We, the undersigned survivors and families of the victims of the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, and Lebanese and international organizations, are writing to urge you, during the current UN Human Rights Council session, to support a resolution – or at a minimum a joint statement – at the United...

Major progress has been made in the debate on sex workers’ rights through a recent paper, “Eliminating discrimination against sex workers and securing their human rights,” published by the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls. In advocating for the full...

Amnesty International is campaigning for a UN convention on the rights of older persons. Human rights are protected through international legal treaties (often called conventions or covenants), which states become a party to, committing themselves to certain obligations. Amnesty International...

Responding to the Malawi Constitutional Court’s decision to uphold the country’s ban on same-sex sexual conduct between consenting adults, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, Khanyo Farise, said:  “The court’s decision to keep these discriminatory laws on...

Where were you in May last year when the Anti-Homosexuality act was passed? I was at an orthopedics appointment in Massachusetts USA, watching everything on my phone. I wished I was home with my people and yet I knew I needed to take care of my health if I was to continue this fight. I […]

Social assistance benefits are the ‘last social safety net’ in Austria – that is, financial support for those who do not have other means or sufficient income to secure their livelihood. They are crucial for alleviating poverty in Austria. In 2019, the government of Austria introduced the so-called...

The strategy of the Mexican government to address the disappearances crisis launched in May 2023 is still much the same. As of today, the National Register of Missing and Disappeared Persons reports that 115,571 people remain disappeared or missing, but authorities are still formalizing...

The Kuwaiti authorities have been escalating the repression of critics throughout 2024, by prosecuting and imposing prison sentences on individuals solely based on their speeches or writings, and stripping people of their nationality, Amnesty International said today. Over the past six months,...

Reacting to the decision of the Trial Chamber X of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to convict Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz for some of the war crimes and crimes against humanity he was accused of having committed in Timbuktu, Mali, Samira Daoud, Amnesty International Regional Director for West...

Ahead of the final decision on the extradition case of Belarusian activist Andrei Gnyot, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said: “In light of the ongoing serious human rights violations in Belarus, and the manifest risks that Andrei Gnyot will...

From Mali to Guinea to Senegal, demonstrations are all too often brutally, and even lethally, put down. And yet Amnesty International emphasizes that violence by the forces of law and order is not an illustration of a state’s power but rather its weakness.

On 26 June Egypt’s Emergency State Security Criminal Court (ESSC) sentenced protester Mahmoud Hussein to three years in prison for wearing an anti-torture T-Shirt. He was arrested following the court session and taken into custody to serve the remainder of his sentence after he had already...