In a world of leaders who trade in division, hate and misinformation, Dr. Agnès Callamard brings to her role as the new Secretary General of Amnesty International a deep commitment to truth telling, an unwavering commitment to justice and to solidarity with human rights activists the world over.
Dr Agnès Callamard is Secretary General at Amnesty International. She leads the organization’s human rights work and is its chief spokesperson. She is responsible for providing overall leadership of the International Secretariat, including setting the strategic direction for the organisation and managing relations with Amnesty International’s national entities.
Agnès has been a prominent figure in the human rights world for decades. In 2016, she was appointed as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary killings. Along with her UN work, Agnès was also the Director of Global Freedom of Expression at Columbia University in New York.
Previously she was Executive Director of the freedom of expression organization Article 19. She returns to Amnesty after twenty years having previously held the role of Chef de Cabinet for then Secretary General Pierre Sané. As a leading advocate for freedom of expression, a feminist and an anti-racism activist, she pushes out the frontiers of rights through her scholarship and advocacy.
I never expected the state of human rights to lead me to reference the 1980s sci-fi film Back to the Future. Yet here we are. A world spiralling through time, hurtling backwards past the 1948 promise of universal human rights, even as it spins ever faster forwards into a future overtaken by Big Tech and…
For more than a decade, human rights organizations have warned that a persistent deterioration of respect for human rights and the rule of law was underway. Where does 2022 fit in that descent? Was it yet another disastrous year for human rights? Has the breakdown of international norms reached a new nadir? And if so,…
At a recent demonstration outside the White House calling for the closure of the US military prison at the Guantánamo Bay naval base, a teenager approached a colleague to ask what the protest was all about. He told her he had never heard of the detention facility. It’s been 20 years and four presidential administrations…
Recently a bombshell report from Politico emerged showing that the head of Egypt’s notorious General Intelligence Services (GIS), Abbas Kamel, had demanded to know why Egyptian American human rights defender Mohamed Soltan was living free in Virginia instead of locked up behind American bars. Soltan, who now heads the Freedom Initiative, a non-profit that advocates on behalf of…
In March, a man was filmed brutally beating his ex-wife on a street in Samsun, Turkey, while their 5-year-old daughter stood sobbing beside them. Viral footage of the man punching and slapping the woman, 24 year-old Emriye Metegül in the face, and slamming her head repeatedly against the pavement, shocked Turkey. Weeks later, President Recep…
Local buses, recycling bins and leafletting were among Tiffany Yuen’s main responsibilities as an elected official when she was arrested for violating Hong Kong’s national security law and sent to jail. Absurd as it may sound, it is a fact that encapsulates the rapid decay of human rights in the city since a single piece…
The world has a week to ensure Nepal doesn’t move towards the catastrophic fate that we witnessed in India Just months ago, the world watched in horror as India was devastated by a second wave of Covid-19. Distressing images showed endless funeral pyres and the Ganges swollen with dead bodies, as desperate family members searched for…