Amnesty International To Convene Annual Conference In New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS – 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 9^th, 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.

Also Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., AGM participants will volunteer to rebuild public parks and athletic fields including refurbishing, painting, and building baseball fields, public buildings, benches, basketball courts, and park signs with Hands on New Orleans.

Additionally AIUSA will recognize the valuable contributions made by human rights advocate Rebecca Masika Katsuva at the Ginetta Sagan Awards Reception.

WHAT: AIUSA 2010 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

WHO: Larry Cox, Executive Director, AIUSA
The Honorable Joseph Cao (R-2nd), U.S. House of Representatives
Benjamin Jealous, President and CEO, NAACP
Gloria Steinem, Journalist and Women’s Rights Activist
Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Musician and Civil Rights Activist
Asia Rainey, Writer, Poet and Community Activist

WHEN: April 9 – 11, 2010

WHERE: New Orleans Marriott
555 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA 70130

More information or to register please visit: http://www.amnestyusa.org/annual-general-meeting/page.do?id=1691009

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

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Stephanie Madden
Media Relations
Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Suite 310
Washington DC 20003
202.509.8188