Amnesty International Quotes

Bonnie and her mum are both members of Amnesty International," said Abigail. "Of course they are," murmured Madeline. This must be how Jennifer Aniston feels, thought Madeline, whenever she hears about Angelina and Brad adopting another orphan or two.

As indicated by the increase in maternal mortality in 2010, right now it's more dangerous to give birth in California than in Kuwait or Bosnia. Amnesty International reports that women in [the United States] have a higher risk of dying due to pregnancy complications than women in forty-nine other countries (black women are almost four times as likely to die as white women). The United States spends more than any other country on maternal health care, yet our risk of dying or coming close to death during pregnancy or in childbirth remains unreasonably high.

Today we are less likely to speak of humanitarianism, with its overtones of paternalistic generosity, and more likely to speak of human rights. The basic freedoms in life are not seen as gifts to be doled out by benevolent well-wishers, but as Casement said at his trial, as those rights to which all human beings are entitled from birth. It is this spirit which underlies organizations like Amnesty International, with its belief that putting someone in prison solely for his or her opinion is a crime, whether it happens in China or Turkey or Argentina and Medecins Sans Frontieres, with its belief that a sick child is entitled to medical care, whether in Rwanda or Honduras or the South Bronx.

Amnesty International, which was opening its yearlong campaign to protect human rights defenders in Colombia in response to the country’s horrifying record of attacks against human rights and labor activists and mostly the usual victims of state terror: the poor and defenseless.

. One of the most idiotic jeers against animal lovers is the one about their preferring critters to people. As a matter of observation, it will be found that people who ‘care’—about rain forests or animals, miscarriages of justice or dictatorships— are, though frequently irritating, very often the same people. Whereas those who love hamburgers and riskless hunting and mink coats are not in the front ranks of Amnesty International.

The humanitarian philosophies that have been developed (sometimes under some religious banner and invariably in the face of religious opposition) are human inventions, as the name implies - and our species deserves the credit. I am a devout atheist - nothing else makes any sense to me and I must admit to being bewildered by those, who in the face of what appears so obvious, still believe in a mystical creator. However I can see that the promise of infinite immortality is a more palatable proposition than the absolute certainty of finite mortality which those of us who are subject to free thought (as opposed to free will) have to look forward to and many may not have the strength of character to accept it. Thus I am a supporter of Amnesty International, a humanist and an atheist. I believe in a secular, democratic society in which women and men have total equality, and individuals can pursue their lives as they wish, free of constraints - religious or otherwise. I feel that the difficult ethical and social problems which invariably arise must be solved, as best they can, by discussion and am opposed to the crude simplistic application of dogmatic rules invented in past millennia and ascribed to a plethora of mystical creators - or the latest invention; a single creator masquerading under a plethora of pseudonyms. Organisations which seek political influence by co-ordinated effort disturb me and thus I believe religious and related pressure groups which operate in this way are acting antidemocratically and should play no part in politics. I also have problems with those who preach racist and related ideologies which seem almost indistinguishable from nationalism, patriotism and religious conviction.

Darren's lack of milk shake right now feels like some sort of war crime. Like someone should contact Amnesty International.

Amnesty International should list all daughters as prisoners of war.

By 2001, United States police violence and brutality had been roundly denounced, decried, and documented by Amnesty International and others as out of compliance with international law. United

race seemed less and less a defining characteristic when one was six years out of college, and those people who still nursed it as the core of their identity came across as somehow childish and faintly pathetic, as if clinging to a youthful fascination with Amnesty International or the tuba: an outdated and embarrassing preoccupation with something that reached its potent apotheosis in college applications.

