Monthly update from Salil Shetty

Dear all,
 
April has been another month of extensive travels.
 
At the beginning of this month, I spent some days with our impressive new MENA Regional Office team in Lebanon. President Michel Aoun welcomed the establishment of our office and assured us of his commitment to expedite a National Commission for the Disappeared. Prime Minister Saad Hariri committed that Lebanon would not return refugees until the UN and the international community said it was safe. I spoke at the prestigious American University of Beirut about why human rights matter in times of crisis, and it was truly inspiring to visit a very innovative local organisation MARCH in Tripoli who do excellent work with marginalised youth facing ongoing cycles of violence. The manner in which tiny and relatively resource poor Lebanon with only 6 million people has welcomed a million Syrian refugees on top of half a million Palestinian refugees whom they have been hosting for decades puts the richer countries in the world to shame.
 
Then to Ethiopia for meetings with government and the African Union. The meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Workneh Gebeyehu was surprisingly candid as we touched on issues both at the regional level like the worsening situation in South Sudan and the human rights violations in Ethiopia.
 
We launched an impressive report on strengthening the African Union’s growing efforts to respond to human rights violations committed in the lead-up to and the course of conflict situations. The Ethiopian authorities ordered the cancellation of our invitation-only launch event on the day under the State of Emergency Proclamation – the irony was that this generated a great deal more interest in our findings and recommendations across many of the Ambassadors and staff.
 
But the primary purpose of going to Ethiopia was to speak at the 6th Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa, held annually in Bahir Dar, the source of the Blue Nile – an event midwifed by Nigeria’s ex-President Obasanjo and late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. My main intervention was on the role human rights abuses play as the underlying drivers of conflicts, and on the preventive actions that can and should be taken by African leaders. The meeting had many key African leaders including the heads of government from Ethiopia and Uganda and several other current and past leaders from the continent.
 
I am just back in London from New York where together with Nicole Bieske (the Chair of International Board), I have been attending an annual meeting of the CEOs and chairs of the major international NGOs. The discussions were focussed on how the Sustainable Development Goals could be met in the face of the challenges of shrinking civic space and populism which affect us all.
 
A big highlight this month was the launch of our annual death penalty statistics report in Hong Kong, alongside a China-specific investigation. For decades we have named China as the world’s worst executioner, and this year we wanted a strong focus on the thousands we estimate to be executed in China each year. Our call for China to come clean on its use of the death penalty had an enormous impact in the international media. The authorities reacted by cutting the BBC signal in mainland China during a segment on our report. Unusually there was no official response, suggesting that the authorities were hit hard by the wave of coverage and the focus on their secrecy. One key commentator said, “Pushing for the Chinese government to release the number [of people executed or sentenced to death] is perhaps the most effective way to drive it down”.
 
2017 marks 40 years since Amnesty began our global campaign to end the death penalty. In that period, we have seen remarkable progress. The number of abolitionist countries have risen from 16 to 104. The struggle continues, including with our campaigns in Arkansas and the Philippines. But there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic too. Only this week, we received the wonderful news from Iran that Saalar Shadizadi, who was arrested when he was a child and whose case we have campaigned on since 2015, has been released after 10 years on death row.
 
Following soon after the annual report launch in Paris with Amnesty France, this was the first time we have launched a global report from a regional office. It was another milestone for Amnesty’s increasingly global character, strengthening our brand in East Asia and signalling to Beijing our leadership on the death penalty and or ability to generate worldwide media attention.
 
In my January monthly update I had mentioned that we had expected Write for Rights to break all previous records this year by crossing the 4 million mark. The overall number of actions increased by over 24% compared with 2015, with at least 4,660,774 actions! On average 43% of participants were new to Amnesty. Amnesty campaigners visited the prison in Cameroon where Fomusoh Ivo Feh and his friends are locked away for sending a joke SMS – they all said that Write for Rights had given them courage. Land rights defender Máxima was hand-delivered over 150,000 cards and letters, and she wants Amnesty to continue fighting for protection of all women human rights defenders in Peru. In Malawi, sunscreen lotions, which are not easily accessible for people with albinism, are now being distributed to more government-run hospitals and medical centres.
 
Thanks to our advocacy and campaigning efforts following from our January 2016 report, This is What We Die For, Apple has become the first company to publish a list of all of its cobalt smelters in line with international standards on supply chain due diligence. This is a significant positive sign and shows that corporate actors can track their supply chains if they try.
 
Similarly, companies are feeling the pressure to respond to our calls in the report, The Great Palm Oil Scandal. Wilmar, the world’s biggest palm oil trader, gave us a 12-month action plan to pursue to address serious labour abuses which we highlighted. Companies buying from Wilmar, such as Unilever and P&G, are acting more transparently than before. They report they are taking action and raising our concerns directly with Wilmar. While much work still needs to be done, these signs are encouraging and support our strategy of exerting public pressure on targeted companies to ensure better conditions in the palm oil sector.
 
Togo gave us a good example this month of how we can work effectively as a movement to achieve human rights change. Following work on the UN Universal Periodic Review from various Amnesty entities and partners in the countries, Togo criminalised torture and set up a National Preventive Mechanism, took action against officers who used excessive force, released two prisoners of conscience and around eight political prisoners who were arbitrarily detained, among other things.
 
As part of our growing digital verification and analysis work, we investigated extrajudicial executions in North Sinai and were able to analyse and verify video footage of the killings of an unarmed man and a 17-year-old child by a member of the Egyptian military. The video also showed US Humvee armoured vehicles, providing further evidence of the USA transferring military equipment without monitoring the extent to which it may be used to commit or facilitate serious human rights violations. Our output received good media coverage locally and internationally and provides a good foundation for further advocacy.
 
My last monthly update was written from Colombo, Sri Lanka, where we held our Chairs’ Assembly and Directors’ Forum for the first time. Immediately after that I travelled through the troubled north of the country with colleagues from the South Asia team at the IS and New Zealand Section Director Grant Bayldon. In the poignant company of mothers and wives of the disappeared in Mannar, we launched a report, Only Justice Can Heal Our Wounds, which strongly urges the government to deliver justice for them. We toured numerous protests across the Northern Province, meeting with people who had been evicted from land and those holding vigils for their disappeared loved ones. Their courage and resilience in the face of threats is remarkable. Encouragingly, since our visit to one land rights protest the Navy has agreed to return a significant portion of the land it has occupied.
 
This was followed by meetings with the Chief Minister, the head of the Northern Provincial Council, and with both regional and national media. Our main call was that the commitment made by Prime Minister Ranil Wicrekemsinghe during our meeting to publish a much-needed roadmap for accountability must be honoured quickly – and the roadmap turned into action. The visit to Sri Lanka ended with an important event held jointly with the Law and Society Trust speaking alongside the respected head of the National Human Rights Commission and others on the importance of economic, social and cultural rights in the formulation of the new Sri Lankan constitution, and its linkages with the peace and accountability agenda in the north.
 
Many of you would have already seen the message from our International Chair Nicole Bieske that I will not be seeking further extension beyond my second four-year term which concludes at the end of June 2018. This was always the plan, and I am sure we will attract some great candidates for the role of Secretary General. We have ample time to ensure a smooth transition. But all this is still more than a year away, and all of us across the movement have a lot to accomplish between now and then to realise our Strategic Goals, despite the turbulent external context.
 
Best,
 
Salil