Every couple of weeks, the Amnesty International UBC club gets together to write letters to governments who are currently committing human rights violations against one or more citizens. Ana, our letter writing coordinator, gives us her spiel on a human rights issue which correlates with a monthly theme (e.g. LGBT rights, women’s rights, indigenous rights, etc.) We each then write an individual letter with envelopes to the government involved. I was skeptical at first, but apparently these letters are super effective in getting the governments’ attention and changing the situation of political prisoners. It helps that other Amnesty clubs around the world are often working on the same issue, so governments get bombarded with hundreds if not thousands of letters on an issue. Power in numbers, eh?

This past week we talked about the imprisonment of two gay men in Zambia who were charged with alleged homosexual behavior, as well as the case of Cao Shunli, a Chinese activist who was detained for rallying public support for a UN report on human rights in China. According to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, their imprisonments violate freedom of expression, security, conscience, and sexuality. Also on Friday, the club held a formal event where we set up a booth on campus so that people could stop by and sign pre-written letters. The cases are outlined on Amnesty International Canada’s website if you’re interested.

From all that we’ve been discussing in class about Human Rights organizations, I thought it important to evaluate Amnesty’s influence on a larger global platform. A few weeks ago in Political Science we discussed the inherent bias of many NGO’s in their humanitarian endeavors, specifically that with monetary funding. While humanitarianism by definition requires indifference to those in need, often the funding necessary to help people comes from governments or government-sponsored organizations with subjective prerogatives. On the funding page of the official Amnesty International Website, it appears that they are supported by not only government-sponsored overseas development funds but also Western organizations like the European Union. This has a significant effect on which human rights violations Amnesty and other human rights organizations choose to pursue and publish.

Although I believe that Amnesty International does a pretty good job at expanding its causes to a number of nations, whether or not in line with Western politics, it also has bias from the ways in which the Declaration is held as a Western ideal of human rights. I argue that there are significant differences in developing countries which may push higher importance of economic reform rather than human rights responsibilities, and other societies which value women’s rights differently in correspondence with family ties and norms. Often as a Westerner it seems as if we label others as purely sufferers who need to be enlightened by the ideological goals of our hemisphere. However, it is important to look beyond this and objectively evaluate political happenings, conflicts, imprisonments, and the like from a strictly moral and ethical point of view. If we take a step back and say, look, is the impact this political prisoner has on the larger global community potentially damaging to modern ideals of justice and equality? If we don’t do anything about this situation, are morals on a global scale on a decline? Were the reasons for their imprisonment legitimate, or just another way for a corrupt government to keep its people from speaking out against it?

Personally I believe that Amnesty International does a great job of initiating a cause for the global betterment of ethics. By telling the stories of individuals in light of violations of the UNUDHR, Amnesty sparks empathy by de-collectivizing voices. The issues we write letters about are extremely specific, and are attempts to call on governments who aren’t upholding their agreement with the Declaration. Wherever the funding comes from, what they’re doing works by improving the power of individual of agency and furthering political and ethical developments in the modern era.