News Releases

Amnesty International Ireland notes the reported comments of An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny with regard to the decision of the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) in the case taken against Ireland by Amanda Mellet. An Taoiseach is correct when he points out that the decision of the committee is not binding in the same manner as a decision of the European Court of Human Rights. The system of international human rights law as developed by states, including Ireland, does not have courts that can enforce compliance with the treaties.

The EU’s plans to cooperate more closely with Libya on migration risk fuelling the rampant ill-treatment and indefinite detention in horrifying conditions of thousands of refugees and migrants, said Amnesty International.

Today’s decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to charge anyone in relation to its investigation into UK officials’ involvement in the rendition to Libya of Sami al Saadi and Abdul Hakim Belhaj and their families in 2004 further highlights the need for an independent enquiry, said Amnesty International today. 

Responding to the decision Amnesty International UK’s Legal Programme Director Rachel Logan said:

Shirin, an Afghan journalist, was once shot at by the Taliban. After fleeing near-fatal attacks in her country in the hope of finding safety in Europe, she now lives in constant fear in a transit refugee camp in Greece. She is, in fact, just one of many women who have fled harm and persecution, only to face new fears of sexual harassment and violence in the camps on the Greek islands.

Responding to a report today from the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland on collusion between security forces and loyalist paramilitaries in the 1994 Loughinisland massacre, Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland programme director of Amnesty International, said:

“The latest set of revelations about collusion by the RUC with loyalist paramilitaries in these killings is deeply disturbing.

“There should be no impunity for human rights abuses and today’s Police Ombudsman’s report is a welcome step on the road to full accountability.

The UN Human Rights Committee’s ground-breaking decision that Ireland’s law prohibiting and criminalizing abortion violated the human rights of a woman who had a diagnosis of fatal foetal impairment will advance women’s rights in Ireland and beyond, said Amnesty International today.

Ireland’s prohibition and criminalisation of abortion services violated the human rights of a woman living in Ireland and caused her “intense physical and mental suffering” according to a ground-breaking ruling from the United Nations Human Rights Committee—a first for any international human rights court or committee.

The European Union (EU) must immediately halt plans to return asylum-seekers to Turkey on the false pretence that it is a “safe country” for refugees, said Amnesty International in a briefing published today.

 “If a customer is bad you need to manage it yourself to the end. You only call the police if you think you are going to die. If you call the police, you lose everything.”

--Sex worker in Norway

DUBLIN, 26^th May 2016 - Amnesty International is today publishing its policy on protecting sex workers from human rights violations and abuses, along with four research reports on these issues in Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong, Norway and Argentina.

A Syrian national who arrived on the Greek island of Lesvos has won an appeal against a decision that would have led to his forcible return to Turkey, underscoring the fundamental flaws in the migration deal agreed in March between the European Union and Turkey, Amnesty International said today.