To: Ms Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President

The Burundian authorities must overturn human rights defender Germain Rukuki’s conviction and release him immediately and unconditionally, Amnesty International said today as it launched its annual letter-writing human rights campaign, Write for Rights.

Brussels, 19 November 2020

Amnesty International today launches the world’s biggest human rights campaign, calling on governments to put right injustices against individuals who are detained or persecuted in countries across the globe. Every December people around the world write millions of letters, emails, tweets, Facebook posts and postcards for those whose human rights are under attack, in what has become the world’s biggest human rights event.  

by Amnesty International, the Baku Human Rights Club, the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, the European Implementation Network, the Human Rights House Foundation, the International Partnership for Human Rights, the Legal Education Society and the Netherlands Helsinki Committee.

The European Ombudsman’s Office has today announced that it will open an inquiry into the possible failure of the European Commission to ensure that Croatian authorities respected fundamental rights while conducting EU-funded border operations against migrants and refugees. Commenting on the decision, the director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office Eve Geddie said:

To:

Spokespeople available

The Polish Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling to invalidate the constitutionality of access to abortion on the ground of “severe and irreversible fetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the fetus’ life” (1) will further harm women and girls and violates their human rights, Amnesty International, the Center for Reproductive Rights and Human Rights Watch said today.

Earlier this week, more than 278 lawmakers from across Europe and the United States sent public letters to Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi with a strong message denouncing the situation of prisoners of conscience in the country. In a show of mounting concern, 84 members of the European Parliament, 138 members of national parliaments across Europe, and 56 members of both chambers of the US Congress urged President al-Sisi to halt the unjust imprisonment of human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and political activists in Egypt, who have been imprisoned solely for exercising their human rights.

Amnesty International, the Center for Reproductive Rights and Human Rights Watch will be sending independent expert monitors to the forthcoming hearing of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal as the court prepares to issue a decision regarding the constitutionality of access to abortion on the ground of “severe and irreversible foetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the foetus’ life” on 22 October 2020.

Responding to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) verdict which found that the Romanian government acted unlawfully when they deported two Pakistani nationals residing legally in Romania, based on secret evidence seen only by the government and the courts, Simon Crowther, Legal Advisor at Amnesty International said: