IRAN - Human Rights Defender at Risk for COVID-19 - URGENT ACTION

Amnesty International, USA, July 13, 2020.

Imprisoned Iranian human rights defender Narges Mohammadi, who suffers from serious pre-existing health conditions, is showing suspected COVID-19 symptoms. The authorities are putting her health and life at risk by denying her health care and holding her in inhumane conditions. 

She is held solely for her peaceful human rights work and must be released immediately and unconditionally.

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COLOMBIA - Human Rights Defender in Danger - URGENT ACTION

Amnesty International, USA, 7-10-2020.

On 2 July, the Inter-Ecclesiastic Commission of Justice and Peace received confidential information about an ongoing plan to kill the Human Rights Defender Jani Silva. 

The plan is allegedly run by an armed group called “La mafia” because of the voluntary crops substitution program that Jani Silva is promoting in the Putumayo region (South West), Colombia. 

According to NGOs, “La Mafia” is behind the killings of 14 persons in the Putumayo region since the COVID-19 lockdown started. We are urging the National Protection Unit to increase protection measures for Jani Silva.

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IRAN: Women's Rights Actiivist Prison Sentence Increased - URGENT ACTION

Amnesty International, USA, 7-8-20.

Iranian women’s rights defender Saba Kordafshari, 22, learned in May 2020 that judicial authorities had unlawfully and secretly increased her prison sentence from nine to 24 years by altering an appeal verdict from November 2019, which had quashed her conviction for a charge that carried 15 years in prison. 

She must be immediately and unconditionally released as she is held solely for her human rights work including campaigning against Iran’s discriminatory forced veiling laws.

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SYRIA: Demand Aid for North-West Syria - ONLINE PETITION

Amnesty International, Canada, 7-3-2020

Today, millions of civilians in north-west Syria urgently need food, medicine, clean water and adequate shelter. Cornered in a crowded and ever-shrinking area that was already struggling to accommodate the needs of its population, the displaced continue to suffer intolerable living conditions. They need timely and sustained humanitarian aid.

This alarming situation is the result of air and ground attacks by Syrian and Russian government forces on civilians and civilian objects such as residential homes, medical facilities and schools in north-west Syria. Between December 2019 and March 2020, these attacks have killed or injured scores of civilians and around one million were forced to flee their homes towards the Turkish border.

On 10 July, UN Security Council Resolution 2504, the only way that the UN can continue to deliver vital aid across the Turkish border to people in north-west Syria. will expire. This resolution is a lifeline for desperate civilians and must be renewed.

We are concerned that some states, like Russia, plan to veto the resolution, which would only worsen an already dire humanitarian situation. We must all act now to ensure that civilians in north-west Syria continue to receive timely and sustained humanitarian aid and we need your support to put pressure on Russia to make this happen.

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IRAN: Syrian Kurd at Risk for Execution - URGENT ACTION

Amnesty International, USA, June 27, 2020.

Kamal Hassan Ramezan Soulo, a Syrian Kurd arbitrarily detained in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, has been at risk of arbitrary execution for three years because ministry of intelligence officials refuse to acknowledge his real identity and instead are torturing and otherwise ill-treating him to make false “confessions” that he took part in an armed attack. 

They continue to seek his execution by claiming that he is a different man, despite two court rulings dismissing the claims. He must be released immediately.

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USA: Demand ICE Release Detainees - ONLINE ACTION

Amnesty International, USA, June 16, 2020.

As the world responds to an unprecedented crisis unfolding from the COVID-19 pandemic, people, locked up in U.S. immigration detention face these uncertain times while left behind in facilities -- where crowded conditions place them at increased risk of infection and where access to medical care may be limited.

Detained immigrants and asylum-seekers face grave risks including illness and even death if exposed to infection in immigration detention facilities — where rapid spread within crowded centers may occur. Many of them are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 because of their age or serious medical needs. 

Conditions in immigration detention are well-documented to have substandard medical care, inadequate basic hygiene, and overcrowding.

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AMNESTY DEATH PENALTY PROJECT - Report

Amnesty, UK, June 13, 2020.

Although not yet illegal in itself, the death penalty continued to be used in ways that violated international law and standards in 2019. Some examples include:

At least 13 public executions were recorded in Iran.

At least 6 people – 4 in Iran, 1 in Saudi Arabia and 1 in South Sudan – were executed for crimes that occurred when they were below 18 years of age; Amnesty International believed that other people in this category remained on death row in Maldives, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and South Sudan.

13 People with mental or intellectual disabilities were under sentence of death in several countries, including Japan, Maldives, Pakistan and USA.

Death sentences were known to have been imposed after proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards in several countries, including Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Viet Nam and Yemen.

“Confessions” that may have been extracted through torture or other ill-treatment were used to convict and sentence people to death in Bahrain, Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Death sentences were imposed without the defendant being present (in absentia) in Bangladesh and Lebanon.

You can read or download Amnesty International’s report – Death sentences and executions 2019 here