Human Rights

Thousands of people took part in a march in central Tel Aviv in support of a Palestinian state. The protest was held under the banner “Israel says yes to a Palestinian state.” World without wars and without violence marched with them in support of active nonviolence as the only methodology than can truly resolve conflicts.

The growing demands for freedom and justice across the Middle East and North Africa and the rise of social media offer an unprecedented opportunity for human rights change – but this change stands on a knife-edge, said Amnesty International as it launched its global human rights report on the eve of its 50th anniversary.

Whilst protesters are shot at in demonstrations against long standing autocratic regimes in the Middle East the British style of avoiding protest and opposition during the Royal Wedding is simply to arrest people **before** they have the opportunity to express themselves. The few who did manage to stage small and peaceful protests are arrested for “Breach of the peace”.

Bradely Manning was arrested on the assumption that it was he who sent cables to Weakileaks whose disclosure led to the offensive against Julian Asange, director of the whistleblowing website dedicated to revealing secret information of public interest. Manning’s treatment in the military prison is tantamount to torture. Here’s the Avaaz campaign to stop this.

Over 200 people, Africans fleeing Libya by boat, drowned on Wednesday before reaching safety in Italy. It is just one of many tragedies resulting from North Africa’s refugee crisis, one of the world’s worst, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres. Many of the refugees who were fleeing Libya in fact came from Somalia, Eritrea and Ivory Coast.

Countries which continue to use the death penalty are being left increasingly isolated following a decade of progress towards abolition, Amnesty International has said today in its new report Death Sentences and Executions in 2010.
A total of 31 countries abolished the death penalty in law or in practice during the last 10 years.

Illinois has become the first state to abolish the death penalty since 2009. On Wednesday, Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation ending capital punishment after two months of deliberation. Quinn has commuted the death sentences of all 15 Illinois prisoners on death row, giving them life in prison with no chance of parole.

International Women’s Day – March 8, 2011 – is a special day meant to remind everyone that women continue to have particular disadvantages even today, despite general emancipation, owing to the unnecessary restrictions in our male-dominated societies. More than that, womens’ rights continue to be severely curtailed in many places.

14 February 2011 marked National Domestic Workers Day in Indonesia that has around 2.6 million domestic workers. As in Hong Kong, these workers play a vital role in the household and overall economy. Yet Amnesty International has received many reports of domestic workers in Indonesia being subjected to physical and psychological abuse, as well as economic exploitation.

In response to dramatic developments in Egypt, Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said: “I congratulate the protesters for their extraordinary courage and commitment to achieve fundamental change.”
“Persistent attempts to put down peaceful protests have not only failed but redoubled the determination of those demanding change.”