I'm sorry guys but I think this article really typifies why Amnesty International has lost alot of support over the past few years. Despite having a wonderful ethos, I think people would rather it concentrated on Burma for instance rather than sympathising with the plight of a convicted drug trafficker.

Van Nguyen openly admitted that his goal was to make money from trafficking drugs- repaying a twin brothers debt is emotive but irrelevant. Heroin kills millions of people every year and leaves behind families who suffer every bit as much as Nguyen's family. Heroin also facilitates the longevity of the junta in Burma, the despots in North Korea and the war lords in Afghanistan.

Van Nguyen took a gamble and lost- thank god he did lose or there would be hundreds of other peoples families suffering in a much less publicised manner. Lets get some perspective back and never again hold a minutes silence for a drug trafficker!

WRE: You're off topic. The issue raised by the article is not the death penalty per se, but whether Amnesty took the best approach to trying to save Van Nguyen. Amnesty is an organisation based on preventing the abuse of human rights. If you don't believe in those human right (and clearly a lot of Australians don't), that's up to you, but not relevant to this particular forum topic.

Back on the subject, I too get frustrated at times by Amnesty's approach to issues. I am an Amnesty member and have at times been told that a particular path is not possible because it contravenes Amnesty's policies of being non-party political. I respect this stance, and they have to be very careful in the current political climate to be non-partisan. Even more so in other countries.

I think Greg and Howard are being a bit tough on Amnesty. They do a lot of great work, and I know a huge amount of effort was put into this particular case. Re the sms campaign, I think it was probably a futile exercise in the first place. But having chosen to do it, what were they going to say "only send a SMS via Telstra, Vodaphone, Virgin etc." I also think you are drawing a fine distinction between boycotting Optus and pressuring them.

What does frustrate me is the lack of co-ordination between the numerous groups which share common aims, and it is unfortunate that this seems to have occured in this case.

Sorry AMSADL but I disagree.

Yes there is an issue of whether Amnesty took the best approach to saving Nguyen. BUT the most important peripheral issue to that is whether Amnesty should be using its limited resources to lobby the government and corporate world to save a drug traffickers life.

In my book Amnesty should forget about lobbying in this regard and asserting that Nguyen was just a pawn etc and be concentrating far more on lobbying against Burma, North Korea etc.

Mr regard for amnesty took a very big dive over their attempt to exploit this issue. They were clearly in there for the funds, chasing a topical issue, but doing so on a case where Nguyen had the full benefit of a sound and impartial legal system.

This was not a human rights issue. Amnesty was no champion of the dispossessed or the disenfranchised they just flicked the switch to vaudeville over a dead mule. A guy who thought his rights included the right to kill my kids for profit. And for what? Thirty grand is hardly an insurmountable debt, is it?

Glenn and Barns obviously have their heads so far up each others backsides that they have completely lost sight of daylight.

My long-dead father was a member of Amnesty International. He was a lefty. I have always considered the organization as a group of interfering ratbags that, among others including Malcolm Fraser and his government, gave Rhodesia a new name and a bloody tyrant in the form of the beast, Robert Mugabe.

However, how AI can be blamed for failing to save convicted criminal Van Ngyuen from the gallows in Singapore, even by arch-blamers Glenn and Barns, is beyond reason.

If the Australian Government refused to consider “consumer pressure” against Singapore, what influence would Amnesty have? Would Singapore Government have changed its mind if pressure could be marshalled? No! Would enough Australian’s respond to calls for boycotts of Singapore to make any difference? No! Did the majority of Australians, even those who don’t approve of capital punishment, sympathise with the drug dealer? Unlikely.

I, albeit grudgingly, give marks to Amnesty International for common sense. Barns and Glenn get the their usual black mark for their arrogant assertions that it is OK to try to influence another country’s application of it laws, and for their lack of nous to know that theirs is a minority opinion

I think Leigh is right. What's more, the fundamental premises of this piece (that Amnesty prevented taking action against Optus etc, and that that their campaign was misguided) are without substance.

Did Amnesty's campaign prevent others, including Rights Australia, from encouraging Australians to take action in relation to Optus? No, it did not. In fact, it tacitly assisted them. The way I know this is that I got the email from Rights Australia that acknowledged Amnesty had been referring people who wished to engage in this way to the Rights Australia website. (There were no thanks from Rights Australia to Amnesty for acting as a referral service, by the way.)

Would a different style of campaign have saved Van? Difficult to say. I think not, but it is impossible to be sure. In any case, to suggest that it would have (and blame Amnesty for not running this type of campaign) is speculative at best. At worst, this is wilfully deceptive.

Supporters of Rights Australia may rightly be concerned that this vitriolic bile is what passed for human rights campaigning. It is not the first time they - especially Howard Glenn - have demonstrated an antagonism towards Amnesty that is personal, bordering on the pathological. Perhaps it is part of their grieving process?

