Renee Rosenow

In celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Robert Schultz gave a presentation Monday on campus talking about Amnesty International’s recent campaigns regarding human rights, as well as its stance on upcoming elections.

Schultz, a field organizer for Amnesty International, discussed three main points throughout his presentation, followed by a question and answer session. He talked about how he got involved in Amnesty International, what the organization does and what its human rights goals are for the current election
season.

The presentation was sponsored by the UW-Eau Claire student chapter and local Amnesty International group 275 of Eau Claire.

“We are hoping to put human rights on the table for the candidates in the upcoming election,” Schultz said. He added that specific goals pertaining to the election could be found on the organization’s Web site, at http://www.amnesty.org.

Schultz was also in town as part of “Wisconsin Mobilization Week,” and was promoting the Midwest Regional Conference to be held Oct. 24-26 in St. Louis.

The basic goals of the organization are to prevent human rights abuses and to promote rights as well, Schultz said. Amnesty International was established in 1961 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for work in human rights.

“We want to stop bad guys from doing further harm and encourage good guys to continue to do the right thing,” he said.

Amnesty International has also contributed to the freedom of 40,000 prisoners of conscience, Schultz said, adding that these were people being held mainly for non-violent protest and governmental reasons.

Schultz, who has been with Amnesty International for eight years, was brought into the organization by the controversy over the death penalty and people being executed that have turned out to be innocent.

“I wanted to educate people about it,” he said. “I have worked on a variety of other issues as well.”

Amnesty International writes letters, petitions, organizes demonstrations and performs research about specific human rights topics. They also release reports, hold conferences and public education forums pertaining to human rights.

Schultz also discussed some of the technology that has been implemented by Amnesty International. In Darfur, they have used satellites to track activities on the ground and make sure aid reaches the right people, he said.

There are around 2.2 million people involved globally with more than 150 countries and regions being represented, according to the organization’s Web site.

“Amnesty International can work on global, national and local issues,” Schultz said.

Right now, Amnesty International is focusing on a number of campaigns. Defending prisoners of conscience in general, Darfur, international criminal court, Counter-Terror with Justice and a Stop Violence Against Women campaign are some of the topics they are tackling, Schultz said.

“We are trying to get people to be more vocal and committed to human rights,” he said, adding that the elections coming up were a key element. “We are trying to build a strong human rights movement.”