Amnesty x GCYA

  The Sarayaku (Kichwa for “river of corn”) are an Indigenous Peoples who live in several villages along a stretch of the Bobonaza River in the province of Pastaza in the southern part of the Ecuadorean Amazon. On 6 August 1996, the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Ecuador signed exploitative contract regarding Sarayaku land with Argentinean General Fuel Company called Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC) without consultation of Kichwa natives of Sarayaku. In 1997, CGC to conduct early-stage assessment of the area.   A group called Organization of Indigenous People of Pastaza Province (OPIP) comprised of mostly Kichwa natives, protested and conducted three rallies against the operation of CGC in Sarayaku land. In 1999, after pretending to withdraw from exploiting Block 23 to ease tensions, the CGC continued their exploration. It installed military and private security guards, opened roads and cut down the forest, destroying trees and plants. As part of their drilling operat...

Dear Mr Wickramaratne, I am deeply worried about the situation of Sri Lankan poet and teacher Ahnaf Jazeem, who has been detained without charge since May 16, 2020 by the authorities. It is distressing to know that a year has passed, and no credible, admissible evidence of wrongdoing has ever been presented before a court. The draconian Prevention Terrorist Act (PTA) under which Ahnaf is arrested, allows authorities to arbitrarily detain individuals without any charges for up to 18 months without charge or trial. I find it alarming that he has been denied due process and fair trial rights, including unrestricted access to his lawyers and his family. Ahnaf’s legal counsel states that he has been coerced to make false confessions while under interrogation and has been made to sign documents written in a language he does not understand. These are all clear violations of rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Sri Lanka and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to whic...

Your Majesty King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, On March 12, 2018, state security forces arrested Saudi national Abdulrahman al-Sadhan from his place of work at the Saudi Arabian Red Crescent Society in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. They failed to present a warrant, confiscated his phone, and took him to an unknown location. After almost two years of no contact whatsoever, Abdulrahman al-Sadhan was finally allowed to call his family for the first time on February 12, 2020, wherein he mentioned being detained at al-Ha’ir prison, located approximately 25 miles south of Riyadh. On March 3, Abdulrahman al-Sadhan attended his first secret hearing at the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC), without legal representation and in the absence of his father, who had been assisting his legal defense. He was charged on the basis of a series of satirical tweets from an account the prosecution accused him of running, and a so-called “confession” extracted under duress. After a series of hearings, the SCC s...