AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL(AI)

1. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL(AI) By Yongzhi, Clement, Milton, Derrick, YiXiang, Liki

2. What is AI? • Founded by Peter Benenson in London 1961 • International Non-Governmental Organisation(NGO) • Misson: “To conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated.“ • 2.2 million members and supporters

3. The work AI does • Exerts influence on governments, political bodies, companies and intergovernmental groups • Mobilizes public pressure through mass demonstrations, vigils and direct lobbying as well as online and offline campaigning. • Through appealing, AI thus pressures the ‘target’ to ‘respect the rule of law’.

4. Scope of work • Women's Rights • Children's Rights • Ending Torture and Execution • Rights of Refugees • Rights of Prisoners of Conscience (Refers to people imprisoned due to their race, religion, sexual orientation, belief etc, and those persecuted for non-violent expression of their ‘conscientiously-held’ beliefs, so long as they have not advocated violence)

5. Aims: • Stop violence against women • Defend the rights and dignity of those trapped in poverty • Abolish the death penalty • Oppose torture and combat terror with justice • Free prisoners of conscience • Protect the rights of refugees and migrants • Regulate the global arms trade

6. How AI does her work • Campaigning • Mobilise public opinion • 3 Types: Individual, national or thematic • Direct appeal (such as letter writing) • Media and publicity work • Public demonstrations • Fundraising often coupled with campaigning • Urgent matters: Urgent Action (UA) appeals (involves urgent action networks or crisis response networks) • Other matters: Membership

7. How AI does her work • Issues press releases • Publishes information in newsletters and on websites • Official missions to countries to make courteous but insistent inquiries • Publication of reports • Involves research via interviews with victims and officials • Observing trials and thus evaluate them • Collaborations with local human rights activists • Monitoring the media

8. Rationale for her work • AI envisions for everyone to enjoy all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards • To prevent and end grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity (defined within scope of work) • Argues that human rights abuses anywhere are the concern of people everywhere • Outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world, they go about doing their work

9. Challenges faced by AI Criticism • Criticised for ideological bias • One-sided • Failure to consider threats to security as a mitigating factor • Criticised for reporting disproportionately on relatively more democratic and open countries • However AI argues that its intention is not to produce a range of reports which statistically represents the world’s human rights abuses, but rather to apply the pressure of public opinion to encourage improvements

10. Challenges faced by AI Physical opposition • Detention/Abduction (faced by human rights defenders) • Smear Campaigns (delegitimize, slander) • Bureaucratic Barriers (hamper organizations) • Restricting meetings • Deny legal registration, or cease operation • Obstruct fact-finding visits • Harassment • Daily (such as phone tapping, surveillance) • Extreme (freezing assets, home raids, confiscation)

11. Rationale for choosing AI • Longest history • Broadest name recognition • Believed to set the standards for the human rights movements as a whole • Effective • Pressure has had an effect on people’s own lives • Governments are persuaded to change their laws and practices • Controversy especially concerning bias • Hence subject to (our) pertinent scrutiny

12. Direct/Personal impact • “Human rights abuses anywhere are the concern of people everywhere” • Locally in Singapore: • Death penalty subject to scrutiny • Restrictive laws and defamation suits to muzzle critics • If AI succeeds in ‘persuading’ the Singaporean Government, this will have great implications especially concerning media freedom and publicity • Though this is highly unlikely

13. Effort evaluation Stop Torture Campaign • The Stop Torture campaign (Oct 2000 - Dec 2001) is AI's third global campaign on torture • Follows AI's first campaign denouncing torture (1972-1973) and its second focusing on the prevention of torture (1984). • These campaigns contributed to the UN's adoption of the Convention against Torture, on (Human Rights Day) 10 December 1984.

14. Effort evaluation Stop Torture Campaign • Achievement: • In the first five months of the Stop Torture campaign, over 19,500 subscribers from 188 countries used this innovative form of campaigning on behalf of eight individuals • Within 12 hours of each action, an average of 2,500 appeals was generated. • Three of the eight individuals (in Turkey, Mexico, and Ecuador) have been released.

15. Effort evaluation Stop Torture Campaign • Validity • Torture is cruel, inhuman and degrading human dignity • Governments have invoked threats of terrorism to cover up and justify its use, hence the need to strengthen importance of this issue • Soundness • Key issue: Can governments stop shielding torturers and accept responsibility for their crimes? • Governments have a clear duty to protect their civilian population from violent attacks, including terrorist acts • Governments who are concerned with their image will be spurred on • Those who do not stop torture will ironically be harming their civilians and thus be subject to severe criticism Denotes ‘Is’ Denotes ‘ Is not

16. Effort evaluation Stop Torture Campaign • Relevance • Failure to uphold international obligations • Even USA has undermined human rights in the context of counter-terrorism while continuing to pay lip service to international obligations • However, relevance in our local context is limited due to these acts often taking place under clandestine conditions (convenience of secrecy) • Moreover, little concrete action taken to effectively undertake investigations (due to fear and implications of exposure) Key Issue: Fear of Exposure + Convenience of Secrecy vsHonouring International Obligations, Conclusion: Denotes ‘Is’ Denotes ‘ Is not

17. Effort evaluation Stop Torture Campaign • Failure to address the underlying problem • States have made their own self-interest in removing a particular individual their priority, rather than seeking to change the underlying problem of torture in the receiving country as a whole • This is a betrayal of some of the state’s most fundamental obligations in international human rights law • Moral degradation of state • Negligence of victims Costs of leaving violation unchecked

18. Effort evaluation Stop Torture Campaign Ways to be part of the action

19. Bibliography • http://www.amnesty.org/ - Amnesty International • Buchanan, Tom (October 2002). "'The Truth Will Set You Free': The Making of Amnesty International". Journal of Contemporary History37 (4): 575–597. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3180761. Retrieved on 2009-04-17 • http://203.147.147.39/achievement/index.html - AI Australia

20. End