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Human Rights

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Fast Facts about Human Rights

• Around the world, people who are fighting for basic rights such as free speech and political participation are intimidated, tortured, and even killed. In the year 2000, Human Rights Watch reported political killings in 61 countries. Prisoners of conscience were detained in 63 countries, and torture of political prisoners was reported from 125 countries. (Human Rights Watch)
• Two-thirds of countries in the world have abolished the death penalty, but at least 1,591 people were executed in 25 countries in 2006 (the true figure is likely much higher). Ninety-one percent of these executions took place in only six countries: China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan, and the United States. (Amnesty International)
• The United States remains the sole western industrialized country that imposes the death penalty. Forty-two people were executed in ten U.S. states in 2007 (26 of whom were in Texas) and 3,228 people were on death row in 37 states at the end of 2006. Although blacks account for less than 13% of the U.S. population, 42% of the persons on death row were black. Many studies point to racism in incarceration rates and death penalty sentencing. (Amnesty International, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Human Rights Watch)
• Governments in several countries monitor the internet use of their citizens, and have censored and imprisoned people for expressing their opinions in emails, blogs, and chatrooms. In China, people have been arrested and charged for contact with U.S. researchers and for using the Internet to spread human rights information. (Amnesty International)
• In over 20 countries around the world, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children are soldiers in armed conflicts – some as young as 8 years old. Many of these children are abducted or recruited by force, while others join an army out of desperation and poverty. Separated from their families and with no access to school, these children face a bleak future. (Human Rights Watch)
• In the Darfur region of Sudan, international human rights are being violated by the Sudanese government and rebel forces. “Ethnic cleansing” and violent conflict over land and resources have internally displaced 2.2 million people and forced nearly two-thirds of Darfur’s population to rely on humanitarian relief. Humanitarian workers are frequently abducted and attacked, and relief trucks hijacked and looted. (Human Rights Watch)

Quick Actions to Promote Human Rights

• Write a letter in support of a prisoner of conscience
  Each month, members of Amnesty International USA’s Freedom Writers Network highlight three human rights cases and tell you how to write a letter that will make a difference. Click here to get started.
• Campaign for human rights in your community
  Start a local human rights group, hold an event, or simply educate your friends. Download an Activist Toolkit to guide you through the process.
• Sign up for human rights email alerts
  Become part of Amnesty International’s Online Action Center to join thousands of people in responding with emails or letters when someone has been arrested and may be tortured, or other immediate help is needed. Sign up here to receive alerts and take action.
• Write your representatives
  If you consider the death penalty a violation of human rights, drop an email to your local politicians and to the President. Often just a few letters, emails, or faxes can help elected officials to decide to support or reject an issue because they know that for every person who took the time to write, there are others who have the same opinion. To get the email address and contact information for your elected officials, click here. For more information about the death penalty in the United States, click here.

Want More Information?

• Amnesty International
  Amnesty International is a mass membership organization that works to protect human rights around the world by exerting influence on governments, political bodies, companies and intergovernmental groups through mass demonstrations, vigils and direct lobbying as well as online and offline campaigning.
• The Association for Women's Rights in Development
  AWID connects, informs, and mobilizes people and organizations committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development, and women's human rights.
• CARE
  Recognizing that women and children suffer disproportionately from poverty, CARE places special emphasis on working with women to create permanent social change and tackle the underlying causes of poverty. Its website includes feature stories and virtual field trips.
• Facing the Future resources
  • Additional Human Rights Resources
• Human Rights in Action!
  Human Rights in Action gives links, resources, questions, answers, and classroom guides for the topic of human rights.
• Human Rights Watch
  Human Rights Watch conducts fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses around the world and generates press attention to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on governments, institutions, and corporations violating human rights.
• Stand Up For Your Rights
  On this site, the movements for women's suffrage, religious freedom, and civil rights are explored through the stories of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the trial of Anne Hutchinson in Puritan New England, and school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas.