Special Interest Groups

• WHAT IS ITS MISSION?
• HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?
• PRIMARY FUNCTIONS
• PROGRAMS
• BUDGET INFORMATION
• HISTORY
• CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES
• FUTURE DIRECTIONS
• GROUP RESOURCES
• GROUP PUBLICATIONS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY

ESTABLISHED: 1961
EMPLOYEES: 86 (1997)
MEMBERS: 300,000 (1997)

Contact Information:
ADDRESS: 322 Eighth Ave. New York, NY 10001
PHONE: (212) 807-8400
FAX: (212) 627-1451
E-MAIL: aimember@aiusa.org
URL: http://www.amnesty-usa.org
CHAIRMAN: Morton E. Winston
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: William Schulz
SENIOR DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Curt Goering

WHAT IS ITS MISSION?

As the U.S. section of the worldwide Amnesty International organization, Amnesty International of the USA (Amnesty USA; AIUSA) works to uphold the organization's statutes. Thus, Amnesty USA opposes "grave violations of the rights of every person freely to hold and to express his or her convictions and to be free from discrimination and of the right of every person to physical and mental integrity."

An international organization, Amnesty International engages in the protection of human rights of people throughout the world. Their work and beliefs are based on the principles set forth in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and on related human rights standards adopted by the United Nations (UN). Regardless of the philosophy of the government where perceived human rights violations occur, the organization opposes illegal detention, political imprisonment, torture, and the death penalty. The group works for the immediate and unconditional release of "prisoners of conscience," people detained for political beliefs, color, ethnic origin, language or religion, but who do not use or advocate violence. The organization also works for fair and speedy trials for political prisoners and supports prisoners who are detained without being tried.

AIUSA volunteers, however, would not be found advocating for prisoners in the United States. In order to maintain independence and impartiality, national sections of Amnesty International, such as AIUSA, work on behalf of prisoners of other countries. Thus human rights violations and conditions for prisoners in the United States would be addressed by one of the organization's other national sections.

HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?

Amnesty International is a worldwide group of volunteers with over a million members organized into national sections and affiliated groups. With 300,000 members, Amnesty USA is the largest of Amnesty's 54 national organizations. The parent organization's policies are determined by an International Council that meets at least once every two years. Between meetings of the International Council an International Executive Committee of nine members meets at least twice a year and sets direction for the organization. Eight of the Executive Committee members are elected to two-year terms by the International Council; the ninth is a member of the International Secretariat. No more than one person from any section or group of Amnesty can serve on the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee appoints a secretary general who is responsible for day-to-day operations, and that person appoints as many staff members as necessary to complete the work of the International Secretariat, located in London.

AIUSA is supervised by an 18-member board of directors. The board selects an executive director, who runs the organization's staff. Policy is determined at the international level, and interpreted and carried out by the national board and executive director. Headquarters are located in New York City, New York. Amnesty USA also maintains a Washington, D.C., office focused on governmental programs overseas; regional offices in San Francisco, California; Culver City, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Washington, D.C., and Somerville, Maryland; an Urgent Action office in Nederland, Colorado; a refugee office in San Francisco, and a UN office in New York, New York.

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS

Amnesty International and Amnesty USA use publicity and grassroots political pressure in their efforts to protect the human rights of all peoples. AIUSA mounts many advertising campaigns that bring attention to human rights abuses around the world. For example, in the 1990s AIUSA took part in the Campaign for Women. Based on evidence collected by Amnesty International, AIUSA ran advertisements in the press, issued reports, and gave interviews on the many human rights abuses women are subjected to, oftentime specifically because of their gender. By raising public consciousness of the plight of women, AIUSA hoped to pressure the United States and other governments to take action to protect women. AIUSA members were also encouraged to contact their congressmen and urge them to ratify the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Amnesty International is particularly well known for its efforts on behalf of prisoners. It seeks the release of prisoners who are being held unjustly, such as "prisoners of conscience," or prisoners of any type who are being treated inhumanely. When Amnesty International researchers discover prisoners who need help, they are assigned to one or more local Amnesty groups. The groups "adopt" the prisoners assigned to them. Members of the local groups write appeals to the appropriate public officials including cabinet members and prison officials. They also solicit publicity for their cause and often seek out famous people to endorse these appeals. They correspond with the prisoners' families and send relief parcels. Amnesty staffers or volunteers often visit the offending nation's embassy or trade delegation in their own country.

Amnesty International and AIUSA also at times send observers to political trials to ensure they are conducted fairly. Its members may directly urge governments to give political prisoners a fair trial or may ask for an independent review of trial procedures. The group often calls for legislation to ensure impartial trials and pressures governments to comply with UN standards for humane treatment of prisoners, especially its ban on torture.

As with all Amnesty groups, AIUSA never claims credit for the release of specific prisoners. But AIUSA, with its large numbers and sophisticated Urgent Action Network, clearly has been one of the most effective international organizations. In 1996 it aided in gaining the release of 400 prisoners in Morocco, and was helpful in obtaining the release of Chinese dissidents Tong Yi and Liu Gang.

PROGRAMS

AIUSA has many programs that help it to carry out the overall mission of Amnesty International. Most programs are designed to generate publicity about ongoing human rights abuses, including torture and the use of the death penalty, or to directly aid those who are victims of such abuses. Some of AIUSA's many programs include the Urgent Action Network, the Program to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the Defending the Defenders Program.

The Urgent Action Network was established in 1972 as part of an Amnesty International effort to mobilize opposition to torture. Since then, it has grown into one of AIUSA's best means of generating direct support for prisoners among AIUSA members and the general public. Anyone can subscribe to the Network through mail and, in more recent years, the Internet. The Urgent Action Network publicizes cases of abuse and unjust imprisonment of a particularly urgent nature, directing members and the public as to how they can help—usually by writing letters.

The Program to Abolish the Death Penalty represents Amnesty USA's effort to fulfill one of the major goals of the Amnesty International organization. In the short-term, the program uses education and grassroots political activism to push for a reduction in the use of the death penalty but in the long-term advocates for the elimination of the death sentence from the world's legal systems. The program publishes the Death Penalty Newsletter six times annually. Available to both AIUSA members who are leading efforts against the death penalty and to other interested parties, the newsletter details major news events in the fight against the death penalty, focusing primarily on the United States. The newsletter also contains information on upcoming anti-death penalty events and helps to coordinate AIUSA action. The program also manages a Weekly Death Penalty Action, where it describes a case of concern to AIUSA and recommends specific action that AIUSA members and other interested parties can take to help.

Defending the Defenders is a program jointly initiated by AIUSA and the Sierra Club in 1999. Its purpose is to save defenders of the environment from persecution and human rights abuses. AIUSA is concerned by the increasing number of prisoners of conscience who are suffering because they have tried to protect the environment from unscrupulous governments and corporations. Through the Defending the Defenders Program's press releases and letter writing campaigns, AIUSA and the Sierra Club hope to draw attention to this growing problem and protect both the environment and human rights.

BUDGET INFORMATION

AIUSA is funded primarily by donations from members and supporters. It does not accept contributions from any governments or political parties. For the fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, AIUSA reported $19,154,956 in contributions from individuals. It also received $499,842 from foundations; $1,367,461 in bequests; $1,975,610 in donated services (primarily professional help in public service announcements); $287,843 in literature and merchandise sales; $99,870 in rentals of mailing list, and various other items for total revenues of $24,519,147.

AIUSA reported expenses of $23,961,948 for its fiscal year 1996. Of that amount, $7,258,955 was spent on communications and publications; $5,123,412 went to the International Secretariat; $3,772,540 funded campaigns and actions; $3,316,984 was expended on fund-raising; $2,960,778 went to membership programs; and $1,529,279 was spent on management and general expenses. As of September 30, 1996, Amnesty USA reported total assets of $10,441,492.

HISTORY

The founder of Amnesty International, British lawyer Peter Benenson, first became active in human rights issues after learning of and joining an organization of lawyers called Justice in 1957. In May of 1961, after reading of the brutal repression of students in Portugal, Benenson decided to start a worldwide group. With other British lawyers and publishers he drafted the "Appeal for Amnesty, 1961," which called for the release of all "prisoners of conscience." The appeal brought more than one thousand offers of support for the idea of an international human rights organization.

The British organizers of Amnesty set up a system of local groups, including neighbors, co-workers, and church members who would "adopt" prisoners and publicize their plight through letter-writing campaigns. A friend of Benenson, Diana Redhouse, designed the organization's symbol—a candle burning in barbed wire.

In July 1961 an assembly of delegates from six nations met in Luxembourg and decided to broaden the appeal into a permanent international campaign. Within 12 months of its founding, Amnesty International had chapters and groups in 21 nations, had taken up 210 cases, and had sent delegations to four countries to lobby for better treatment of prisoners. The U.S. section of Amnesty International was one of the first national sections to be formed. Its cofounder, Ginetta Sagan, brought a few people together in her kitchen in the San Francisco Bay Area of California to launch the group.

Since inception, Amnesty International has encouraged its members to focus on cases outside their own countries, giving the organization a reputation for independence and impartiality.

Growth and Crisis in the 1960s

With the help of Major John McBride, an Irish resistance fighter, Benenson undertook Amnesty's first "missions" to help individual prisoners. One of the first cases the group took up was that of Archbishop Josef Beran of Prague; within a few years he was freed. Early on, the group also "adopted" Nelson Mandela of South Africa, although in later years Amnesty's support of Mandela diminished, because of his advocacy of violent resistance.

In 1964 Benenson traveled to Haiti, where infamous dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier was conducting a reign of terror. Amnesty issued a report on conditions in Haiti that received worldwide attention. Amnesty International membership grew from 70 groups in 1962 to 360 in 1964. In 1965, when thousands wanted to join who were not affiliated with local groups, Amnesty International began sending action kits to individual members. These kits contained Amnesty International greeting cards and monthly newsletters instructing members on where they should send cards in order to appeal to authorities about inhumane conditions. That same year Amnesty sponsored the UN resolution calling for an end to capital punishment, and issued reports on South Africa, Portugal, and Romania.

Amnesty went through a crisis between 1965 and 1967 when it exposed British atrocities in Aden (at the time a British protectorate between Yemen and Oman). The British government denied the reports. The organization became caught up in political infighting, and Benenson resigned his post. After this crisis, the rule that members would work only on cases outside their country became firmly established.

In 1968 Martin Ennals became Amnesty International's secretary general at a conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Also in 1968, an Amnesty International report embarrassed the new junta in Greece by exposing the military leaders' prison torture techniques and other human rights violations. During the late 1960s members formed local prisoner adoption groups to work on campaigns in specific countries and on grassroots fund-raising drives in their own communities.

Gaining Credibility: the 1970s and 1980s

In 1973 Amnesty International issued its first comprehensive report on human rights abuses around the globe, covering the previous decade. Since 1975 when the report was updated, Amnesty International has issued annual reports, which become the most authoritative handbooks for assessing how well governments observe human rights. In 1977 Amnesty International won the Nobel Peace Prize for its work.

During the early 1980s the number of Amnesty USA groups on college campuses increased. Because most of their members were students and therefore transient, these campus-based groups did not adopt prisoners. Instead, they worked on campaigns, organized publicity, and wrote letters on behalf of other groups' adopted prisoners.

Amnesty International, while always strong in Europe and the United States, continued to grow as an international movement throughout the 1980s. Many new sections were added in Africa, the Middle East, Central America, South America, and Asia. Amnesty's "urgent action messages" often brought swift results. When a prominent physician was imprisoned by the Chilean government for accusing the Pinochet regime of torturing dissidents, Amnesty alerted activists in over 50 nations. Their ambassadors' protests pressured Chilean authorities into releasing the doctor within a few days.

During the tenure of Executive Director Jack Healey, from 1981 to 1992, AIUSA's membership grew from 40,000 to 400,000 and its budget grew from $2.5 million to $22 million. Healey also forged strong ties with the music industry. Starting in 1986, benefit concert tours were held regularly to raise money for Amnesty International. The initial 1986 Conspiracy of Hope tour featured U2, Peter Gabriel, the Police, Bryan Adams, Joan Baez, and Jackson Brown. The 1988 Human Rights Now! tour was headlined by Bruce Springsteen, Sting, and Tracy Chapman and played 20 locations on five continents. In 1991 Billboard magazine awarded Amnesty International the first Bill Graham Award for outstanding contributions to the music industry.

The 1990s

With the end of the Cold War, Amnesty International groups quickly sprouted in the former Soviet-occupied countries of eastern Europe and the new republics that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union. In 1993 Amnesty was the principal organizer of the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria, that brought together delegates from 154 nations and two thousand non-governmental organizations. That same year it launched a new campaign against human rights violations in nominally democratic countries, focusing on the counter-insurgency tactics of the governments of Peru, Turkey, and Sri Lanka.

In the United States and abroad, Amnesty International employs public service announcements on television and over the Internet to promote its work, often using television and movie celebrities. Amnesty International became a leader in bringing its message to new audiences through sophisticated use of the media. It remains one of the most prominent human rights organization in the world, and journalists worldwide rely on Amnesty International for information on human rights abuses.

CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES

The nature of Amnesty International and Amnesty USA's mission involves it in a great deal of controversy. The organization routinely finds itself in conflict with various governments over the use of torture, secret trials, unfair trials where prisoner's cannot choose their own lawyers or defend themselves, and the use of the death penalty. While Amnesty International is not a prison reform group, its mission includes efforts to ensure that prisoners are held in proper conditions, especially prisoners of conscience. It seeks to improve prison conditions when conditions are deemed inhumane.

Case Study: American Use and Export of Stun Guns

In 1997 and 1998, Amnesty International began, for the first time, to systematically study human rights abuses within the United States. The organization's concern arose out of growing sales of U.S.-made stun weapons to both domestic and international consumers. Electro-shock or stun weapons, devices designed to incapacitate a person with a powerful electric shock, are a major concern for Amnesty International. The organization claims that electro-shock devices such as tasers and stun belts are unsafe and often used for torture. The group claims that there has been little scientific study on the long-term effects of the stun weapons or the effects on people suffering from heart or breathing conditions. Because stun weapons are easy to use and leave little physical evidence, Amnesty International fears that they are ideal torture devices for use against prisoners.

In a March 1997 report, Amnesty International listed 100 manufacturers of stun devices. Forty-two of the companies on the list were U.S. companies and many of them enjoyed a healthy export business. Amnesty International reported that U.S. companies had sold stun weapons to repressive regimes in Panama, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates—all nations where torture is known to have been used.

Although the United States is not generally considered to be a nation where prisoners are at risk of torture, the widespread use of stun weapons disturbed Amnesty International. For the first time, Amnesty International began an in-depth study of possible human rights abuses in the United States, and the organization discovered many instances when electro-shock devices were misused. For example, in 1986 the Los Angles police used a stun gun to force a confession from a 17-year-old boy accused of stealing. In this case the officers involved were prosecuted and a monetary settlement was made with the teenager.

It was learned that in the Phoenix, Arizona, jail system, all jail guards carried stun guns. A U.S. Department of Justice investigation found that the devices were sometimes used to torture the prisoners. Although the Maricopa County Jail disputed the allegations, in 1996 an inmate at the Maricopa jail died while fighting with officers. Examination of his body disclosed 21 electro-shock burns. In August 1997, Amnesty International released details of several more incidents of mistreatment involving stun guns in Phoenix area jails.

Amnesty International was very disturbed by the increasing use of electro-shock belts to maintain order within chain gangs in the state of Wisconsin. Amnesty International already considered chain gangs to be a violation of a prisoner's human rights, and using electro-shock devices only made the practice more degrading and dangerous. When the belt was used on a 17-year-old inmate, Amnesty cited the act as a violation of the international convention on the rights of the child.

Public Impact

Based on the use of electro-shock weapons in the United States and other human rights abuses including inhumane prisons, unjust treatment of asylum seekers, police brutality, and the use of the death penalty, in October 1998 Amnesty International launched a Campaign on the United States. It is important to note that this action was not initiated or directed by the USA section of Amnesty International (a section does not campaign against its home country). However, members of Amnesty International as individuals, including U.S. members, were encouraged to join in the letter writing campaigns and other efforts to raise public awareness that Amnesty International hopes will lead to reforms in the United States' treatment of prisoners and will limit sales of electro-shock weapons.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

A future focus for AIUSA and Amnesty International is the establishment of an International Criminal Court, which it first called for in 1993. In the first of a series of position papers published in 1997 and 1998, Amnesty International noted that many nations had failed to call their own leaders to account for atrocities committed in the half century since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals held to try fascist war criminals the end of World War II (1939-45). Amnesty International urged that an International Court should "have jurisdiction over genocide, other crimes against humanity and serious violations of humanitarian law," including widespread murder, forced disappearance, torture, rape, arbitrary deportation, political persecution, and arbitrary imprisonment.

GROUP RESOURCES

Amnesty International USA maintains a Web site at http://www.amnesty-usa.org that contains basic information about the organization as well as detailed summaries of its current campaigns and programs. Amnesty frequently produces press releases and has produced a CD-ROM on its work. Amnesty's Urgent Action Network sends information to members via E-mail and other means, urging them to write appeals to authorities in targeted countries. Additional information about Amnesty International USA can be obtained by writing Amnesty International USA, 322 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10001 or by calling (212) 807-8400.

GROUP PUBLICATIONS

Amnesty has a 28-page catalogue of publications for sale including: reports on individual countries' human rights records, its annual report on human rights situations worldwide, newsletters, and calendars. Amnesty also maintains an on-line library that contains its annual and country reports at http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/index.html. Amnesty International also publishes The I.S. Newsletter, a monthly newsletter. The catalogue and The
I.S. Newsletter are available by calling (212) 807-8400 or by writing to Amnesty International USA, Publications, 322 Eighth Ave., New York, New York 10001.