In any case it is irresponsible and counter-productive. Glenn and Barns would be better off running their own campaigns the best they can. That is the only way they will receive my future support.

I agree with wre – AI is not an elected body, it is a collection of individuals who represent merely themselves and some lofty and even some laudable ideals.

You are right in your view, it has become an organisation which prefers to follow the paparazzi path to fame, glory and headlines by promoting soft “underbelly” causes and completely missing the “real issues” which it could be promoting. But I guess, dealing with Burma’s Junta carries less kudos than pouting over some drug peddling parasite on Singapore’s death row.

Ultimately AI will fall into oblivion and its purpose into disrepute largely because it will cease to have any relevance at all – the thing is – no one will actually miss its passing until they realise air has rushed in and filled the vacuum.

What is Amnesty doing about Burma? Their international library lists all published documents over the last few years. The most recent issued this week. http://web.amnesty.org/library/eng-mmr/index

Maybe you ought not to assume that because it doesn't make headlines means it doesn't happen

Col Rouge states " I agree with wre – AI is not an elected body ...". Nobody ever claimed it to be an elected body. It is an independent,self funded, membership based organisation, with over a million members around the world. The chances of it fading away are therefore slim, so you'll just have to get used to it being around for a long time yet. You could of course ignore it, and vent your spleen elsewhere.

Of course it has to collect funds. It does so via membership fees and donations. Nobody is forced to give them money. It has very few paid staff. Most of its resources are from its very large volunteer base. No doubt if it sought government grants you would criticise it as being parasitic.

It's a shame that this specific forum has gone so far off topic due to the ill-informed diatribes of a few.

Leigh writes, "Barns and Glenn get the their usual black mark for their arrogant assertions that it is OK to try to influence another country’s application of it laws,...."

".....and a bloody tyrant in the form of the beast, Robert Mugabe. "

Mugabe can bloody well do what he likes in his own country. I'm interested in why Leigh calls Mugabe a tyrant and beast. It is at extreme odds with Leigh's later statement condemning Barns and Glenn.

I wonder if the authors are members? I don't think I've ever read a piece by Greg were he wasn't lying into someone. There can be no don't that Greg would have been writing a piece about the foolishness of Amnesty if they had of linked trade.

I am also a long term Amnesty International member and value the work the organisation does in promoting human rights around the world. It does do a lot in campaigning against capital punishment see http://web.amnesty.org/library/eng-392/index but this is only one area of its concerns.
It is a member based orgamisation and members do most of the campaigning/actions.
I too get frustrated sometimes that as an organisation it does not take a stronger stand on some issues but I also realise that it has to be careful not to be seen to be too overtly political or it may lose its capacity to influence some governments. At the end of the day all that Amnesty and its members can do is lobby governments on behalf of individuals who are suffering human rights abuse.
Amnesty International has been operating for 40 years now and is a world wide organisation. It has many successes but does not prevent human rights abuse occurring. Hopefully it acts as a restraint on some governments but that is difficult to calculate.
Don't condemn AI as on organisation because it did not stop one individual from being executed.

I find this whole issue simply another reminder of how the "white-elite" look down at the "lower whites".

Van Ngyuen, to the average street junkie, was one of the "big fish", someone who had 1 million dollars worth of heroin on his person. To speak about him as one of the little guys who got caught in the system is a sickenning slur on the names of those who have died alone in some street alley, from just one of the 26,000 hits Van would have supplied.

Sure it is barbaric to kill anyone, but the way a lot of people went about Van's case(the massive public funeral, the massive media and political attention) one could not be blamed for believing that he was totally innocent.

He was not a good person, infact, like his brother, he was a horribly selfish person who thought little for those he may have helped to ruin or indeed kill.

Instead of crying, his mother ought to ask herself what she did to raise such selfish, greedy, capitalistic people. Is it true that she sold drugs with them when they were young from their house?

Spare a thought for the poor, down-and-out, toothless, dirty junky, rather than treat their killers like some kind of apostle.

Are you serious Steel?
"Mugabe can do what he likes in his own country/ why is he a beast?"
It cannot be overstated just how badly Mugabe has ruined Zimbabwe. It is unfortunate that wherever you go in that country most people (black and white) remember the Ian Smith days with fondness-at least there was food on the table, fuel in the bowsers and a legal system free from political interference (by comparison anyway).
The problem I have with Amnesty is that it is what I term a 'bleeding heart organisation'-it latches onto emotive issues and loses sight of the big picture. Zimbabwe is an illustration of this- Fraser and the likes of Amnesty rushed a black parliament into Zimbabwe led by a Chinese backed dictator, Mugabe, and omitted to consider just how bad life under him would be.
Amnesty has to consider what causes it lobbies for much more carefully if it is to retain the confidence of the public.

