Actions and Issues

Get on the Bus 2017 featured speakers and actions focused on human rights around the world.
2017 Main Actions:

Sri Lanka: Justice for Ragihar Manoharan and the Trinco Five 
Sudan: Ending the use of chemical weapons in Darfur and ensuring the protection of civilians
Tibet/China: The unconditional release of Tibetan writer and blogger Shokjang (Druklo), Uighur scholar and human rights advocate Ilham Tohti, and other prisoners of conscience being held by the Chinese government
Honduras: Justice for murdered environmental activist Berta Caceres
United States: No ban, no wall

​Download Action Letters here!

Sri Lanka: Justice For Ragihar Manoharan 

Ragihar Manoharan, a Sri Lankan Tamil student, and four fellow students had gathered for a chat near the seafront in the town of Trincomalee in northeastern Sri Lanka at about 7:00 p.m. on January 2, 2006, when a grenade was thrown at them from a passing auto rickshaw. The students ran, but at least three of them were injured in the explosion. A short while later, a group of 10 to 15 officers in uniform, believed to be police from the elite Special Task Force, arrived. They reportedly put the injured students into their jeep and beat them with rifle butts, and then pushed them out onto the road. According to a witness, the security forces personnel then shot the five students dead. 

Despite subsequent court hearings and an investigation by a presidential commission of inquiry, no one has been prosecuted for these murders. Ragihar’s father gave evidence at the proceedings and then received death threats. Ultimately, Ragihar’s family was forced to flee Sri Lanka.

Justice for Ragihar and the rest of the Trinco Five has been one of the GOTB actions for several years. In July 2013, due to the mounting international pressure, the Sri Lankan government arrested 12 Police Special Task Force members in connection with the murders. All 12 are out on bail and no further action has been taken since then. We are continuing to call on the Sri Lankan government to effectively investigate and prosecute those who murdered Ragihar Manoharan and the rest of the “Trinco Five."

Take Action Now: Join the South Asia Regional Action Network
Sign up for monthly actions by email on Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bhutan, the Maldives and Bangladesh.

Email jmcdonald@aiusacs.org and write "SARAN sign-up" in the subject line.

Update to 2016 Get on the Bus Sri Lanka action

Like this year’s Sri Lanka action, the 2016 Get on the Bus action on Sri Lanka focused on the Trinco Five students. Our demands of the Sri Lankan government remain the same as last year:  bring the killers of the students to justice.
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12 members of the elite Special Task Force (STF) were detained in connection with the murders of the Trinco Five students, but later released without any charges being brought. In July 2013, due to the mounting international pressure, the Sri Lankan government re-arrested the 12 STF members. All 12 are out on bail while the court case is continuing. In May 2014, Amnesty International wrote to the Sri Lankan Attorney General asking him to inform the families of the Trinco Five students about the status of the long-delayed criminal inquiry, but neither AI nor the families received any response from the AG’s office.
On January 8, 2015, President Rajapaksa unexpectedly lost the presidential election to his challenger, Maithripala Sirisena. The current Sri Lankan government has expressed a desire to act more cooperatively with the international community than the prior administration. The government co-sponsored Resolution 30/1 at the fall 2015 session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, in which it committed to implement several transitional justice mechanisms, including a special court with international judges and prosecutors. As required by Resolution 30/1, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights provided an oral report to the Council at its June 2016 session and a report at the Council’s March 2017 session, both documenting the lack of progress by the Sri Lankan government in meeting its commitments under Resolution 30/1.  Both the 2016 update and the 2017 report cited the case of the Trinco Five students as an emblematic case of human rights violations for which no appreciable progress has occurred.

In December 2016, the U.N. Committee Against Torture reviewed the Sri Lankan government’s compliance with its obligations under the U.N. Convention Against Torture.  In its concluding observations, the Committee noted “with regret” the lack of progress in the Trinco Five case.​

Online Resources

Sudan: Release Human Rights Defenders, Protect Civilians and End Impunity for Chemical Weapons Attacks

Since 2003, the Sudanese government and allied Janjaweed militia (now Rapid Support Forces) have carried out wide-scale attacks on civilians in the context of ongoing conflict in Darfur. Villages have been bombed, burned and looted; Amnesty International has documented repeated instances of sexual violence and other serious human rights violations, while the UNAMID (UN-African Union) peacekeeping force has failed to intervene. More than 1.5 million people have been displaced. The Bashir regime resumed its offensive in Jebel Marra, Central Darfur, in January 2016, and a September Amnesty report revealed at least 30 chemical weapons attacks. Around 250 people were killed, including many young children. Authorities have repeatedly denied access to humanitarian agencies.
 
