Media advisories

The Chinese authorities must drop a fundamentally flawed draft NGO law that would put a hold on civil society and have severe consequences for freedom of expression and association in the country, Amnesty International said.  

In a submission to China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s Legislative Affairs Commission, Amnesty International highlights major shortcomings in the draft Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations Management Law that would stifle civil society and breach China’s international human rights obligations.

“This chilling draft NGO law is a very real threat to the valuable and legitimate work of independent civil society groups. The authorities would have unchecked power to target organizations, restrict their activities, and ultimately choke civil society,” said William Nee, China Researcher at Amnesty International. 

The law is the latest in a series of repressive measures by the government to consolidate control. New regulations announced on 30 May, go so far as to require all domestic civil society organizations to have a Communist Party group.

From a raped 10-year-old girl denied an abortion in Paraguay, to women imprisoned in El Salvador after having a miscarriage, millions of women and girls all over Latin America are suffering because of outdated and discriminatory abortion laws and policies, said Amnesty International.

“Today, on the International Day of Action for Women’s Health, from the Caribbean to South America countless women and girls are suffering terribly from cruel and draconian laws and policies that violate their human right to make choices about their own bodies, health and lives,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International.

“Sadly there is still a long way to go.  Earlier this week, Peru’s Justice Commission in Congress let rape victims down by passing up the chance to ensure women and girls that are victims of rape have the option to access safe and legal abortion services.

“In Paraguay the future of a 10-year-old girl still hangs in the balance.

On 14 April, the anniversary of the abduction of the schoolgirls from Chibok, Amnesty International will be releasing a report on Boko Haram.

The report, ‘Our job is to shoot, slaughter and kill’: Boko Haram’s reign of terror in north-east Nigeria, documents war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the armed group. It provides evidence of the scale and depravity of Boko Haram’s human rights abuses, as well as detailed new information about the abduction of women and girls and the conditions faced by those abducted.

The report catalogues serious human rights abuses which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity and explores the way in which Boko Haram is structured, operates, recruits, organizes and sustains itself offering chilling insights into life in Boko Haram territories and camps.

It also includes new satellite images offering evidence of the destruction left by Boko Haram as they retreated from the advancing Nigerian military in March 2015.

Mass surveillance, particularly indiscriminate US and UK collection of online data, requires the prompt attention of the United Nation’s new privacy watchdog, Amnesty International said today.

Amnesty International and other NGOs had called for the creation of a ‘Special Rapporteur’ on the right to privacy, a new expert role set up today by the UN Human Rights Council, in response to efforts to expand surveillance powers and bulk collection of personal data, most recently in France and Canada. Governments are prohibited from arbitrary interference with peoples’ right to privacy by international law.

“UN action is essential to analyze the impact of surveillance on privacy and free speech. Security agencies show a misguided and ever-growing appetite for data collection; someone has to watch the watchers,” said Peter Splinter, Amnesty International Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. 

Utah’s decision to turn to the firing squad if it is unable to secure drugs for lethal injection is the latest attempt by a US state to keep alive a punishment that should have long ago been consigned to the history books, said Amnesty International today.

“Whether by shooting, lethal injection, hanging, asphyxiation or electrocution, the death penalty is a cruel, brutalizing and outdated punishment that is a symptom of violence, not a solution to it. The Utah legislature should be expending its energies on abolishing the death penalty, not trying to fix the unfixable,” said Rob Freer, USA researcher Amnesty International.

On Monday 23 March, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a law allowing the use of firing squads when the drugs needed to administer the lethal injection was not available.

This move clearly goes against the global and national trend towards abolition of the death penalty. Since 2007 six US states have abolished the death penalty for all crimes and the governors of Oregon, Washington and, in 2015, Pennsylvania have established moratoriums on executions in their states.

El Salvador’s government must take the opportunity to reform its draconian abortion law, said Amnesty International today as the country responds to a series of recommendations, mostly relating to abortion and gender discrimination, during its Universal Periodic Review (UPR), at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"El Salvador has one of the most draconian abortion laws in the world, criminalizing abortion on all grounds, even when a woman or girl’s life or health is in danger and even in cases of rape and incest. This restrictive law has put women and girls at the brink of death,” said Amnesty International Americas Director Erika Guevara Rosas.

“El Salvador is expected to accept its duty to provide access to sexual health services and contraception, as recommended by states at the UN. We would welcome that step forward. But picking and choosing which recommendations to follow may leave in place a total ban on abortion. Dozens of women are in jail for pregnancy-related complications, some of them facing up to 40 years behind bars.”

The Indonesian government must halt the imminent execution of 11 people and scrap plans to put even more people to death this year, Amnesty International said in an open letter to President Joko Widodo today.

Indonesia’s Attorney General has confirmed that 11 executions of death row prisoners convicted for drug trafficking and murder will be carried out imminently. The prisoners include both foreigners and Indonesian nationals.