Our society imposes on us a moral duty to live and, hence, to condemn suicide. However, with her apparent admiration for antiquity, Anna may have found her prop in the Greek philosophers, who thought every person should choose for themselves when they die. Nietzsche also considered that the individual had a full moral right to take his own life. He used the word freitod or voluntary death.’ Aune raised a pointed index finger. ‘But she had to confront another moral dilemma. Revenge. Insofar as she professed to be a Christian, Christian ethics demand that you should not take revenge. The paradox is, naturally, that Christians worship a God who is the greatest avenger of them all. Defy him and you burn in eternal hell, an act of revenge which is completely out of proportion to the crime, almost a case for Amnesty International, if you ask me.

The radical Islamic movement has availed itself of the PC mentality to convince good-hearted people around the world that the Jews, Israel, and the ‘fascist government of the United States of America’ are responsible for the ills of the Muslim people, and that their daily suffering is because of them. The PC crowds label anyone who disagrees with this notion a bigot. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and the like have picked up on this phenomenon.

Unbelievably, while many non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International and America’s Watch have denounced the human rights situation in Cuba, there has been a continuing love affair on the part of the media and many intellectuals with Fidel Castro.

However, race seemed less and less a defining characteristic when one was six years out of college, and those people who still nursed it as the core of their identity came across as somehow childish and faintly pathetic, as if clinging to a youthful fascination with Amnesty International or the tuba: an outdated and embarrassing preoccupation with something that reached its potent apotheosis in college applications.

You’ve been wandering about Juarez like a zombie in a though experiment, an experiment in collective guilt, where the zombie is shown the morgue-slab photos, and responds by saying “I’m truly sorry”, and making out a check to Amnesty International, or Nuestra Hijas de Regreso a Casa, or maybe Save the Children or Habitat for Humanity, and then sealing the whole deal by forging his own signature. What’s that you say? You didn’t know it was forged? No wonder the authorities are beginning to get suspicious. We’re sorry to be the ones to break this to you, but the violence that man is doing to his home is not some sort of thought experiment, and the last thing on earth the world needs now is yet another anonymous onlooker, trying to get the picture; our drawing isn’t a drawing exactly, it’s more of a kind of framing device, and you, mon frère, so slow to get the picture, are not only under suspicion, but about to be framed. We didn’t exactly select you at random, and you’re not precisely The Viewer in the abstract sense, and we’re not about to give you a bird’s eye view of anything, or a view of Juarez from high atop a smelting stack; we’re about to put you back exactly where you belong, wearing Douchebag’s shoes, in the middle of the picture, because while Douchebag isn’t you in any literal sense, you appear to be standing in Douchebag shoes, and Douchebag, unfortunately, is now your problem.

I get mailings from Amnesty International, and as I look at their photos of men and women who have been beaten and cattle-prodded and jabbed and spit on and electrocuted, I ask myself, "What kind of human being could do that to another human being?" Then, I read the book of Acts and meet the kind of person who could do such a thing, now an apostle of grace, a servant of Jesus Christ, the greatest missionary history has ever known. If God can love that kind of person, maybe, just maybe, He can love the likes of me.

In the fall of 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, and in the run-up to the Gulf War, Americans were sickened by a story that emerged. On October 10, 1990, a fifteen-year-old refugee from Kuwait appeared before a congressional Human Rights Caucus.23 The girl—she would give only her first name, Nayirah—had volunteered in a hospital in Kuwait City. She tearfully testified that Iraqi soldiers had stolen incubators to ship home as plunder, leaving over three hundred premature infants to die. Our collective breath was taken away—“These people leave babies to die on the cold floor; they are hardly human.” The testimony was seen on the news by approximately 45 million Americans, was cited by seven senators when justifying their support of war (a resolution that passed by five votes), and was cited more than ten times by George H. W. Bush in arguing for U.S. military involvement. And we went to war with a 92 percent approval rating of the president’s decision. In the words of Representative John Porter (R-Illinois), who chaired the committee, after Nayirah’s testimony, “we have never heard, in all this time, in all circumstances, a record of inhumanity, and brutality, and sadism, as the ones that [Nayirah had] given us today.” Much later it emerged that the incubator story was a pseudospeciating lie. The refugee was no refugee. She was Nayirah al-Sabah, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. The incubator story was fabricated by the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton, hired by the Kuwaiti government with the help of Porter and cochair Representative Tom Lantos (D-California). Research by the firm indicated that people would be particularly responsive to stories about atrocities against babies (ya think?), so the incubator tale was concocted, the witness coached. The story was disavowed by human rights groups (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch) and the media, and the testimony was withdrawn from the Congressional Record—long after the war.

José Martí, born on January 28, 1853, is known as the George Washington of Cuba, or is perhaps better identified with Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America. Although he admired and visited the United States, José Martí realized that not only would he have to free his country from Spain, he would also have to prevent the United States from interfering in Cuba’s internal affairs. By his admirers, he was considered a great Latin American intellectual, and his newspaper Patria became the voice of “Cuban Independence.” After years of suppression, the Cuban struggle for independence began in 1868. At the age of 17, José Martí was jailed in Cuba and then exiled to Spain because of his revolutionary activities. It was during this time in his life that he published a pamphlet describing the atrocities he had experienced while being imprisoned in Cuba. He strongly believed in racial equality and denounced the horrors of people having to live under a dictatorship. In 1878, Martí was allowed to return to Cuba under a general amnesty, but was once again banished from Cuba after being accused of conspiracy against the Spanish authorities. From 1881 to 1895, he lived and worked in New York City. Moving to Florida, he organized forces for a three-pronged attack supporting the smoldering Cuban War of Independence. It was during one of the first battles that he was killed at the Battle of Dos Ríos in Cuba, and thus became a national hero and martyr when he was only 42 years old.

The questions raised by Lucretia [Mott]'s life are "How are you called into action?" and "Are you faithful to that call?" Your actions might be public or so quiet that they are never notices, which Emily [Dickinson] would have applauded. Your act of courage might be taking the time and developing the spirit to reconcile a relationship. Or it might be simply getting out of bed if you suffer from depression or going to that first A.A. meeting. You might be quietly writing letters to political prisoners through Amnesty International or sending anonymous donation to help the orphans in South Africa. You might take time each week to go to the hospital nursery to rock the neglected babies with AIDS. You may have a strong desire to cultivate your own garden and participate in growing the food you eat, allowing time for your inner spirit to grow and be nurtured as well. You may be protecting and valuing time as a parent. It is not important whether our actions are considered large or small; it is important that they stem from the center of our being. When we learn to live from our own authenticity, we activate our still inner voice. Although Lucretia [Mott] was a lead singer on the world stage, she would have been perfectly happy singing backup for someone else -- as long as the music was right and all the people were included in the dancing.

In its report issued that year, 1991, Amnesty International recorded protests against human rights abuses in over fifty countries, the protest to thirteen countries making specific reference to torture. These are the kinds of thing many of us have a vague background awareness of, without there being much publicity unless the perpetrators are some currently loathed regime, or unless some highly visible Westerner is among the victims.

Amnesty International Survey found that 25 percent of people believe a woman is to blame for being raped if she dresses "provocatively.

Clare Short, who today poses as an anti-war warrior but was six years ago Blair's cheerleader-in-chief for bombing Yugoslavia. After the attack on Radio-Televizija Jugoslavenska she said, 'The propaganda machine is prolonging the war and it's a legitimate target'. Amnesty International pointed out 'intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects is a war crime under the Rome Statutes of the International Criminal Court'.

I get mailings from Amnesty International, and as I look at their photos of men and women who have been beaten and cattle-prodded and jabbed and spit on and electrocuted, I ask myself, 'What kind of human being could do that to another human being?' Then, I read the book of Acts and meet the kind of person who could do such a thing, now an apostle of grace, a servant of Jesus Christ, the greatest missionary history has ever known. If God can love that kind of person, maybe, just maybe, He can love the likes of me.

