Amnesty International
Amnesty International (commonly known as
Amnesty or
AI) is an
international non-governmental organization with the stated purpose of promoting all the
human rights enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international standards. In particular, Amnesty International campaigns to free all
prisoners of conscience; to ensure fair and prompt trials for
political prisoners; to abolish the
death penalty,
torture, and other treatment of prisoners held by international law to be cruel or inhumane; to end
political killings and
forced disappearances; and to oppose all human rights abuses, whether committed by governments or by other groups. In addition, it has recently expanded its campaigns to include "economic, social and cultural rights".
["Promoting economic, social and cultural rights", Amnesty International, 2004. Retrieved 15 May 2006.]Amnesty International has a long history of pursuing neutrality within the context of its campaigning for the protection of human rights. The organization officially describes itself as "independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion. It does not support or oppose any government or political system, nor does it support or oppose the views of the victims whose rights it seeks to protect. It is concerned solely with the impartial protection of human rights."
["About Amnesty International", Amnesty International. Retrieved 16 June 2006.]Amnesty International is among the most widely respected human rights organizations in the world. It was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1977.
Amnesty International was founded in 1961 by a
Roman Catholic British lawyer named
Peter Benenson and a
Quaker named
Eric Baker. Benenson was reading his newspaper and was shocked and angered to come across the story of two
Portuguese students sentenced to seven years in prison – for the crime of raising their glasses in a toast to
freedom. Benenson wrote to
David Astor, editor of
The Observer newspaper, who, on
May 28, published Benenson's article entitled
The Forgotten Prisoners ["The Forgotten Prisoners", Amnesty International. Retrieved 15 May 2006.] that asked readers to write letters showing support for the students. The response was so overwhelming that within a year groups of letter writers had formed in more than a dozen countries, writing to defend victims of injustice wherever they might be.
By mid-1962, Amnesty had groups working or forming in
West Germany,
Belgium,
Switzerland,
Netherlands,
Norway,
Sweden,
Ireland,
Canada,
Ceylon,
Greece,
Australia (
Amnesty International Australia), the
United States (
Amnesty International USA),
New Zealand (
Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand),
Ghana,
Israel,
Mexico,
Argentina,
Jamaica,
Malaya,
Congo (Brazzaville),
Ethiopia,
Nigeria,
Burma, and
India. Later in that year, a member of one of these groups, Diana Redhouse, designed Amnesty's Candle and Barbed-Wire logo, based on an old Chinese phrase: "Better to light a candle than curse the darkness."
[[1] Meaning of the Amnesty Candle logo]In its early years, Amnesty focused only on articles 18 and 19 of the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights – those dealing with political prisoners, or more precisely,
prisoners of conscience who espoused non-violence.
Amnesty and its writers campaigned for the release of prisoners in many oppressive regimes around the world; all such regimes were pressured equally, no matter which side (if either) of the
Cold War they might align with. For example, the Spring 1986 newsletter campaigns for the release of specific prisoners from
Guatemala,
South Korea,
South Africa,
Syria, the
U.S.S.R., and
Vietnam.
Amnesty International was in particular a thorn in the side of the
Soviet Union; they published detailed reports both of conditions in Soviet prisons and of how the Soviet political system as a whole was structured to prevent dissent and political freedom.
["Amnesty's Amnesia", The Washington Post, 8 June 2005. Retrieved 15 May 2006.] Soviet internal security documents later found in archives indicated concern about Amnesty's anti-Soviet activities.
[Soviet Archives posted by V. Bukovsky, INFO-RUSS. Retrieved 15 May 2006.] Natan Sharansky is one of the more famous Soviet prisoners whose eventual release was secured with the help of Amnesty.
Amnesty was also very active in condemning oppressive regimes which committed murders, disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and outright massacres against their own citizens. For example, the September/October 1988 newsletter's lead article was an appeal to the
United Nations Security Council to "act immediately to stop the massacre of
Kurdish civilians by
Iraqi forces" under
Saddam Hussein.
In 1977 Amnesty won the
Nobel Peace Prize for its work defending human rights around the world.
During the 1980s, Amnesty increased its visibility via popular culture events, including
The Secret Policeman's Ball series, the 1986 U.S.-based
A Conspiracy of Hope Tour, and the 1988 worldwide
Human Rights Now! Tour.
Over time, the organization has expanded its mission to work to prevent and end grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity,
freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights. Amnesty is currently running international campaigns to "Control Arms", "Stop Violence Against Women" and to end the "Death Penalty", amongst others. Amnesty also works directly on behalf of individuals suffering human rights abuses. In 2000 alone, AI worked on the cases of 3,685 named individuals – and in over a third of those cases, an improvement in the prisoner's condition occurred. Today, there are upwards of 7,500 AI groups with almost two million members operating in 162 countries and territories. Amnesty has over 1,800,000 members, including 350,000 in the United States, one of the largest sections. Since AI was founded, it has worked to defend more than 44,600 prisoners in hundreds of countries.
