Amnesty International

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Amnesty International to Canada: Bust Bush

Canada to Amnesty: No way, eh

(Newser) - George W. Bush is visiting Canada next week and international law requires the country to arrest him for torture and war crimes ... according to Amnesty International. The group has sent a thousand-page memorandum to Canadian authorities explaining why the former president should be behind bars, Politico reports. Bush's own...

Troy Davis: I Want to Take a Polygraph Test

In effort to save him, Georgia Democrats urge prison strike

(Newser) - Troy Davis is hours from death, but he’s not giving up. The Georgia death row inmate, who claims he was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer in 1989, wants to take a polygraph test. "Mr. Davis believes he is innocent and he wants to show it,"...

Kids Among 88 Tortured and Killed in Syrian Prisons
Kids Among 88 Tortured and Killed in Syrian Prisons
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Aug 31, 2011 10:00 AM CDT

Kids Among 88 Tortured and Killed in Syrian Prisons

Along with 78 others

(Newser) - At least 88 people have been tortured and killed in Syrian detention centers over the past five months, including 10 children, according to a new report from Amnesty International. Victims were burned, beaten, and electrocuted, among other abuses, the report alleges. “These deaths behind bars are reaching massive proportions,...

N. Korea&#39;s Prison Camps Burgeoning, Now Hold 200K
N. Korea's Prison Camps Burgeoning, Now Hold 200K
SAYS AMNESTY
May 4, 2011 12:13 PM CDT

N. Korea's Prison Camps Burgeoning, Now Hold 200K

Amnesty International points to satellite images, witness testimony

(Newser) - Satellite images of North Korea's political prisoner camps show they are getting bigger, says Amnesty International. (See the photos here .) The rights group compared images of four camps from 2001 and found a "significant increase in the scale of the camps," reports the BBC . Amnesty estimates...

Amnesty: Gadhafi Opponents Missing

Group cites at least 30 likely detained by retreating Gadhafi forces

(Newser) - Moammar Gadhafi's government has swept up bloggers, journalists, suspected rebel fighters, and even teenage protesters in an organized effort to quash rebellion in Libya, Amnesty International said in a report today. The group said its workers in Libya have documented 30 cases of people who have disappeared in the east,...

Amnesty to UK: Manning Is British —So Help Him

Jailed private inherited British citizenship from mother

(Newser) - The US Army private accused of providing WikiLeaks with a vast trove of classified information is a British citizen and the UK should be doing more to look out for his interests, say rights groups. Bradley Manning, who has been held in a military prison since last July, is an...

US Left 30K Iraqi Detainees to Be Tortured
 US Left 30K 
 Iraqi Detainees 
 to Be Tortured 
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Sep 13, 2010 5:41 PM CDT

US Left 30K Iraqi Detainees to Be Tortured

Troop pullout leaves a slew of untried inmates

(Newser) - The US is turning a blind eye to the systematic abuse of detainees in Iraq's prisons, a report by Amnesty International claims. The transfer of prisoners from US-run detention centers to Iraqi facilities is a less-discussed aspect of the American pullout, but has flooded a system that remains rife with...

Rights Groups Urge WikiLeaks to Censor Names

'There was no consideration about civilian lives'

(Newser) - WikiLeaks has won praise from human rights groups in the past but now several have added their voices to those criticizing its leak of classified Afghanistan war records. A coalition of rights groups has written to founder Julian Assange, urging him to remove the names of Afghan civilians from the...

China Secretly Executes Thousands Each Year—or More

Cattle rustling, vandalism capital offenses in China

(Newser) - Want to find out how many people China executes each year? Not a chance, Kate Allen writes in the Guardian . Though China is known to execute more people each year than all other countries put together, the government keeps the actual numbers under such tight wraps that even Amnesty International...

Amnesty: Israel Is Denying Palestinians Water

Report slams Israel's 'total domination' of water supplies

(Newser) - Israel is guzzling the region's water supply to keep its farmland lush and its lawns green while many Palestinians struggle to get the bare minimum for life, according to an Amnesty International report. The report accuses Israel of using its "total control" over water supplies to discriminate against Palestinians...

