Approach to Activism
Overview
Investigate the facts. Amnesty researchers quickly gather information and assure themselves of the facts. Who is being attacked? What has happened? Who is responsible?
Expose the truth.Amnesty makes the facts public through published reports, the media, publicity actions and the Internet.
Mobilize Amnesty supporters and the public to speak out until the violations stop.
Create pressure for change. Amnesty takes “strategic” action to bring about change. Who can influence the situation? What actions will stop the violations?
Prevent violations from taking place. Protect human rights defenders. Stop impunity. Call for global action when societies are in crisis. Build global institutions and standards to protect human rights.
Promote respect for everyone's human rights. Encourage personal responsibility. Support youth activists. Organize community and global awareness campaigns. Support human rights education.
Amnesty investigates the facts
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We start by gathering reliable information and presenting it without bias.
Amnesty’s investigative work is carried out by professional human rights researchers who focus on particular countries. They are based at Amnesty International’s head office, the International Secretariat in London (U.K.), and in regional offices around the world.
Amnesty researchers receive, cross-check and corroborate information from many sources: prisoners and their families, associates of the “disappeared,” lawyers, journalists, refugees, diplomats, religious groups, and humanitarian and other human rights organizations.
Researchers constantly scan newspapers, websites and other media outlets. They also gather information through e-mail, telephone, letters, faxes and personal visits.
Amnesty International sends about 130 fact-finding missions to some 70 countries each year to directly assess what is happening on the ground. Amnesty representatives interview prisoners, their relatives and lawyers, witnesses to human rights violations and local human rights activists. They also observe trials and meet government officials.
Where Amnesty International’s research teams are denied access to a country, we have to rely on sources of information outside the country, including news media reports, refugees and diplomatic representatives abroad.
Quickly and carefully, Amnesty researchers compare and assess information until they are sure of the facts.
Amnesty’s findings must conform to the highest standards of accuracy - not on hearsay, rumour, or biased reports. When we deal with allegations rather than undisputed facts, we make this plain and usually call for an investigation of the allegations. If Amnesty does make a mistake - a rare occurrence - it immediately issues a correction.
Individual governments often take issue with Amnesty International’s findings - especially those that shine the embarrassing light of truth on the government’s own conduct.
But Amnesty’s research is recognized around the world as accurate, unbiased and credible. This is why Amnesty reports are widely consulted by governments, intergovernmental organizations, journalists, scholars and other human rights organizations and campaigning groups.
Amnesty exposes human rights violations
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When Amnesty publishes its research findings, the world listens. And when the world listens, those who violate human rights are under increased pressure to stop what they are doing.
After, Amnesty investigates and clarifies the facts, we expose this information - make it public - so that people around the world can see the unbiased truth and take action to stop the abuses.
Amnesty publicizes its research findings through published reports, briefing papers, newsletters, and campaigning materials. Amnesty reports are issued worldwide in the organization’s core working languages - Arabic, English, French and Spanish - but many Amnesty materials are available in other languages as well.
The more public attention these reports receive, the more opportunities there are to build pressure for positive change.
Amnesty reports are distributed to media outlets around the world. Amnesty members and staff make every effort to use the media to draw attention to our findings - issuing press releases, taking part in interviews, writing newspaper articles, and posting reports on websites. >> See the latest Amnesty International press releases.
Amnesty International reports are often ground-breaking. They expose otherwise hidden or neglected violations.
Amnesty’s first reports in the 1960s on the use of torture by governments drew attention to widespread gross human rights abuses that many people believed could not take place in our time.
Amnesty has also issued:
- The first comprehensive, global reports on political killings and “disappearances” (1983 and 1994).
- The first contemporary study of the use of the death penalty around the world (1989).
- Major studies of human rights violations experienced by women (1995) and refugees (1997).
- A recent series of reports on the persistent and widespread use of torture around the world (2000-2001).
Amnesty’s gaze is unflinching and unbiased. Our reports focus on human rights violations wherever they occur.
Amnesty’s first reports appeared in 1965 - on prison conditions in Portugal, South Africa and Romania. Since then, other examples include reports on:
- The use of torture in Greece, Northern Ireland, and South Africa.
- Widespread political imprisonment in the former Soviet Union and in China.
- Mass political killings in Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia.
- Racist violence by the police in the USA.
- “Disappearances” in Argentina, Chile and many other countries.
- Human rights abuses against women around the world.
- Violence against Indigenous peoples in the Americas, including Canada.
- Violations against civilians by Israeli government forces and Palestinian groups.
- Widespread human rights violations, the global arms trade, and refugee crises in West Africa and elsewhere.
- The death penalty in China and the USA.
Visit Amnesty Canada's on-line Library.
Amnesty mobilizes people to take action
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We mobilize public pressure to stop human rights violations and strengthen support for human rights.
Amnesty International members and supporters are key to making this happen - whether we take action on our own or with friends and neighbours.
Each of us can make a difference. Together we can bring about remarkable change.
Amnesty members take direct action. We send appeals - letters, postcards, petitions, even large signed banners - to government officials and others who can help stop the violations. Financial donations to Amnesty make possible the organization’s independent research and global campaigns.
Amnesty supporters increase pressure for change by mobilizing people in our schools, neighbourhoods, workplaces and places of worship. Volunteer Amnesty activists ask people to sign ready-to-sign appeals, they organize demonstrations and street theatre, and they give media interviews and public presentations.
Amnesty supporters also organize benefit concerts and theatre evenings, fine art exhibitions and auctions in support of Amnesty campaigns. And many artists - musicians, painters, actors, writers - lend their talents in benefit of Amnesty’s work.
Amnesty members work in partnership with members of other organizations and groups on common concerns - organizing teach-ins, sharing media events or setting up displays at conferences.
Everyone can participate - and in ways determined by you.
With Amnesty, you have clear information on the abuses we want to stop, and easy-to-use advice on what actions to take. You also have access to well-prepared action and publicity materials: ready-to-use appeals, posters, information flyers, TV and radio program material, speaking notes and much more. >> See the Activist Toolkit.
Increasing pressure for change While Amnesty International members are mobilizing widespread public pressure, other designated Amnesty members and staff are creating added pressure through more specialized activities.
For example, we regularly provide senior Canadian government and foreign government officials with information about our concerns, and urge them to use their influence to bring about change.
We often work closely with national faith communities, trade unions, professional associations, women’s groups, and social justice organizations. Sometimes the members of these groups are interested in taking action on a shared concern. Sometimes their leaders are well positioned to bring about change.
The protection of human rights starts when one person decides to speak out. Human rights violations stop when many people are able to speak out together. Amnesty International makes this possible.
>> Check out the Activist Toolkit for activity ideas and resources.
>> Learn how you can get actively involved in Amnesty.
Amnesty pressures the abusers to stop
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As a member of the global human rights movement, Amnesty International plays a critical role in creating this pressure for change.
Amnesty begins by determining what actions will most likely bring about change - it sets a “strategy” for effective action. Who can influence the situation? What tactics will get the attention - and change the behavior - of those who can stop the violations?
Effective action is based on the needs of specific situations. But over the years Amnesty International’s work to build pressure for change has come to be guided by several action principles:
- Pressure is a well-directed demand. Amnesty appeals directly to those responsible for the violations, such as a country’s Minister of Justice. We also appeal to people with influence over those committing the abuses - such as neighbouring and friendly governments, or corporations and inter-governmental groups. And we inform people whose opinions and actions are watched by the violators - such as tourists and trading partners.
- Pressure is a persistent demand. It is a weekly appeal to those who can make a difference.
- Pressure is a growing demand. It is an appeal, for example, to a Minister of Justice from not just one person, but from ten people, then a hundred people, then a thousand people.
- Pressure is a clear and pointed demand. It is backed up by solid, accurate evidence of abuses, and by calls for specific measures the authorities must take to stop them.
- Pressure is a public demand. The facts are publicized so everyone can see. Pressure is showing those who commit or allow human rights violations that they are being watched - and that their acts are condemned by public opinion.
- Pressure is an unbiased, impartial demand. Amnesty’s independent research, reports and campaigns are made possible by each person who makes a financial donation in support of Amnesty’s human rights work. Amnesty does not accept money from governments and we do not support any political, economic or religious system.
>>Check out the Activist Toolkit for activity ideas and resources.
Amnesty prevents violations from ever taking place
- Protect human rights defenders at risk of harm. Amnesty lets governments and armed political groups know that their treatment of human rights defenders is being watched. We keep in close contact with defenders, always on the ready to issue Urgent Actions or help them reach safety. We demand accountability and justice when defenders are harmed anywhere in the world. In Canada, Amnesty members give special attention to supporting human defenders in Colombia and West Africa.