At the start of the twenty-first century, even the normally cautious human rights organization Amnesty International began to charge the United States with violating its own citizens’ human rights with a pattern of unchecked police brutality.

The vast majority of arrests carried out by the military appear to be entirely arbitrary, often based solely on the dubious word of a paid informant. Military sources repeatedly told Amnesty International that the informants are unreliable and often provide false information in order to get paid. One officer said: "The military uses civilian informants to get information and arrest suspects. Most of these informants are liars. They give false information to the soldiers who are desperate to simply shoot and kill. Many of the soldiers don't know about investigations. The soldiers take these rash actions mainly out of frustration, especially after seeing their colleagues killed.

This phenomenon, essentially unique within the 20th and 21st Centuries, constitutes a form of mass hysteria similar to the outbreak of Tarantism and the witch-hunts so closely identified with medieval Europe. Revisionists, skeptics, truth-seekers, intellectuals and free thinkers throughout Europe have been relentlessly persecuted, prosecuted, reviled, beaten, exiled, ostracized, imprisoned, hounded, harassed, hunted, pursued from nation to nation, deprived of liberty, family, livelihood and sustenance, turned into pariahs and outlaws, calumniated, slandered and libeled as “racists, bigots, heretics, liars, hate-mongers, deniers, neo-Nazis and anti-Semites.” Neither appeals before the Court of Human Rights, Amnesty International, nor the Vatican has resulted in relief or succor; all alike have turned their backs on the plight of revisionist scholars.

I hate it when Penny does this. Honestly, it can be so annoying. She lives it though. She didn't buy clothes for an entire year, her senior year at Reed, because she felt like she was irresponsible with money. She always looked very beautiful anyway, and for her birthday I bought her some mittens at Saturday Market for seven dollars. She wore them like they were from Tiffany's or something. She always talked about them. They weren't that big of a deal, but she hadn't had any new clothes for a year so I think she wore them while she was sleeping or something. Penny is right about spending money though. Penny is right about everything. Penny said if I were to save about twenty dollars a month and give it to Northwest Medical Teams or Amnesty International, I would literally be saving lives. Literally. But that stupid pleasure center goes off in my brain, and it feels like there is nothing I can do about it. I told Penny about the pleasure center and how I needed the remote control car to make the pleasure center light up, and she just took the phone away from her car and beat it against her chair.

I hate it when Penny does this. Honestly, it can be so annoying. She lives it though. She didn't buy clothes for an entire year, her senior year at Reed, because she felt like she was irresponsible with money. She always looked very beautiful anyway, and for her birthday I bought her some mittens at Saturday Market for seven dollars. She wore them like they were from Tiffany's or something. She always talked about them. They weren't that big of a deal, but she hadn't had any new clothes for a year so I think she wore them while she was sleeping or something. Penny is right about spending money though. Penny is right about everything. Penny said if I were to save about twenty dollars a month and give it to Northwest Medical Teams or Amnesty International, I would literally be saving lives. Literally. But that stupid pleasure center goes off in my brain, and it feels like there is nothing I can do about it. I told Penny about the pleasure center and how I needed the remote control car to make the pleasure center light up, and she just took the phone away from her ear and beat it against her chair.

Between 1964 and 1985, the military killed about 325 suspected leftists, while more than 1,500 were tortured, according to later estimates by Amnesty International.

Immigration detention centers are now a supplement to the prison archipelago in the U.S., holding as many as 400,000 (at times more than this) who are suffering conditions often criticized by Amnesty International for human rights violations.

