Tag Archives: reparations for victims

The Science of Torture

June 27, 2014 at 8:00 AM

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The stench of rotting flesh coming from the tiny, cramped cell overpowered him. This was the smell of torture.

As soon he set one foot inside the small room at a police detention center in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, Forensic Doctor Duarte Vieira was shocked. He had never seen anything as bad – and he had seen plenty.

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Introducing Amnesty’s New Global Campaign Against Torture

May 12, 2014 at 7:50 PM

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Darrell Cannon was tortured by three Chicago Police Department detectives at a remote site on Chicago’s South Side. Over course of a day, they pressed a cattle prod to his testicles and put it into his mouth. The officers attempted to lift him off the ground by handcuffs secured behind his back, contorting his upper body. They repeatedly made him believe that they had loaded a shotgun and rammed in into his mouth, breaking his tooth.

“These are all things they enjoyed doing,” Darrell Cannon told Amnesty International, his voice cracking.

He spent 24 years in prison on the basis of a coerced confession that was tortured out of him – ten of those years suffering further degradation in solitary confinement at Tamms Supermax prison.

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One Year After Factory Disaster, What Have We Learned?

April 24, 2014 at 12:15 PM
The Rana Plaza catastrophe on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on April 24, 2013, that left 1,138 dead and more than 2,000 injured (Photo Credit: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images).

The Rana Plaza catastrophe on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on April 24, 2013, that left 1,138 dead and more than 2,000 injured (Photo Credit: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images).

Today is the one-year anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building in Bangladesh, which left more than 1,100 workers dead and many more injured.  The disaster has become the most shocking recent example of business-related human rights abuse, and the images of dead workers in the debris of the collapsed factory have become powerful symbols of the pursuit of profit at the expense of people.

The Rana Plaza building housed numerous garment factories supplying international clothing companies. Over the past year, there have been various initiatives to provide compensation to the victims, involving government, global brands, and the International Labor Organization (ILO). However, these efforts have so far proved insufficient, and survivors continue to suffer and struggle to support themselves and their families.

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THIS EXISTS: Country That Forced 200,000 Women Into Sexual Slavery

April 10, 2014 at 10:36 AM
Women from the house of sharing at the 'Wednesday Demo' outside Japanese Embassy, Seoul. (Photo Credit: Amnesty International)

Women from the house of sharing at the ‘Wednesday Demo’ outside Japanese Embassy, Seoul (Photo Credit: Amnesty International).

By Alice Dahle, Amnesty USA’s Women’s Human Rights Coordination Group

Before and during World War II, as the Japanese Imperial Army occupied countries throughout the Asia Pacific region, they deceived, abducted or otherwise forced an estimated 200,000 women and girls, some as young as 12 years old, into a system of sexual slavery.

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Introducing New Legislation That Will Help Families of Murder Victims

April 9, 2014 at 12:28 PM
Maryland has become a model for directing the cost savings from repeal to taking care of murder victims’ family members (Photo Credit: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images).

Maryland has become a model for directing the cost savings from repeal to taking care of murder victims’ family members (Photo Credit: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images).

By Andrea Hall, Mid Atlantic Regional Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator

Our victory is now complete. When Maryland’s death penalty was abolished last year, we knew that our work wasn’t finished, because homicide victims matter. With legislation passed last weekend, the state became a model for directing the cost savings from repeal to taking care of murder victims’ family members.

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How Nigerians Are Fighting Back Against Oil Companies

March 14, 2014 at 12:00 PM

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By Joe Westby, Amnesty International Corporate Campaigner and Onyekachi Okoro, Media for Justice Program, Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD)

“People are dying silently. The oil companies bring sickness to our communities,” a man from a polluted community in Nigeria’s Bayelsa state told us.

But when it comes to oil spills in the Niger Delta, it’s not what you’ve suffered or what you know; it’s what you can prove.

This simple fact has hampered communities from obtaining justice, even when their lives have been turned upside down by pollution. Because the oil companies have significant control over determining vital data about oil spills, the affected communities lack reliable and impartial information, meaning they can’t effectively tell their side of the story.

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