Meanwhile, the Sudanese armed forces have, since 2011, conducted numerous aerial and ground attacks on civilians in rebel-held areas of Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, causing displacement and a disruption to agricultural production, health care and education in the area, contributing to the humanitarian crisis. Attacks on hospitals and schools may constitute war crimes; the military’s widespread, systematic and deliberate targeting of the civilian population seems to indicate crimes against humanity. Despite evidence of serious violations, United States authorities announced in January an easing of sanctions against Sudan.
 
Unilateral ceasefires declared by warring parties since June 2016 have held, with no major fighting taking place. However, there is still no agreement on delivering humanitarian assistance to populations in opposition-held territories; this exacerbates the increasingly dire food insecurity. Furthermore, it is alarming that the Sudanese government continues to silence human rights defenders, political activists and other critical/dissenting voices through arbitrary arrests and detentions, threats, harassment, torture/ill-treatment and enforced disappearances. This crisis cannot be ignored any longer.
 

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We are asking the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN to urge the Security Council to: call on the government of Sudan to release all human rights defenders and others held under arbitrary detention; promote humanitarian access in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile and ensure that standards for protection of internally displaced persons are protected; call for an end to targeted attacks on civilians and work to institute a comprehensive arms embargo that covers Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile; fully investigate the use of chemical weapons and other war crimes in 2016 in Jebel Marra, Darfur; prosecute every perpetrator of these crimes for whom sufficient evidence indicates responsibility; and work to ensure an end to the use of all chemical weapons and other inherently indiscriminate weapons. 
 
Online Resources
AI Reports:
Scorched Earth, Poisoned Air
Scorched Earth and Chemical Weapons Attacks in Darfur
Sudan: Five Years and Counting
 
Actions and Information:
Human Rights Defenders
Darfur, South Kordofan, South Kordofan Action
4-minute Nuba/South Kordofan Video

​Follow-up Activities:
Help AI find evidence of damaged villages in satellite imagery
 
Organize a screening of this powerful movie about aerial attacks on civilians in the Nuba Mountains: http://theheartofnuba.com/
 
Find out how to assist refugees from Sudan and send messages of support: https://www.iactivism.org/
 
Create music, poetry, art and photo exhibits, inspired by stories from Darfur and the Nuba Mountains 

​Honduras: Demand Justice for Berta Cáceres and Other Honduran Human Rights Defenders!

Land and environmental human rights are among the most dangerous areas of human rights work, and Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries in which to work on these issues.  In 2015 alone, 8 Honduran land and environmental rights activists were murdered. This issue made international headlines with the March 2016 murder of Berta Cáceres, an award-winning environmental and indigenous rights leader with whom Amnesty International had worked for several years. We will demand that Honduran authorities fully investigate the murders of Cáceres and other activists and bring those responsible to justice. The Honduran government must also recognize the legitimate work of human rights defenders and end the use of the judicial system to harass and intimidate them.

Links:

Amnesty Urgent Action

Amnesty report

Amnesty video

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Tibet/China

​This year's Get on the Bus will once again call for the immediate and unconditional release of political prisoners being held by the Chinese government. We will have a special focus on two prisoners of conscience: Tibetan writer and blogger Druklo, who is better known by his pen name, Shokjang, and Ilham Tohti, a Uighur professor and human rights defender, whose case was highlighted in the 2016 Amnesty International Write for Rights. 

Druklo was sentenced to three years imprisonment in February 2016 on charges of separatism, after being detained in March 2015. It is believed that this is as a result of an article he wrote describing the increased presence of Chinese security officers ahead of the March 10th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising. Previously, Druklo was detained by Chinese authorities in 2010 for writing about the wide-scale Tibetan protests of 2008.

Ilham Tohti was an economics professor at Central University for Nationalities in Beijing. He has worked for two decades to build understanding between Uighurs and Han Chinese. Rejecting separatism and violence, he tried to reconcile differences between these ethnic groups. Uighurs, a mainly Muslim Turkic ethnic group, have faced widespread discrimination in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest China.

In January 2014, Ilham Tohti was taken from his home in Beijing by police. For five months, family and friends were not told where he was. He was denied food for 10 days and his feet were shackled for 20 days straight. In September 2014, following an unfair trial, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of separatism.

Please join us on April 7th in New York, or by taking solidarity actions where you live, to call for the release of Druklo and Ilham Tohti.
Links:

U.S.: No ban, no wall

​http://amnestyusa.org/protests