In the Cuban House of Representatives in 1955, Díaz-Balart spoke out against the amnesty granted to Castro by Batista. He went on to become the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives and Minister of the Interior during the Batista administration. Although he was elected to the Cuban Senate in 1958, he was unable to take the seat due to Castro’s revolution. Fleeing Cuba, he moved to Spain becoming employed as an insurance company executive, before moving to Miami. In 1959, Díaz-Balart founded the first anti-Castro organization “La Rosa Blanca,” “The White Rose.” He was the father of former Republican U.S. Congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart, of the 21st Congressional District in Florida. Lincoln Díaz-Balart and his immediate family were all Democrats, before switching their affiliation to the Republican Party. He was also father of the present Republican U.S. Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart of the new 25th Congressional District in Florida. He had two other sons, José Díaz-Balart, a TV news journalist with Telemundo and MSNBC, and Rafael Díaz-Balart, founder and CEO of Vestec International Corporation, a private banking and investment firm.

Sedition was therefore explicitly intended as an instrument to terrorize Indian nationalists: Mahatma Gandhi was amongst its prominent victims. Seeing it applied in democratic India shocked many Indians. The arrest in February 2016 of students at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on charges of sedition, for raising ‘anti-Indian’ slogans in the course of protests against the execution of the accomplice of a convicted terrorist, and the filing of an FIR against Amnesty International in August 2016 on the same charges, would not have been possible without the loose, colonially-motivated wording of the law.

Only when the last prisoner of conscience has been freed, when the last torture chamber has been closed, when the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a reality for the world's people, will our work be done.

All the late nights and practice tests and extra-credit assignments and Amnesty International petitions and cross-country meets, all in service of College, those four years of transformative learning and personal growth, where she would take screenwriting classes and find forever friends like her mother had found Adi Uncle and travel and maybe even try improv because

Unaligned, nobly interventionist, unbrooked by nations and political parties, private interests or public exhaustion, Amnesty International declares states, walls, borders irrelevant to its humanitarian goals, detrimental to its tasks, by summoning responsibility and refusing to accept a myopic government’s own narrative of its behavior.

We have learned from so many mistakes in the past that women are at a greater risk for sexual assault and violence if they don’t have separate bathrooms,’ says Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia.

Amnesty International reported that since the start of the second intifada Israel had destroyed 3,000 Palestinian houses in Gaza, throwing over 18,000 Palestinians onto the street. It damaged a further 15,000 houses, in addition to destroying hundreds of factories, workshops, greenhouses, wells, pumps, irrigation canals, and orchards. It uprooted 226,000 trees and

As noted earlier, the great wars of this century are extraordinary not so much in the unprecedented scale on which they permitted people to kill, as in the colossal numbers persuaded to lay down their lives. Is it not certain that the numbers of those killed vastly exceeded those who killed? The idea of the ultimate sacrifice comes only with an idea of purity, through fatality. Dying for one’s country, which usually one does not choose, assumes a moral grandeur which dying for the Labour Party, the American Medical Association, or perhaps even Amnesty International can not rival, for these are all bodies one can join or leave at easy will. Dying for the revolution also draws its grandeur from the degree to which it is felt to be something fundamentally pure.

•Amnesty further notes that, as part of the right to life and other human rights, the responsibility of nations to prevent gun violence requires: (1) restricting access to firearms, especially on the part of those at an elevated risk of misusing them; and (2) implementing violence reduction measures where misuse of firearms persists. The human rights group asserts that nations “should establish robust regulatory systems,” including licensing, registration, restriction of certain weapon types, safe storage, research, and policy development. Nationally, the US has done little or nothing in relation to any of these policies for more than twenty-five years, and, due to the influence of the gun lobby, has seen Congress suppress funding for research on gun violence since 1996. Amnesty notes that countries not only have obligations to protect the lives of individuals from state agents but from actual or foreseeable threats at the hands of private individuals as well. Violence is especially foreseeable in low-income neighborhoods with persistently high levels of violence, poor public services, and policing that may not comply with international standards.

Israel’s leading human rights group, B’Tselem, released a report in early 2021 that concluded that there is a “regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. This is apartheid.” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International followed suit soon after.

