Amnesty International Convenes International Human Rights Leaders in New Orleans for 2010 Annual Mee

[Judi Lynn]

Amnesty International Convenes International Human Rights Leaders in New Orleans for 2010 Annual Meeting
Three-day conference and community rally will draw international human rights leaders and icons, including Gloria Steinem, Bernice Johnson Reagon and Congressman Joseph Cao

NEW ORLEANS - March 31 - Today, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) announced that All Rights for All People, its 2010 Annual General Meeting (AGM), will take place in New Orleans, April 9 - 11, 2010. Human rights advocates and allies from around the world along with Louisiana leaders will gather in New Orleans to network, train and hear directly from leaders who have made a difference on a local, national and global scale. Among the participants will be Amnesty International advocates from Sierra Leone, Peru and Burkina Faso, and national icons such as Gloria Steinem, NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon.

"While the challenges facing human rights activists are great, the energy and determination to meet them are even greater," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "The human rights activists assembling in New Orleans will attack injustice from Burkino Faso to Biloxi. This meeting will provide strategic opportunities to grow and mobilize an even stronger human rights movement. These activists will demand - and fight for - all human rights for all people."

This year's AGM will highlight AIUSA's recently launched and most ambitious global campaign yet, Demand Dignity. It seeks to end the human rights abuses that imprison people in poverty. The campaign recently released Deadly Delivery: The Crisis of Maternal Health Care in the USA, which found that the United States ranks behind 40 other countries in terms of women dying in pregnancy or childbirth despite spending more than any other country on health care. At the AGM, a follow-up report to the Deadly Delivery report will be released examining health care, housing and criminal justice post-Katrina; the report will expose the lived experience of poverty in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast.

New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has become synonymous with the marginalization of people living in poverty in the richest country in the world and on Friday, April 9th, community residents will join AGM participants in the French Quarter for a public march and rally to fight for the rights of New Orleans citizens.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/03/31-11