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Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century Alex Steffen See book keywords and concepts

Activists are increasingly using the Internet as a tool for grassroots organizing around movies. amnesty international regularly supports films that address human rights issues through its Artists for Amnesty program. Working with filmmakers and volunteers, amnesty international has created online resources and activism tools around many films, including Hotel Rwanda, The Constant Gardener, and Innocent Voices, mk Protest Art ¦¦MMi Feral robotic dogs roam toxic-waste sites, chasing down deadly emissions. Our sandals contain test tubes that sample the soil as we walk.

Founded in 1997 by Firoze Manji, a former director of Amnesty International's Africa program, Fahamu ("consciousness" or "comprehension" in Kiswahili) fields digital publishing and communications—CD-ROMs, the Web, e-newsletters, and now, mobile-phone text messaging—in diverse ways. The group, Manji told Worldchanging in an interview, can "pack a punch larger than our weight" to support progressive social change in Africa, empower Africans to control their own economies and political systems, and stave off a repeat of the tragedies that hang over the heads of African social-justice activists.

Held as the gold standard of human rights groups, amnesty international works to fulfill and protect the rights detailed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, focusing on state oppression. The organization's mission "is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.

Not affiliated with any nation, religion, political doctrine, or economic interest, amnesty international has consistently fought for real social change, from ending the arms trade to campaigning against domestic violence. Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/ The largest human rights organization based in the United States, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has continually been at the forefront of international human-rights-violations inquiries and campaigns.

Working with filmmakers and volunteers, amnesty international has created online resources and activism tools around many films, including Hotel Rwanda, The Constant Gardener, and Innocent Voices, mk Protest Art ¦¦MMi Feral robotic dogs roam toxic-waste sites, chasing down deadly emissions. Our sandals contain test tubes that sample the soil as we walk. Sleek, highly designed genetic mutant babies are the perfect product for the millennial lifestyle. These are only a few of the strange realities conjured up by artists like Natalie Jeremijenko, Amy Franceschini, and Patricia Piccinini.

20 Years of Censored News Carl Jensen See book keywords and concepts

Ten years later, in 1985, amnesty international (Al) reported that up to 200,000 East Timorese, a third of the population, died as a result of Indonesian aggression in the region, a tragedy still unreported by the American press. Amnesty International released a report on human rights violations in June 1985, which indicated that, despite Indonesian claims of peace in the province and "normality," the Indonesian troops continued with waves of killings, "disappearances," and political arrests.

Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton See book keywords and concepts

Reporters flocked to cover the Body Shop's use of "natural" ingredients in its products, opposition to animal testing and support for organizations such as amnesty international and Greenpeace. To highlight its concern for indigenous cultures in the Third World, the Body Shop publicized its "Trade Not Aid" program, which claimed to support indigenous groups by buying ingredients for its cosmetics from them. "It was a great two-for-one sale: buy a Body Shop lotion and get social idealism for free,"33 said journalist Jon Entine.

The country's dismal human rights record prompted amnesty international to publish a special 1994 report titled Myth and Reality, which held government forces responsible for most of Colombia's human rights violations. Similar reports have come from human rights organizations, including Americas Watch and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States.

Following the war, human rights investigators attempted to confirm Nayirah's story and could find no witnesses or other evidence to support it. amnesty international, which had fallen for the story, was forced to issue an embarrassing retraction. Nayirah herself was unavailable for comment. "This is the first allegation I've had that she was the ambassador's daughter," said Human Rights Caucus co-chair John Porter. "Yes, I think people . . . were entitled to know the source of her testimony.

20 Years of Censored News Carl Jensen See book keywords and concepts

Meanwhile, amnesty international described the Shah's regime as the "world's worst violator of human rights." In that same year, there was an unprecedented general strike and several other protests in which an estimated 10,000 Iranians were gunned down by the Shah's security forces. The response of the U.S. government, an avowed defender of human rights, was to send riot-control equipment, advisers, trainers, and more than $2.5 billion in weapons.

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