been calling for?  No, unfortunately.  According to the spokesperson’s statement, the UN panel will look into “modalities, applicable international standards and comparative experience” on how to provide accountability for reported violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.  While the panel is to advise the UN Secretary-General, it hopes to cooperate with Sri Lankan officials and is supposed to be available as a resource to the Sri Lankan government.

The Sri Lankan government, for its part, is reportedly not happy with the Secretary-General naming the panel.  One Sri Lankan official yesterday, in anticipation of the panel being named today, said that it amounted to “an attempt to provide oxygen” to the Tamil Tigers (who were militarily defeated a year ago).  Another Sri Lankan official called the move by the UN “unwarranted” as the Sri Lankan government had recently appointed its own reconciliation commission to look into events during the war.

But as Amnesty International’s report, “Twenty Years of Make-Believe:  Sri Lanka’s Commissions of Inquiry,” documents, the Sri Lankan government has a poor record of holding its own forces accountable for violations of human rights and war crimes.  One of the prior commissions of inquiry described in our report was a 2006 commission set up by the Sri Lankan government to investigate several high-profile cases of human rights violations.  That commission’s activities were observed, at the Sri Lankan’s government’s request, by an “International Independent Group of Eminent Persons” (known as IIGEP).  After a little more than a year in operation, IIGEP quit in protest, saying that the commission’s proceedings didn’t satisfy basic international standards for such commissions.

As it happens, Mr. Marzuki Darusman, the Chair of the new UN panel, was also a member of IIGEP.  This fact has already been used by a Sri Lankan official to criticize the new UN panel.  I hope Mr. Darusman’s experience on the new panel will turn out more positively than the IIGEP experience, but judging from the Sri Lankan government’s reactions so far, I’m not very optimistic.  I do hope that the UN panel will help lead to an independent international investigation into war crimes and human rights abuses committed by both sides during the war in Sri Lanka, sooner rather than later.

Check Out Our New Video on Chad

May 4, 2010 at 2:58 PM

Last week, we told you about the need for UN peacekeepers to stay in eastern Chad to help protect refugees and IDPs. We also sent an open letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about our concerns. Now you can check out our new video that sends a powerful message to Secretary Clinton and all of the US Government that we need greater civilian protection in Chad.

And don’t forget to ask Secretary Clinton to support MINURCAT’s renewal! We need you to take action today to make sure peacekeepers can stay in Chad and the Central Africa Republic. MINURCAT still has a chance.