AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (16:18): I move:

That this council congratulates Amnesty International on its 50^th anniversary which will be celebrated on 28 May 2011.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The iconic symbol of Amnesty International, as we all know, is a candle wrapped with barbed wire, an image that was inspired by an ancient proverb: better to light a candle than curse the darkness. This month Amnesty International celebrates its 50^th anniversary; five decades of human rights campaigning. Amnesty International is the world's largest human rights organisation. It is an organisation largely made up of voluntary members and currently has approximately three million supporters across 150 countries, with over 100,000 supporters here in Australia, including myself and, of course, many of my parliamentary colleagues.

For many years I was less than enthusiastic about Amnesty International. Whilst I recognised and valued the important political work AI did, at the same time I was incredibly disappointed with Amnesty International's formerly narrow approach to equality. I only decided to join Amnesty International quite some time after the organisation included the human rights of lesbians and gays as part of its mandate. I am pleased to say that, today, AI is a passionate advocate for LGBT rights on the international level, and I am a passionate supporter of it.

AI was founded in 1961 by London barrister Peter Benenson, who was outraged when he learnt of two Portuguese students who had been arrested after raising their glasses to toast freedom. This simple act led to their imprisonment, and their loss of freedom outraged that lawyer. He wrote an article for The Observer titled 'The forgotten prisoners', calling on readers to join a mass letter writing campaign to pressure governments to set such prisoners free. His appeal was reprinted in other papers across the world and turned out to be the genesis of Amnesty International.

In 1977, Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee based its election on a number of factors, not the least of which was AI's apolitical stance. Amnesty International is renowned for its political and geographical impartiality. It seeks out injustice in the East, in the West and in developing nations. In fact, the organisation set out to follow Voltaire's famous dictum: 'I may detest your ideas, but I am prepared to die for your right to express them.' AI never engages in comparisons between countries nor promotes one political system as superior to another.

As most of my colleagues would no doubt be aware, Amnesty International's key areas of interest are:

protecting human rights and dignity;

protecting the rights of women, children, Indigenous people, minorities and refugees;

securing a prompt and fair trial for all political prisoners;

securing the release of prisoners of conscience—those imprisoned for non-violent expression of their views;

ending torture and the ill treatment of prisoners and political objectives;

abolition of the death penalty;

promoting economic, social and cultural rights for marginalised communities; and

promoting religious tolerance.

It is difficult to estimate just how many prisoners of conscience have been released as a result of Amnesty International's campaigns. One study, over a three-year period in the 70s, found that, of the approximately 6,000 prisoners for whom AI was working at the time, 3,000 were released. There is every reason to believe that Amnesty International continues to enjoy a similar success rate, if not a greater one, thanks to new technology that allows urgent appeals to reach supporters online without delay.

Email now allows supporters the chance to contact political authorities speedily. By alerting these authorities that the eyes of the world are watching their next moves, there is a much stronger chance of release. Professor Luiz Basilio Rossi, a prisoner of conscience in Brazil, believes that the Amnesty International campaign saved his life. He has said of the campaign:

I knew that my case had become public, I knew they could no longer kill me. Then the pressure on me decreased and conditions improved.

For all its successes, Amnesty International is the first to concede that there is still a great deal of work to be done to address human rights violations around the world. An Amnesty International report found that in 2009:

torture or ill-treatment still took place in at least 111 countries;

unfair trials took place in at least 55 countries; and

restriction on free speech occurred in 96 countries worldwide.

It also reported that there were 48 countries with known prisoners of conscience and 18 countries that continued to execute their citizens through stoning, electrocution and beheading.

While there is still much to be done, we can be grateful that an organisation such as Amnesty International exists—an organisation which fights for the most vulnerable and oppressed in our world, which acts to defer further human rights abuses and which aims to strive for a fairer and more secure world.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. S.G. Wade.