China Says It Will Slash Executions
China Says It Will Slash Executions
Jul 29, 2009 10:58 AM CDT

China Says It Will Slash Executions

With 72% of the world's capital punishment, they've got a ways to go

(Newser) - China holds more executions yearly than any other country—but this week, state media announced China will be more forgiving, the New York Times reports. Only “an extremely small number” should be executed, said the vice president of the Supreme People’s Court. In 2008, Amnesty International claims, China...

Torture Tools For Sale to Nicest Bidder

Collection of medieval flesh-rippers to be sold to aid human rights organizations

(Newser) - A huge collection of medieval tongue tearers, thumbscrews, and assorted flesh-rippers is hitting the auction block soon, but ghouls and dictators won't be welcome bidders, the Los Angeles Times reports. The owner—moved to sell the inherited collection by the debate on Bush-era harsh interrogation—is keen to ensure it...

UN: Sri Lanka Conflict a 'Bloodbath'

Aid groups urge Japan to push for Security Council action

(Newser) - After intense weekend fighting, the UN says the battle between rebels and the government in Sri Lanka has become a “bloodbath,” the New York Times reports. A government doctor estimates 1,000 civilians died in the heavy shelling of the small coastal area occupied by a few hundred...

Amnesty Moves to Stop 128 Iraqi Executions

Says international standards may have been ignored in trials

(Newser) - Amnesty International has called for Iraq not to execute 128 prisoners sentenced to death, saying their trials may not have conformed with international rules, Reuters reports. Amnesty says Iraq should release the names of and charges against the prisoners, noting that capital punishment is an ineffective threat when suicide bombing...

Gambian Missionaries Imprisoned for Insult

Couple called ruler 'a madman'

(Newser) - A British missionary couple has been sentenced to a year's hard labor in one of Africa's toughest prisons for calling the despotic president of Gambia "a madman" in an email, reports the Times of London. The parents of three apologized for the insult, hoping for leniency.

Britain Buzzes Over Plan to Give Bobbies Tasers

Opponents fret over potential misuse, loss of gentle image

(Newser) - A plan to outfit London’s iconic, and traditionally unarmed, bobbies with Tasers has lawmakers and police worrying about potential misuse and tarnishing the UK’s gentle image—which has included arms-free policing since 1829, the Christian Science Monitor notes. Over the past 20 years, 37 officers have been killed...

Amnesty: China Broke Promises of Free Speech

Olympic committee has hushed dissent despite 2001 vow

(Newser) - Ten days ahead of the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony, Amnesty International charged that China hasn’t welched on promises of freedom for activists and journalists it made when it was awarded the Games. “The Chinese authorities are tarnishing the legacy of the Games,” said a rep who called...

Dissonant Ads Put Agency in Olympic Bind

Pitches for Adidas, Amnesty conflict—and inflame China opinion

(Newser) - A major advertising firm finds itself in an awkward predicament, the Wall Street Journal reports, after realizing it produced ads to drum up patriotic support for Chinese athletes in the Beijing Olympics as well as graphic spots criticizing China's human-rights record for Amnesty International. New York-based TBWA Worldwide has renounced...

Rowling Casts Spell at Harvard
 Rowling Casts Spell at Harvard 
Jun 6, 2008 7:10 AM CDT

Rowling Casts Spell at Harvard

Fight the monsters, she urges

(Newser) - Harry Potter birth mom JK Rowling yesterday urged Harvard graduates at their commencement to use their imaginations on more than wizards and muggles to envision—and create—a better world. She recalled the rewarding time she spent when she was younger working for prisoners of totalitarian regimes for Amnesty International....

Amnesty Again Demands Gitmo Closure

'World leaders are in a state of denial' on human-rights abuses, group charges

(Newser) - The US has “distinguished itself in recent years through defiance of international law,”  says human-rights advocate Amnesty International in its annual reports, released today. The group called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay and other secret detention centers , the New York Times reports, and the prosecution of...

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