A coalition of human rights organizations, Amnesty International, the Centre for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, La Federation internationale des ligues droits de l’Homme (FIDH), and Reprieve today called on EU foreign ministers attending the General Affairs and External Relations Council meeting on January 26, 2009, in Brussels next week to help close the Guantánamo [...]

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Amnesty International today condemned efforts by the military justice system to take charge of the criminal investigation against retired army Colonel Luis Alfonso Plazas Vega, currently on trial in the civilian courts for his alleged part in the enforced disappearance of 11 people in 1985.
Luis Alfonso Plazas was arrested in July 2007 in relation to [...]

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Zimbabwe is in a humanitarian crisis that is rooted in a political crisis. Despite the ongoing and massive violations of Zimbabweans basic rights, African governments have largely remained on the sidelines. The bi-annual summit of African Heads of State in Addis Ababa from January 26 to February 3, 2009, provides African leaders with a crucial [...]

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New US President Barack Obama is expected to issue an executive order on January 22, 2009 to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Obama’s decision to order Guantanamo’s closure so soon after taking office shows the high priority the president places on changing the United States’ approach to countering terrorism.
A draft copy of [...]

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Amnesty International welcomed the new US administration’s moves to suspend military commission proceedings at Guantánamo as a “positive sign” and said that it hoped it was a “clear signal of this administration’s intention to move away from unlawful practices of the past.”
“Yesterday, in his inaugural address, President Barack Obama underscored the need for a break [...]

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The Human Rights Watch report “On the Margins: Rights Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta“, documents ongoing violations of the rights of the Khmer Krom in southern Vietnam and also abuses in Cambodia against Khmer Krom who have fled there for refuge. Wary about possible Khmer Krom nationalist aspirations, Vietnam has suppressed peaceful [...]

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The Azerbaijani government should withdraw its lawsuit against the human rights activist Leyla Yunus immediately .
The libel case, brought by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, is scheduled to begin in a Baku court on January 23. It accuses her of “insulting” the ministry and causing “moral damage” to the reputation of the police in a [...]

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Russian authorities should immediately investigate the killing of Stanislav Markelov, a prominent Russian human rights lawyer, and bring his killers to justice. Markelov was shot dead on the afternoon of January 19, 2009, on Prechistenka Street in central Moscow, and a newspaper intern with him was fatally wounded.
“We are appalled and deeply saddened by Markelov’s [...]

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Amnesty International today urged Macao’s authorities to withdraw a new state security bill that undermines fundamental freedoms.
The 29-member Legislative Assembly of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) began final discussions of the security bill at committee level this afternoon. This follows what Amnesty International calls an ”unreasonably short” public consultation period of 40 days during [...]

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The Turkish authorities are nowhere near bringing to justice all those who bear responsibility for the murder of Hrant Dink, said Amnesty International, on the second anniversary of the death of the journalist and human rights defender.
“Hrant Dink was murdered for the expression of his non-violent opinions, apparently with the tacit agreement of elements within [...]

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