Supporters of Amnesty International are ordinary people from across the world standing up for humanity and human rights. The purpose of the charity is to protect individuals wherever justice, fairness, freedom and truth are denied.
Historically campaigning has focused on prisoners, but Amnesty International are always responding to changing patterns of human rights violations in the world. Today people are more likely to become victims of abuse because of who they are, rather than for what they think, say or do — the biggest threat to human rights are the mass violations committed during armed conflicts.
Amnesty has two main ways of working to achieve human rights for everyone; they promote awareness of human rights and oppose specific human rights abuses. They do this by:
- Encouraging people to accept that all human rights must be protected
- Encouraging governments to accept and enforce international standards of human rights
- Encouraging governments, political organisations, businesses, other groups and individuals to support and respect human rights.
Amnesty International makes a genuine difference to those experiencing Human Rights violations – it gives them hope, campaigns for change and sometimes changes or saves the life of an individual, for example by overturning a death sentence or prison sentence that has been put in place unlawfully. They also work on large scale social changes, for example by campaigning for Women’s Rights and education for the world’s most vulnerable people.
Amnesty’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all that is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
