by Willy Leung Many of you have probably never heard of Amnesty International before. What is Amnesty International? Amnesty International (commonly known as “Amnesty” and abbreviated as “AI”) is an international non-governmental organization that demands justice for those whose rights have been violated. It is a worldwide movement of 2.2 million people who campaign on Human Rights in more than 150 countries and territories. Their vision is for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international Human Rights standards. This is an organization that is independent from any government, religion, political ideology and economic interest. The five key areas in which Amnesty International deal with are: Women’s Rights, Children’s Rights, Ending Torture and Execution, Rights of Refugees and Rights of Prisoners of Conscience. But when was Amnesty International actually created? More than four decades ago, the story of two Portuguese students sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for raising a toast to freedom horrified British lawyer Peter Benenson. He wrote to the British newspaper, The Observer, calling for an international campaign to bombard authorities around the world with protests about the “forgotten prisoners”. On May 28th, 1961, the newspaper launched a year long campaign, Appeal for Amnesty 1961, calling on people everywhere to protest against the imprisonment of men and women for their political or religious beliefs – “prisoners of conscience”.
Amnesty International is largely made up of voluntary members but it retains a small number of paid professionals. In Taiwan, Amnesty International is formed of members (voluntary and non-voluntary) who are interested in the struggle for Human Rights. There are currently two groups in Taipei, one held in Chinese, and the other conducted in English. The organization’s objective is to stop the abuses of Human Rights by mobilizing the public to put pressure on governments, armed political groups, companies and intergovernmental bodies by taking actions like public demonstrations, vigils, letter-writing campaigns, Human Rights education, awareness-raising concerts, e-mail petitions, online actions, targeted appeals and community activities, etc. Currently done activities in Taiwan include letter-writing petitions and targeted appeals; people can sign their names on the letters showing their support for the cause, and in the end, these letters are sent out to their final destination. A few examples of these letters are: The stopping of executions (death penalty) in other countries, the release of people who have been illegally arrested or sentenced, etc. Generally speaking, there has been some controversial cases and reasons to explain why some people find Amnesty International’s actions unacceptable. The criticism of Amnesty International may be classified into two major categories: selection bias and ideological bias. Due to the fact that information is more easily obtainable in democratic countries, plus these governments are more susceptible to public pressure, Amnesty International has admitted to reporting more on relatively democratic and open countries (selection bias) rather than on autocratic (repressive) countries. On the other hand, one of Amnesty International’s major aims is to decriminalize abortion in order to defend women at risk. The Catholic Church has criticized Amnesty for its stance on abortion, which is found unforgivable to the Catholic Church. Amnesty International declared that they stand alongside the victims and survivors of Human Rights violations. For them, a woman who gets pregnant by rape can experience social ostracism and discrimination from the people around her; therefore, Amnesty International states that there shouldn’t be any problems for women seeking abortion, especially when these women never wanted to get pregnant in the first place. Amnesty International keeps fighting with Christian beliefs, implying that the organization itself is a movement dedicated to upholding Human Rights and not specific theologies, where their purpose invokes the law and the state, not God. Therefore from Amnesty’s point of view, abortion should be considered legal and non-problematic since people are innocent from their actions and they should have their rights defended as women. I hope that this introduction to Amnesty International has made you think of the importance of Human Rights, and perhaps aroused your interest in more issues regarding Human Rights in the future. If you would like to join the meetings of the English speaking group in Taipei and discuss further issues related to these topics, find out more about Amnesty International at http://www.aitaiwan.org.tw/ or http://amnestytaipei.wordpress.com/. a
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May 2024
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