- Stop activities that lead to human rights violations on a massive scale. Amnesty opposes the transfer of weapons, “security” equipment (such as devices used for torture), and training where these will contribute to human rights abuses. We campaign against the international trade of diamonds for weapons. And we campaign for an end to “impunity”: those situations where violations continue and often get worse because human rights violators are not brought to justice.
- Call for preventive global action when societies are in crisis. Amnesty acts as an early warning system when there is a possibility that mass violations will take place. We call for preventive action, including independent human rights monitors and a stop to the influx of weapons into the crisis area. Recent examples when Amnesty has taken such action include East Timor, the Great Lakes region of Africa, and Israel and the Occupied Territories.
- Challenge the root causes of human rights violations, such as discrimination. People who are discriminated against because of how they are seen by others are especially vulnerable to human rights violations. Examples of the most vulnerable include the poor and disenfranchised, members of many ethnic groups, Indigenous peoples, migrant works, women, and people discriminated against because of their sexual identity.
Amnesty calls on governments to take steps to prevent discrimination by their own officials and by private individuals. We take up the cases of people who have suffered torture, the death penalty, unfair trials or other violations because of how they are seen by others. - Campaign for new global institutions and standards to protect human rights. Amnesty International was a leading force behind the UN’s 1975 adoption of the historic Declaration Against Torture. We played a major role in the recently successful campaign to establish the International Criminal Court.
We do this work in partnership with other organizations across the human rights movement, as well as supportive governments. Amnesty Canada has been involved in establishing the Canadian Centre for International Justice - a new agency that will call for legal action against human rights violators from abroad who live, visit or keep assets in Canada.
"What Amnesty is doing to support human rights defenders in Colombia is wonderful. Let people know you support them, that you’re aware of their situation and that you care. People need to feel they are not alone." Hassan Shire Sheikh, human rights defender in Somalia, fled to Canada as a refugee from his country after receiving threats on his life.
Similar stories >>
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Amnesty promotes respect for everyone's human rights
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We speak out when we hear racist slurs. We work to understand the needs of refugees - and the terrible circumstances which force people to flee for refuge. We stand up for the right of people to express their opinions, even though we might disagree with them. We recognize everyone’s right to the essentials of life, such as adequate food and shelter.
For Amnesty International, promoting respect for human rights is a transformative activity. We want to challenge ways of thinking and practice - among ourselves and with others. We want to change our communities. We want to make the world a very different place - a truly just place where all people can live in safety and dignity.
And we are doing this - one important step at a time. Amnesty promotes support for human rights in three ways: encourage awareness and understanding of our human rights; learn together so that we are better able to stand up for our rights; enable people to take effective action.
- Amnesty supports new generations of human rights activists.Amnesty International Canada runs the largest and most dynamic human rights activist program for students and youth anywhere in the country - and possibly the world. >> Learn more about Amnesty Canada’s youth program
- Amnesty supports the renewal of human rights activism.With the opening up of Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, Amnesty International worked to support existing human rights groups and quickly started 40 groups of its own. Amnesty groups were also established in South Africa with the collapse of apartheid. In 1993, Amnesty groups formed in the Israeli-occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, alongside their fellow Amnesty groups in Israel.
- Amnesty supports global awareness campaigns.In 1998 - the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Amnesty launched its largest campaign to date. The goal was to significantly increase the public’s awareness of their rights, and to encourage them to make a “personal pledge” to support the human rights of all people. An amazing 13 million people signed up. Human rights were being discussed in many communities around the world like never before.
- Amnesty supports human rights education.This is an increasingly important part of Amnesty International’s work. Examples include support for a manual for teaching human rights in Africa, a children’s forum for human rights in Morocco, human rights teaching materials in Taiwan, human rights teacher training in Thailand and Ukraine, educational resource manuals in the Czech Republic, Poland and Mexico, anti-discrimination work with police trainers in Ireland, and training human rights educators in Peru.
- Amnesty builds public awareness and understanding of human rights.Amnesty members - in schools and communities and across the Internet - promote understanding and respect for human rights through an array of activities. They set up information displays, arrange speaking tours and teach-ins, arrange to broadcast Amnesty’s radio and TV programs, contribute Amnesty reports to libraries, circulate actions off our website, and help develop curriculum materials.
>> Check out the Activist Toolkit for activity ideas and resources you can use to promote human rights in your school, community, workplace or wherever you like. 