Israel’s leading human rights group, B’Tselem, released a report in early 2021 that concluded that there is a “regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. This is apartheid.” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International followed suit soon after. More than half a century of occupation and these prominent reports made a difference. Although Palestinians had been saying it for decades, the shift took time to filter through to Western elites and populations. Israel’s illiberalism is now impossible to deny, and many Western liberals no longer feel constrained in saying it.1

Gita Sahgal, who organised the Asian feminists who protested in defence of Salman Rushdie in Parliament Square in 1989. After her employer, the human-rights group Amnesty International, required her to leave for complaining to the press about its alliances with Islamists, her lawyers secured compensation for her.

Attempts to Close the Detention Center The United States Detention Center on the grounds of the Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba was established in January of 2002 by the U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. It was designated as the site for a prison camp, euphemistically called a detention center, to detain prisoners taken in Afghanistan and to a lesser degree from the battlefields of Iraq, Somalia and Asia. The prison was built to hold extremely dangerous individuals and has the facilities to be able to interrogate these detainees in what was said to be “an optimal setting.” Since these prisoners were technically not part of a regular military organization representing a country, the Geneva Conventions did not bind the United States to its rules. The legality of their incarceration is questionable under International Law. This would lead one to the conclusion that this facility was definitely not a country club. Although, in most cases these prisoners were treated humanely, there were obvious exceptions, when the individuals were thought to have pertinent information. It was also the intent of the U.S. Government not to bring them into the United States, where they would be afforded prescribed legal advantages and a more humane setting. Consequently, to house these prisoners, this Spartan prison was constructed at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base instead of on American soil. Here they were out of sight and far removed from any possible legal entanglements that would undoubtedly regulate their treatment. Many of the detainees reported abuses and torture at the facility, which were categorically denied. In 2005 Amnesty International called the facility the “Gulag of our times.” In 2007 and 2008, during his campaign for the Presidency, Obama pledged to close the Detention Center at Guantánamo Bay. After winning the presidential election, he encouraged Congress to close the detention center, without success. Again, he attempted to close the facility on May 3, 2013. At that time, the Senate stopped him by voting to block the necessary funds for the closure. The Republican House remained adamant in their policy towards the President, showing no signs of relenting. It was not until thaw of November of 2014 that any glimmer of hope became apparent. Despite Obama’s desire to close the detention center, he also knew that the Congress, headed by his opposing party, would not revisit this issue any time soon, and if anything were to happen, it would have to be by an executive order. The number has constantly decreased and is now said to be fewer than 60 detainees. There are still problems regarding some of these more aggressive prisoners from countries that do not want them back. It is speculated that eventually some of them may come to the United States to face a federal court. Much is dependent on President-Elect Trump as to what the future holds regarding these incarcerated people.

Manmohan Singh’s lost opportunity The anti-corruption agitations of 2011 provided a wonderful opportunity for the prime minister and his government to start the process of purging the system of corruption and retrieving black money illegally stashed away in foreign banks. The government had two options to get our money back. The first, to behave like a responsible, honourable and strong nation and demonstrate political will to fight corruption using the ample machinery available through international and bilateral legal instruments, the Tax Information Exchange Treaties (TIEAs), Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) automatic exchange route. The Swiss have volunteered cooperation; and India can follow the example of the US and UK, and get India’s stolen money back to the country. Or, the government can take the other option and behave like a banana republic and a failed state, plunder capital from their own country through a UPA-sponsored version of imperialism, perpetuate poverty and backwardness by denying the people of this country their rightful development dividend while repeatedly rewarding and incentivizing the looters with amnesty schemes. Mr Singh’s government has continuously concealed information on black money by fooling the people of our country, shielding the corrupt and guilty who have illegal bank accounts in foreign banks, and by creating obstacles for any progress in the matter instead of taking proactive measures to obtain the information from the foreign governments concerned. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could have chosen the former option and gone down in history as a great patriot and leader of our country, a pioneer against corruption. But sadly, he has lost the opportunity and chosen such, that history will remember him as having presided over the greatest frauds practised on this poor and gullible nation.

