Open letters

On May 22, over 20 women’s rights and equality-seeking organizations in Canada wrote a joint letter to the federal government, calling for low-barrier emergency income supports for sex workers, who thus far have been left out of the pandemic response in Canada.

In response, rather than moving forward with a mechanism to provide income supports to sex workers, government responded in a subsequent meeting with advocates by suggesting that local organizations working with sex workers apply to the $350 million Emergency Community Support Fund announced in May by Minister of Families, Children, and Social Development Ahmed Hussen. Most sex worker rights groups and other grassroots organizations serving marginalized communities do not fit the stated criteria to apply for such funds because they are often not registered non-profits or charities, and are made up of the marginalized individuals who have been left out of the pandemic response. In addition, the Fund does not cover income replacements.

Google’s reported plans to launch a censored search engine app in China would represent an alarming capitulation on human rights, and could have devastating consequences in a country where people are routinely persecuted for expressing their views, Amnesty International and other human rights groups said today.

In an open letter to Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, published on Tuesday, Amnesty International and 13 other human rights groups are calling on Google to answer basic questions about an app, known internally as “Project Dragonfly”, which would block certain websites and search terms to fit with Chinese state censorship rules. Details of the app were published by The Intercept on 1 August, but Google has so far failed to respond publicly.

 9 August 2018

The Honourable David Eby
Attorney General
PO Box 9044 Stn Prov Govt
Victoria, BC V8W 9E2
By fax: 250 387-6411  and by email

Dear Attorney General Eby,

Amnesty International strongly agrees with and supports the Union of BC Indian Chiefs’ August 7th Open Letter in which their executive called on your government to denounce and formally apologize for the harmful and disrespectful arguments being made by BC Hydro in the current court hearings about the Site C dam.

This massively destructive mega-project was approved without prior determination of whether flooding the Peace River Valley would violate rights protected in Treaty 8, as was consistently stated by First Nations throughout the review process. In such a context, it is unconscionable that First Nations have been forced to take on the onerous burden on launching a civil suit just to have their Constitutionally-protected rights properly addressed.

The upcoming ministerial meeting on human rights demonstrates that federal, provincial and territorial governments in Canada recognize that more must be done to fulfill Canada’s domestic and international commitments to recognize, respect and fulfill human rights. As a concrete and meaningful way to better address this need, our organizations are calling on the federal, provincial and territorial governments to work collaboratively with First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples as well as with African Canadians and other communities of colour, and engage with civil society to undertake a formal and systematic review of the most recent United Nations treaty body report on Canada.

Dear Ministers Freeland and Wilson-Raybould, and Mr. Alghabra,

Amnesty International is alarmed at the continued detention of Lebanese-Canadian dual national Hassan Diab in Fleury-Mérogis Prison in France in the face of six orders from investigating judges that he be released on bail. We urge you to call on your French counterparts to take immediate steps to secure his release on bail.

On the occasion of President Barack Obama´s upcoming historic visit to Cuba, followed by a two-day visit to Argentina, Amnesty International would like to take this opportunity to highlight to the three Presidents a number of major human rights concerns which we hope will be prioritized as part of your discussions.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Detentions at Guantánamo Bay

While we recognize the current administration’s commitment to end the detentions in the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, the fact that dozens of detainees remain there more than six years after President Obama’s original deadline for closure of the detention facility is a cause for huge international concern. We reiterate that any Guantánamo detainee the USA does not intend to charge for prosecution in proceedings that fully comply with international fair trial standards should be immediately released.