Blog

By Rodrigo Sales, researcher working from Amnesty's South America Regional Office

The COVID-19 pandemic has redefined the vital importance of the home as a space in which we can evolve and feel safe. It has also, however, highlighted the situation of millions of people for whom their home is, paradoxically, the most insecure place for them.

This includes people living in some of Colombia’s most natural resource-rich areas. For them, defending their homes has become a lethal activity.

According to the most recent information from Global Witness, Colombia is the world’s most dangerous country for human rights defenders. For those defending rights to land, territory and the environment, the situation is even worse.

Their demand is simple: to live in peace in their home. But, for them, that home is not a physical space with a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen; it is their territory, with its rivers, forests, plants and animals.

35 years ago, on a wintry evening in early 1985, I attended my first Amnesty International meeting.   

I had just begun studying law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, with an entirely unformed notion of becoming a lawyer pursuing social change. I had seen an intriguing notice on a bulletin board giving details about the monthly meeting of the Halifax Amnesty group. I went, and never looked back.   

I remember three things about that evening. First, the inspiring and welcoming Amnesty members I met were of all ages, backgrounds and interests, and from many different corners of the world; but were all united in a common sense of purpose and possibility. It was the evening I first heard of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our shared responsibility to uphold it.   

Amnesty International’s Ethical Battery Project aims to end human rights violations in the production of rechargeable batteries.

It may surprise you to know that lithium-ion batteries – the kind found in many electronics such as laptops, cell phones and electric cars – contribute to human rights abuses around the world. Over the last few years, Amnesty’s researchers have documented child labour, environmental harms and violations of the rights of Indigenous peoples in the countries where battery minerals are mined. We have challenged the world's leading electronics and automobile makers to develop a battery untainted by human rights abuses.

We invite you to join our campaign for an ‘ethical’ rechargeable battery.

By Stefan Simanowitz, Amnesty International's media manager for Europe, Turkey and the Balkans

The first day of Julian Assange's extradition hearing, which started on Monday 7 September, drew more than two hundred people to gather outside the Old Bailey in London. People in fancy dress mingled with camera crews, journalists and a pack of hungry photographers who would disappear regularly to give chase to any white security van heading towards the court, pressing their long lenses against the darkened windows.

Arriving at the court each morning was an assault to the senses with the noise of samba bands, sound systems and chanting crowds and the sight of banners, balloons and billboards at every turn. One of the vans had come from Belmarsh high security prison, Julian Assange's home for the last 16 months.