Amnesty International AU

Máxima Acuña refuses to back down. Yanacocha, one of the world’s biggest gold and copper mines, wants to throw her off her own land. But she’s not going anywhere.  A peasant farmer in Peru, Máxima has braved daily harassment from Yanacocha’s armed security guards. They are waging a war of intimidation, surrounding her house and watching her every move.   Máxima has been fighting off the mining company since 2011, when they claimed she was squatting on her own land. In the years that followed, police descended on her small farm and beat her and her daughter unconscious. They knocked down her home twice. The mine even built a fence around her property.  A lengthy legal battle saw Máxima first stripped of, and then returned, her land. But the mining company has since challenged the court’s decision.  Still Máxima will not give up. “I will never kneel before Yanacocha,” she says. Her bravery has won her the 2016 Goldman Prize, the world’s most respected environmental award. Community members look to her as a leading land rights defender – and have banded together to protect her. We must, too: Máxima could be evicted any day.   Stand with Máxima - tell Peru to protect her from being forced off her land.  

Fomusoh Ivo Feh had a bright future ahead of him. He was just about to start university in Cameroon, where he lives. But an SMS message changed everything. One day, Ivo received a text message from a friend, saying: “Boko Haram recruits young people from 14 years old and above. Conditions for recruitment: 4 subjects at GCE, including religion”. His friend’s message was a comment on how difficult it is to find a good job without being highly qualified – joking that even Boko Haram (an armed group) won’t take you unless you’ve passed five high school subjects. Ivo forwarded the message to a friend, who sent it to a friend in secondary school. A teacher saw the text, having confiscated the phone, and showed it to the police. Ivo, his friend and the young student were all arrested sometime between September and December 2014. The charges against them include trying to organize a rebellion against the state. Right now, they are in prison facing a trial in a military court and a 20-year prison sentence. Demand that Cameroon drop all charges against Ivo and let him go.

Ritual killings are on the rise in Malawi, in Africa. People with the genetic condition albinism, particularly kids, are at grave risk of being hunted for their bones, which are then sold for ritual uses. Tell the President of Malawi to offer urgent and effective protection for people with albinism.

As the war continues to rage into its sixth year, the people of Syria are still desperate for a safe home. They long to raise their families in a secure and nurturing environment, free of the daily horrors of life under attack. You can help. Join Amnesty and demand a safe home for people in Syria.

At 13, Maria was forced to marry a 70-year-old man. When she resisted, her father told her “If you don’t go to join your husband, I will kill you”. In Burkina Faso, thousands of girls like Maria are forced into early marriage. Tell Burkina Faso’s government this has to stop. Join Amnesty today.

Albert Woodfox has spent 40 years in solitary confinement, locked up alone for 23 hours a day. His conviction of murder has been overturned 3 times, and despite this the Attorney General won’t let him go free. Help get Albert out of solitary. The UN says his treatment amounts to torture. Albert was convicted in 1973 for the murder of a prison guard, but says he’s an innocent man and believes his conviction was politically motivated because he was a member of radical black rights movement, the Black Panther Party. There was no physical evidence linking Albert to the crime. His conviction relied on the testimony of another prisoner who received a pardon in return. Decades of isolation have taken an appalling toll on Albert: “I do not have the words to convey the years of mental, emotional and physical torture I have endured.” The legal process was so flawed that Albert’s conviction has been overturned three times. In June 2015, a federal judge ordered his release, but his freedom has been blocked at every turn by Louisiana’s Attorney General, who is waging a campaign of vengeance against him. “They might bend me a little bit,” says Albert. “They might cause me a lot of pain. They may even take my life. But they will never be able to break me.” Justice is long overdue. Call on the Attorney General to release Albert now.

Teodora suffered a stillbirth in 2007, after the rapid onset of serious pain while she was at work. Police arrested her as she lay in a pool of blood. She is now serving 30 years in prison for ‘aggravated homicide’. Help Teodora get justice.  Teodora was presumed guilty of ‘abortion’ rather than the victim of pregnancy complications. She has spent more than eight years in jail, and has not seen her 11-year old son for over a year, due to extremely limited financial resources. In El Salvador, women who miscarry or suffer a stillbirth during pregnancy are routinely suspected of having had an ‘abortion’. Under El Salvadorian law abortion in any circumstance is a crime, even in cases of rape, incest, or where a woman’s life is at risk. This makes women afraid to seek help with pregnancy-related problems, leading inevitably to more preventable deaths. Teodora’s trial was deeply flawed. As in all similar cases in El Salvador, she was presumed guilty and, being from a poor family, could not afford an effective legal team to represent her. Her only option now is to appeal for her sentence to be changed so that she is released immediately. Call on El Salvador’s Minister of Justice to release Teodora immediately.