Petrelis Files

Wash Times: Amnesty and gays


I hope the leaders at Amnesty International's offices in San Francisco, Washington and New York, who spoke to me on Wednesday about my concerns regarding the lack of information on gay human rights violations in their most recent report on the state of human rights in the United States, get around today to responding to my letter they received two days ago.

Kudos to Amnesty and its report for the sections that did cite abuse of gay human rights elsewhere. For example, this is from the section on Uganda:

"The climate of hostility against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people persisted and discriminatory legislation against sexual minorities remained in force. Security agents continued to harass members of the LGBT community, causing gay rights activists at one of the main universities to fear for their personal safety.

"In October, a radio station was compelled to pay a fine for hosting a live talk show with sexual rights activists. The Broadcasting Council imposed a fine on FM Radio Simba, claiming that the programme was 'contrary to public morality' and breached existing laws." (Source: AI report, Uganda)

Amnesty owes the gay community an explanation about why similar abuses of gays in the United States failed to get into the report.
^^^


June 3, 2005
The Washington Times

Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough

Gumshoe

Michael Petrelis is not the first person who comes to mind when listing critics of Amnesty International.
The San Francisco-based Mr. Petrelis is an acknowledged left-wing activist who supports Ralph Nader.
But Mr. Petrelis did a lot of detective work this week, scouring the public files of the Federal Election Commission and finding that a number of high-ranking Amnesty officials donated to the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat.
Mr. Petrelis then fired off a letter to the group accusing officials of violating their own bylaws about abstaining from partisan political activity. His main complaint is that Amnesty should pay more attention to hate crimes against homosexuals.

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June 2, 2005
The Washington Times

Amnesty Leaders Aided Kerry
By Rowan Scarborough

The top leadership of Amnesty International USA, which unleashed a blistering attack last week on the Bush administration's handling of war detainees, contributed the maximum $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign.
Federal Election Commission records show that William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty USA, contributed $2,000 to Mr. Kerry's campaign last year. Mr. Schulz also has contributed $1,000 to the 2006 campaign of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.

[snip]