Wherever the Four Horsemen (Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, BP Amoco & Royal Dutch/Shell) gallop the CIA is close behind. Iran was no exception. By 1957 the Company, as intelligence insiders know the CIA, created one of its first Frankensteins—the Shah of Iran’s brutal secret police known as SAVAK. Kermit Roosevelt, the Mossadegh coup-master turned Northrop salesman, admitted in his memoirs that SAVAK was 100% created by the CIA and Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency that acts as appendage of the CIA. For the next 20 years the CIA and SAVAK were joined at the hip when it came to matters of Persian Gulf security. Three hundred fifty SAVAK agents were shuttled each year to CIA training facilities in McLean, Virginia, where they learned the finer arts of interrogation and torture. Top SAVAK brass were trained through the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Public Safety Program, until it was shut down in 1973 due to its reputation for turning out some of the world’s finest terrorists…. Popular anger towards Big Oil, the Shah and his new police state resulted in mass protests. The Shah dealt with the peaceful demonstrations with sheer brutality and got a wink and nod from Langley. From 1957-79 Iran housed 125,000 political prisoners. SAVAK “disappeared” dissenters, a strategy replicated by CIA surrogate dictators in Argentina and Chile. … In 1974 the director of Amnesty International declared that no country had a worse human rights record than Iran. The CIA responded by increasing its support for SAVAK.3

Not everyone within Amnesty agreed that they should be campaigning on our behalf. I learnt later that the subject of whether or not the group should support us became quite a hot topic internally. The counter-argument was that, although we had committed no crimes ourselves, the ideology that we preached advocated a gross invasion of human rights: once our version of ‘the Khilafah’ was formed, we advocated an aggressive policy of foreign invasion and expansion, the death penalty for apostates, ‘rebels’ and homosexuals, and a forced dress code for women. Thieves would be punished by having their hands cut off, and adulterous women would be stoned to death. Why should Amnesty campaign for our human rights, when, given the opportunity, we would deprive others of theirs? There’s no easy answer to this question. What if, prior to coming to power, Adolf Hitler had been detained for his not yet violent beliefs in National Socialism?

Today, something can still be done by those who feel a sense of impotence: they can render support to Amnesty International. They can assist it to stand up for justice and freedom.” -Shenita Etwaroo

J. K. Rowling has a passion for writing, but her purpose is much deeper. Before Potter was even a dream, her work at Amnesty International began her lifetime of dedication to human rights worldwide. Her current world stage has allowed her to be an outspoken activist for women and the LGBTQ community, reaching millions of followers with just one tweet. And she is a fierce advocate for the impoverished, the souls whose fate she once shared before Harry Potter. Just as she wrote of her protagonist, her purpose is to help people overcome adversity and instill hope. To see Rowling’s purpose, you need only pick up a book.

Once during the protests before the World Economic Forum, a kind of junket of tycoons, corporate flacks and politicians, networking and sharing cocktails at the Waldorf Astoria, pretended to be discussing ways to alleviate global poverty. I was invited to engage in a radio debate with one of their representatives. As it happened the task went to another activist but I did get far enough to prepare a three-point program that I think would have taken care of the problem nicely: - an immediate amnesty on international debt (An amnesty on personal debt might not be a bad idea either but it’s a different issue.) - an immediate cancellation of all patents and other intellectual property rights related to technology more than one year old - the elimination of all restrictions on global freedom of travel or residence. The rest would pretty much take care of itself. The moment the average resident of Tanzania, or Laos, was no longer forbidden to relocate to Minneapolis or Rotterdam, the government of every rich and powerful country in the world would certainly decide nothing was more important than finding a way to make sure people in Tanzania and Laos preferred to stay there. Do you really think they couldn’t come up with something? (p. 79)