Blog

By Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty's International Secretariat in London, England

As the humanitarian and human rights crisis caused by Syria’s internal armed conflict shows no signs of abating, two important announcements made this week help us to take stock of the enormity of the suffering of those fleeing the fighting, and what can be done to help.

In the space of 24 hours, the UN announced that the number of refugees from Syria had officially surpassed 2 million and Sweden’s Migration Board stated it would grant permanent residency status to persons from Syria seeking asylum on Swedish territory.

By Jacqueline Hansen, Major Campaigns and Women's Rights Campaigner

In January, a group of people gathered in St. Petersburg for a snowball fight. The police responded by banning it and dispersing the crowd, calling it an “unauthorized gathering.”

This is not a joke. This actually happened.

In May, a group of activists supporting the human rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community, staged a peaceful protest in Moscow against homophobic laws. They were beaten by counter-protestors while police stood by. And then the victims—the LGBTI activists—were arrested by the police.

On June 30th, Russia passed a homophobic law, which violates both its own constitution and international human rights treaties, and discriminates against the LGBTI community. Under the law, “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” is banned. What this means is that members of Russia’s LGBTI community are being firmly pushed back into the closet, and risk fines and jail time for such things as promoting sexual health for LGBTI youth, or kissing their partner in public.

By Michael Bochenek, Director of Law and Policy at Amnesty International

US President Obama offered a tepid response on government surveillance at last Friday’s news conference in Washington.

Yes, he pledged his support for efforts to revamp the procedures of the secret court that authorizes the surveillance, and that initiative is important. He also released the government’s legal analysis for its bulk collection of every domestic phone call, and more generally committed to greater transparency in the National Security Agency (NSA)’s work.

But we need more than just “tightening the bolts,” as the President put it.

Privacy is a human right. It’s guaranteed by treaties the United States is party to and affirmed in international standards the country helped develop.

By Stephanie McBride, Zimbabwe coordinator, Amnesty International Canada (English)

On the morning of July 31st, I woke up to messages of hope and optimism spread across my Facebook feed, my morning news, and my inbox. Many of my friends in Zimbabwe had posted statuses and updates about the elections that day, which would determine the composition of the House of Commons and the Senate as well as the future President of Zimbabwe.

Very few incidents of violence were reported during or immediately after the elections. The chief of the African Union monitoring mission, Olusegun Obasanjo, stated that although “there are incidences that could have been avoided…we do not believe that these incidents will amount to the results not reflecting the will of the people.” Shortly before the announcement of a landslide victory for Robert Mugabe, who is reported to have captured 61% of the vote, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) announced that the election was a “huge farce.” He has since mounted a legal challenge of the election results and is now discussing a boycott of all government institutions.