“The human rights movement has grown
in strength and numbers and consciousness
of human rights is undoubtedly greater
than ever,” Amnesty Secretary General
Pierre Sane wrote in his report. “Yet
repression, poverty and war devastate the
lives of much of humanity.”
The Amnesty International report documents
61 extrajudicial executions, 63 prisoners
of conscience, and cases of torture in
at least 125 countries.
Amnesty International then said that governments
must protect human rights even while globalization
puts more power into the hands of international
corporations and financial institutions.
“States have to confront their cowardice,
their cover-ups and their efforts to shirk
responsibilities,” the London based
group said in a statement. “They
have the power, despite external constraints,
to deliver human rights if they have the
political will.”
Globalization,
the group said, was supposed to bring
in post cold war prosperity. It
once promised “a new world order
that would bring in freedom and prosperity
for all,” Sane said.
However, the group said, globalization
has exploited workers and brought economic
instability to many countries. According
to Amnesty, more than 80 nations had a
lower per capita income in 2000 than they
had in 1999.
“The forces against human rights
may be formidable,” Amnesty said, “but
the outrage at injustice that led to the
founding of Amnesty International 40 years
ago continues to motivate millions of people
to tackle governments with a determination
to build a better world.”
Amnesty
International was founded in 1961 in
London, when The Observer newspaper
published a piece by Peter Benenson, a
London lawyer calling for the release of “prisoners
of conscience” who were incarcerated
because of their religious beliefs.
Amnesty
International now employs 350 staff with
an annual budget of $28 million,
dealing with the cases of 47,000 prisoners
of conscience. Although many tales are
grim, the group said they “applauded
the birth of a new network of protest movements
that use the Internet and other new technologies.”