AI aims to maintain every human's basic rights as established under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. In accordance with this belief, Amnesty works to:
* Free all
Prisoners of Conscience (a "POC" is a person imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their beliefs, which differs somewhat from the typical use of the term
political prisoner, but not including persons whose beliefs Amnesty International define as "hate speech").
* Ensure fair and prompt
trials.
* Abolish all forms of
torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, including the use of the
death penalty.
* End state-sanctioned terrorism, killings, and disappearances.
* Assist political
asylum-seekers.
* End all forms of
violence against women* Co-operate with organizations that seek to put an end to human rights abuses.
* Raise awareness about human rights abuses around the world. Their mission statement is : "to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination in the context of our work to promote all human rights, as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." They follow their mission statement by obtaining funding and support from other people.
To fulfil these goals, Amnesty sends teams of researchers to investigate claims of human rights abuses. It publicizes its findings and mobilizes its members to
lobby against the abuse — by letter-writing (to various government officials), protesting, demonstrating, organizing fund-raisers, educating the public about the offence, or sometimes all of the above.
Amnesty International works to combat individual offences (e.g. one man imprisoned for distributing banned literature in
Saudi Arabia) as well as more general policies (e.g. the recently overturned policy of executing juvenile offenders in
certain U.S. states). Amnesty works primarily on the local level but its 45-year history of action and its Nobel Peace Prize gives it international recognition.
Most AI members utilize letter-writing to get their message across. When the central Amnesty International organization finds and validates to its satisfaction instances of human rights abuse, they notify each of more than 7,000 local groups as well as over one million independent members, including 300,000 in the United States alone. Groups and members then respond by writing letters of protest and concern to a government official closely involved in the case, generally without mentioning Amnesty directly.
Amnesty International has followed a neutrality policy called the "own country rule" stating that members should not be active in issues in their own
nation, which also protects them from potential mistreatment by their own government. This principle is also applied to researchers and campaigners working for the
International Secretariat to prevent domestic political loyalties influencing coverage.
Recently, Amnesty has expanded the scope of its work to include economic, social and cultural rights, saying that these concerns had arisen out of its traditional work on political and civil rights. Its 2004 annual report said that "it is difficult to achieve sustainable progress towards implementation of any one human right in isolation. […] AI will strive to […] assert a holistic view of rights protection. It will be particularly important to do so in relation to extreme poverty, and the human rights issues underlying poverty."
As an example it asserts that "The right to effective political participation depends on a free media, but also on an educated and literate population.
One of the most controversial internal issues the organisation currently faces is that of its position on
abortion. It has been argued that under certain circumstances abortion is a human right and that AI should recognise it as such; while many AI members support this stance, many other members are fundamentally opposed to it and reject the premise on which the argument is founded. AI's current position is to adopt a neutral stance on the issue of abortion and at a meeting in Mexico in August 2007 the International Council will decide whether or not to retain this stance; the Council will also consider a number of other proposals which may include advocating the right to abortion in certain circumstances and campaigning for its
decriminalization and
legalization in relevant countries. The topic is highly controversial within the organisation. The organisation's position is that a decision is not planned to be taken until August 2007 and membership consultation will continue until then. In the meantime, senior figures in the
Catholic Church (which has traditionally been a strong supporter of AI) have been among those who have condemned any moves that would change AI's policy on abortion. A fierce debate is likely to continue.
Amnesty International is governed by the International Executive Council (IEC) – a board of eight members elected for two-year terms by the International Council Meeting, which is itself composed of delegates from each country's Board of Directors. The IEC hires a Secretary General (since 2001,
Irene Khan) and an International Secretariat, located in
London.
National and local organizational structures vary. In the United States, individual members, regardless of age, and each individual organization votes to elect members to the 18-seat national Board of Directors for a three-year term. The Board of Directors hires an Executive Director and a staff.
