AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
MEDIA ADVISORY
Amnesty International’s Secretary General 20 & 21 January Brussels visit: interview availability
(Brussels, 13 January 2014) Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Salil Shetty, will visit Brussels on 20 and 21 January to meet senior European Union (EU) representatives. He will discuss human rights obligations and actions within, at the borders of, and beyond the EU. Mr. Shetty will also deliver a speech at the European Policy Centre (EPC) on EU migration policy: ‘Lives at Risk, Rights in Danger – Has Europe Lost its Way: reasserting human rights obligations in EU policy and practice’
As the EU prepares for the 2014 European elections, and a new Commission, Amnesty International’s Secretary General will discuss the human rights records of the outgoing Institutions, their representatives, and member states. He will look forwards to how their legacy can define future EU human rights work, and what more could be done.
Mr. Shetty will raise the need to revise EU migration policy following tragedies such as Lampedusa, and Amnesty International’s report on the resettlement of Syrian refugees; call for an internal human rights strategy to ensure the implementation of member states’ human rights commitments on their own soil (in response to, not exclusively, hate crime, and Roma discrimination); and discuss EU external human rights work (not exclusively) in the context of next week’s Brussels Foreign Affairs Council (FAC).
Amnesty International’s Secretary General will meet: President of the Council Herman Van Rompuy; President of the Commission Jose Manuel Barroso; Commission Secretary General Catherine Day; Commission Vice President Viviane Reding; Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström; and Special Representative for Human Rights Stavros Lambrinidis.
For further information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Maeve Patterson
Media & Communications
[email protected]
Telephone: +32 2 548 27 73 or +32 483 680 812
Follow us on Twitter and put a question to Salil to ask the EU representatives #AmnestyAsksEU
To register for the EPC event, please email [email protected]