Amnesty International, or the name at least, has been known to me since I attended a concert in September, 1988 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I saw performances by a host of artists including Bruce Springsteen, Tracy Chapman, and Peter Gabriel. The concert tour was held to raise awareness of human rights and the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At that concert, I heard Peter Gabriel sing a version of Biko written to commemorate the story of Steven Biko who was killed in South Africa while in police custody. I was brought to tears by that performance and it raised my awareness permanently about the organization and the work it undertakes. (lyrics for the song are found after this paper for interest)
Amnesty International took shape starting in 1961 when Peter …show more content…
It is considered one of the freest western democracies and is held in high esteem amongst its peer group for inclusion, equality, and personal freedom. Why choose Canada? The choice of Canada puts the focus on one of the issues that Amnesty International is criticized for: selection bias. The selection bias argument is made because it is easy for AI to operate in countries such as Canada and to gather information to use against these governments because of the relative transparency of the governmental processes in these countries. The argument continues by asserting that countries with fewer freedoms and less transparency are harder for organizations such as AI to monitor and hence fewer charges are leveled against these states than should be. However, such an argument does not change the facts of the situation for indigenous women in Canada. Although there may be more AI campaigns per capita against freer countries than less free countries, that simply underscores the reality of human rights in our world. We all have a lot of work to do before our work is
Amnesty International took shape starting in 1961 when Peter …show more content…
It is considered one of the freest western democracies and is held in high esteem amongst its peer group for inclusion, equality, and personal freedom. Why choose Canada? The choice of Canada puts the focus on one of the issues that Amnesty International is criticized for: selection bias. The selection bias argument is made because it is easy for AI to operate in countries such as Canada and to gather information to use against these governments because of the relative transparency of the governmental processes in these countries. The argument continues by asserting that countries with fewer freedoms and less transparency are harder for organizations such as AI to monitor and hence fewer charges are leveled against these states than should be. However, such an argument does not change the facts of the situation for indigenous women in Canada. Although there may be more AI campaigns per capita against freer countries than less free countries, that simply underscores the reality of human rights in our world. We all have a lot of work to do before our work is