Media advisories

US President Barack Obama should call for and support a comprehensive United Nations arms embargo on the parties to South Sudan’s brutal conflict, 29 South Sudanese and international human rights, humanitarian, and other groups said today in a letter to President Obama. Thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, which began just over a year ago, in many cases targeted for their ethnicity or perceived political allegiances. An estimated 1.9 million people have been displaced, and massive looting and burning by both government and opposition forces has left towns and rural areas destroyed and abandoned.

“More weapons will mean more fuel to the fire, more attacks on civilians, arbitrary killings, rape, burnings and pillage,” said Geoffrey Duke, secretariat team leader at the South Sudan Action Network on Small Arms. “President Obama should do everything he can to ensure that this year is not a repeat of the horrific last year for South Sudanese. Now is the time to take action.”

Today on International Human Rights Day civil society groups have joined together in an open letter calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to put Canada back in the global effort to end torture and ill-treatment around the world.

On the day that marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Convention against Torture Canada should take the final step and ratify the instrument that establishes national and international systems for inspecting detention centres. In 2006 and 2009 Canada told the UN Human Rights Council that it would consider ratifying this Optional Protocol that was adopted by the UN in 2002.

The organizations that signed the open letter are united in calling for Canada to take this step without delay. Under the systems established by the Optional Protocol, inspections can identify and expose conditions that permit and encourage torture to take place. It seeks to pierce the shroud of secrecy that allows torture to continue in the 141 countries where it has been documented by Amnesty International in the last five years.

The major arms exporting governments should immediately tackle the alarming proliferation of surveillance technologies in repressive countries, Amnesty International, other leading international human rights and digital rights organizations urged today in an open letter.

The letter has been sent to 41 of the largest arms exporters which are meeting behind closed doors as part of the so-called “Wassenaar Arrangement” on 2-3 December. It outlines how human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and others are increasingly being targeted when spyware, malware and other surveillance tools fall into the hands of governments that commit systematic human rights violations.

“Surveillance technologies are not simply harmless tools. In the wrong hands they are often used as a tool of repression. Evidence is continuing to reveal the extent of this secretive trade that puts countless individuals at direct risk from human rights abusing governments,” the letter states.

 
On 25 November 2014, Amnesty International will mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women by launching a briefing on sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls in Algeria.

The Algerian authorities took long overdue steps to address sexual and gender-based violence earlier this year when they adopted a decree to provide financial compensation for victims of sexual violence by armed groups in the 1990s internal conflict, during which hundreds – if not thousands – of women were abducted and raped. They have also proposed draft laws, which, if adopted, would make violence against a spouse and sexual harassment in public places criminal offences.

However, Amnesty International believes the new measures do not go far enough and are symptomatic of a fragmented approach to sexual and gender-based violence.

Venezuelan law enforcement officials have engaged in the torture and other ill-treatment of dozens of protestors over recent months, Amnesty International will tell the United Nations Committee Against Torture later today.

Amnesty International and other NGOs will present evidence before the Committee Against Torture (CAT) in Geneva. In a joint public statement the organizations have documented cases of authorities enacting torture and ill-treatment, with examples stretching back over the past decade.

“This is a serious wake-up call for Venezuela. The evidence Amnesty International and other organizations have gathered paints a grim picture of the violence and abuse meted out to protestors in recent months, but also reveals a serious problem that has been going on for years,” said Nuria Garcia, Venezuela Researcher, Amnesty International. 

This is the first time in 10 years that the country has come before the United Nations Committee. 

Longstanding impunity for crimes against humanity in Kosovo will be challenged after today’s announcement that former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) will be indicted for the abduction, inhumane treatment and killing of Kosovo Serbs and ethnic Albanians believed to oppose the KLA in 1999, Amnesty International said today.

In a statement for the Special Investigative Task Force, established by the EU, Chief Prosecutor Clint Williamson outlined charges to be brought against senior KLA officials.

“This is hopefully a step towards justice for the families of up to 400 Kosovo Serbs believed to have been abducted by the KLA, and subsequently transferred to Albania, where they are alleged to have been killed,” said Sian Jones, Amnesty International’s researcher on Kosovo.

In a welcome move, the Chief Prosecutor recognized the wide-spread and systematic nature of the abductions and murders, and assured that former senior KLA officials will be indicted for crimes against humanity.

Tuesday June 3, 2014, Parliament Hill, Ottawa

10:00 am – Press Conference, Charles Lynch Room, Centre Block
10:30 am – Commemoration Reception, Room 505 Victoria Building, 140 Wellington Street

On the 25th anniversary of the brutal crackdown of student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, three Canadians will present their first-hand accounts of the events in the square that night at a 10:00 am press conference at Charles Lynch hosted by David Sweet, MP on Parliament Hill.  They will be introduced by Cheuk Kwan, Chair, Toronto Association for Democracy in China and will bear witness to a massacre that the Chinese government is anxious to erase from our memory.

Ms. Liane Lee 李蘭菊, representative of the Hong Kong Federation of Students in 1989
Mr. Yuguo Chen 陳育國, lecturer in political science at Beijing University in 1989
The Hon. Jim Munson, CTV Beijing Bureau Chief in 1989

The press conference will be followed by a 10:30 am commemoration reception hosted by the Hon. Consiglio Di Nino at 505 Victoria Building. They will be joined by: