INTRODUCTION / AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL – A WORLDWIDE CAMPAIGN
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is feasible, the international human rights movement must proclaim the rights of those who are not permitted to proclaim their own.
Amnesty International has been a part of this movement since its foundation in 1961. The organization was born out of a sense of outrage at violations of human rights perpetrated despite the assent of governments to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thirty years on, its members remain outraged. This report, covering 141 countries, shows why. Accounts of prisoners of conscience, unfair trials of political prisoners, torture, "disappearances" after arrest and judi- cial and extrajudicial executions still arrive at Amnesty International's offices every day from different corners of the earth.
There have never been valid excuses for the commission of these gross viol- ations of human rights. The first excuse for the sin of omission – of failure to act - is ignorance. The human rights movement acting at local, national, regional and international levels has today deprived governments and most peoples of that excuse. The world has also too often heard governments' excuses that politi- cal and economic interests override human rights issues the events of 1990 should have put an end to these excuses once and for all.
In the last decade of the 20th century it is not enough for some people to feel vindicated and others ashamed because of the changes which have improved respect for human rights in some countries. It is a time to act to secure those improvements, especially as many are already threatened by new conflicts or the resurgence of old ones. It is a time to remain outraged by the continuation of gross violations of human rights - and to identify the situations which indivi- duals, governments and the international community will be ashamed of tomor- row if we do not act today. This report contains not only descriptions of these situations, but also an account of what Amnesty International, acting alongside other human rights activists worldwide, has done to prevent them. After 1990, there can be no more excuses.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL – A WORLDWIDE CAMPAIGN
"We cannot and will not again be a country cited as violent in reports by Amnesty International.... We will not allow the 'new Brazil' to accept any form of disrespect for human rights." This pledge was given by President Collor of Brazil in a nationally televised speech on 22 June 1990, just three days after Amnesty International had launched an action on torture and extrajudicial executions in Brazil. Three months later the President called for a full investiga- tion into all cases of torture and extrajudicial execution of children highlighted in an Amnesty International Newsletter article. In November a leading Brazilian human rights activist received death threats after denouncing the death squad murders of children in Rio de Janeiro. Amnesty International members sent thou- sands of urgent appeals to the Brazilian government. Within the month he had received federal police protection.
The men and women who helped persuade the Brazilian Government to
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