Secretaries General
*
Peter Benenson,
1961–1966 (President)
*
Eric Baker,
1966–1968
*
Martin Ennals,
1968–1980
*
Thomas Hammarberg,
1980–1986
*
Ian Martin,
1986–1992
*
Pierre Sané,
1992–2001
*
Irene Khan,
2001–present
Finances
Amnesty International is a non-partisan organization financed largely by subscriptions and donations from its worldwide membership, and except for a small core of paid directors, 200 or so full-time researchers in the
International Secretariat in
London, and various coordinators and organisers in national
sections, most of Amnesty's members and coordinators of local groups, and many supporters contributing time and energy to the organisation, are
volunteers. It does not accept donations from governments or governmental organizations. Amnesty's budget for the 2002 fiscal year included:
* Membership Support:
£2,816,800 (12%)
* Campaigning Activities: £2,387,100 (10%)
* Publications and Translation: £2,810,600 (12%)
* Research and Action: £5,828,800 (26%)
* Deconcentrated Offices: £1,720,400 (7%)
* Research and Action Support: £3,481,100 (15%)
* Administrative Costs: £3,918,400 (18%)
* Relief Payments: £48,000
* Total: £23,728,000 (including contingency)
Criticism of Amnesty International may be classified into two major categories, accusations of
selection bias and ideological bias. In addition, many governments, including those of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo,
["DR Congo blasts Amnesty International report on repression", The Namibian, 14 January 2000. Retrieved 15 May 2006.] China,
[The U.S. and China This Week, U.S.-China Policy Foundation, 16 February 2001. Retrieved 15 May 2006.] the
Taliban ,
Vietnam,
["The Cream of The Diplomatic Crop from Ha Noi.", THIÊN LÝ BỬU T'A. Retrieved 15 May 2006.] Russia ["Russian official blasts Amnesty International over Chechnya refugees", Human Rights Violations in Chechnya, 22 August 2003. Retrieved 15 May 2006.] and the
United States,
[Press Briefing By Scott McClellan, The White House, 25 May 2005. Retrieved 30 May 2006.] have attacked Amnesty International for one-sided reporting or a failure to treat threats to security as a mitigating factor. The actions of these governments have been the subject of human rights concerns voiced by by Amnesty, and have not escaped the negative publicity that often accompanies such accusations.
Alleged selection bias
Some contend that there are a disproportionate number of AI reports on relatively more democratic and open countries. This is the major source of the charge of "selection bias", with critics pointing to a disproportionate focus on allegations of human rights violations in for example
Israel, when compared with
North Korea or
Cambodia.
Supporters claim that AI's intention is not to produce a range of reports which statistically represents the world's human rights abuses. Instead, its aim is (a) to document what it can, in order to (b) produce pressure for improvement. These two factors skew the number of reports towards more open and democratic countries, because information is more easily obtainable, these countries have usually made strong claims and commitments to uphold human rights, and because their governments are more susceptible to public pressure. AI also focuses more heavily on states than other groups. This is due in part to the responsibility states have to the citizens they claim to represent.
A tendency to over-report allegations of human rights abuse in nations that are comparatively lesser violators of human rights has been called "
Moynihan's Law," after the late
U.S. Senator and former
Ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who is said to have stated that at the
United Nations, the number of complaints about a nation's violation of human rights is inversely proportional to their actual violation of human rights.
Examples
=Sudan
=In 2004, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs's NGO (non-governmental organization) Monitor released a study comparing Amnesty International's response to the twenty years of ethnic, religious and racial violence in
Sudan in which (at that time) 2,000,000 people were killed and 4,000,000 people displaced, to their treatment of Israel.
In March of 2001, Anthony Lewis quoted then United States Secretary of State
Colin Powell, who when speaking about the Sudanese conflict in front of the United States Congress said "there is perhaps no greater tragedy on the face of the earth."
[As quoted in ]
Expanding the scope of their investigation to include the years 2000"2003, they found the imbalance in issued reports to be 52 reports on Sudan to 192 reports on Israel. They state "[t]his lack of balance and objectivity and apparent political bias is entirely inconsistent with AI's official stated mission."
In 2004, Professor Don Habibi of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington lamented the 22 year drought of responses on Sudan and Darfur, in contradistinction to the intense focus on Israel. He excoriates Amnesty International, among others, for their obsession with Israel, to the exclusion of other, far more heinous violators. He writes:
AI defenders respond by asserting that all nations should aspire to absolute respect for human rights, and that the difficulties associated with monitoring 'closed' countries should not mean that 'open' countries should receive less scrutiny.=Palestinian violence against women
=Another example of Amnesty International's perceived bias was analyzed by Professor Alan Dershowitz, in which one of AI's reports - on violence, rape, and murder perpetrated against Palestinian women by Palestinian men in the West Bank and Gaza - blamed this on Israel. Dershowitz quotes the conclusion of the report, "Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are victims of multiple violations as a result of the escalation of the conflict, Israel's policies, and a system of norms, traditions and laws which treat women as unequal members of society," and points out that AI ranks the "escalation of the conflict" (which AI blames primarily on Israel) and "Israel's policies" higher than the "norms, traditions and laws which treat women as unequal."