I dont know what to make of all this ( at days end he was a dispensible slope ) where he was born life is worth 5 cents ( and yu get change --hey nobody is going to miss him !) just one more we wont have to worry about ! when i first heard a bloke / an aussie was to be hung until i heard this guys name i had visions of ohh god ! an aussie ( you know bryan brown type bush hat !) dinkum aussie first came to mind ---i look on the box and its ''do hung low '' or whatever the name is --its hardly worth news print ay --sorry guys they die in thier droves daily over there , nobody bats an eyelid ! --its not worthy of news.
i spend much time in russia again life's worth zip ! over there and bleeding hearts are treated as mugs ! reality check ay !
lets talk of something worthwhile ?

As a supporter of both Amnesty and of Rights Australia, I don't think this article will do much to further human rights issues. It's message is valid but I don't feel a public forum is the best place to air these opinions. Discussion between the two leaderships would have been more appropriate and more likely to result in better campaigns for the future which is surely the goal of both organisations. Public attacks only risk undermining people's confidence in both groups.

Capital punishment is a total barbarity and any society that resorts to killing its citizens in order to keep control is a greatly dimished one. No-one deserves to swing to a tortuous death on the end of a rope and how anyone can witness the anguish of Van Nguyen's mother and say her son deserved to die is beyond me. I doubt there would be many mothers with sons of their own speaking out with such callous disregard for her life sentence of grief and suffering.

There is no evidence that the death penalty solves the drug problem anyway. Even if there was, it wouldn't justify the taking of innocent life. Numerous cases exist of innocent people being sent to their death.

The irony is that alcohol and tobacco are just as addictive as hard drugs and cause just as much suffering and just as many deaths, and yet the people who peddle these drugs are rewarded with billion dollar profits.

stevo48,

That young man wasn't going to sell drugs in Singapore. Yet that government took it upon themselves to play God and take his life.

It's the same deal in California where they left Stanley Williams on death row for 24 years then the Governor again played God.

Amnesty can't stop that.

The death penalty solves nothing. It's revenge. Nothing more nothing less.

I have to say that the arguments Howard Glenn and Greg Barns present here are weak, and smack more of sour grapes than any real commitment to develop more effective human rights campaigning.

Firstly, I think Amnesty International (AI) has good grounds not to engage in consumer boycotts. As an organisation that campaigns on human rights abuse all around the world, how would Amnesty chose which nations to boycott. To take Glenn's and Barn's argument, obviously Singapore. But USA also executes people, as does China, Saudi Arabia, and scores of countries more. Surely we would also boycott Australian made, given our countries treatment of asylum seekers.

Very quickly, if Amnesty was to remain consistent, they would be calling for boycotts of everywhere except New Zealand, Norwary and Tuvalu. This leads to AI becoming a defacto anti-trade organisation, rather than a human rights organisation. Note: this is not the only argument against consumer boycotts, but a significant one for AI.

I note that Glenn and Barns suggest that given AI has a policy of not engaging in consumer boycotts, they could just engage in "Flooding the company with millions of messages urging it to lobby its Singaporean owners about Van Nugyen". Yes they could, although more likely tens of thousands rather than millions. And ultimately, it might lead the Optus to ask the Singaporean Government to change their mind.

Or, they could ensure that the tens of thousands of letters that are sent go directly to the people who could have made the decision to save Van Tuong Nguyen's life, the Singaporean cabinet.

This act, a humble act asking those who have the power to prevent grave abuse of human rights, is something that AI members do regularly. They have been doing it for over 40 years, and it has influenced countless numbers of decision makers. It does so because it respects the person to whom it is addressed, and it calls on them to recognise the harm that their action or inaction is leading to, and to uphold the international human rights that we all share.

I can understand that this might be frustrating, and not be forceful or have enough realpolitik for Glenn and Barnes. But contrary to what they say, AI does it over and over not because it doesn't work, but because it does. I wrote letters to the Singaporean Cabinet, and I felt sad when I heard he had died, but I have also written letters on AI cases all over the world, and have send the prisoners be released, the death sentence be commuted. Tensig Rinpoche, Lee Chi Quang, Mandouh Habib, and the list goes on.

Howard Glenn is welcome to trial alternative models, and Rights Australia can take up the strategies that Amnesty International will not. And I think, if he actually thought they would be successful, he'd concentrate on doing this, and let the results speak for themselves. This is certainly what I would urge him to do. Otherwise, it just looks like sour grapes

I wonder what is behind the sense of superiority that compels Greg Barns to manifest his ignorance time and time again when writing his opinionated pieces.

Regarding Amnesty and its `failure` to stop the Singaporean Government from executing an Australian citizen, this unfair allegation comes from an ignorance of Asian societies` legalistic thinking. I live in Japan, not Singapore, but Asian countries share similar social attitudes to laws, and drugs, hard or soft.

When I first learnt about Nguyen`s arrest (and I follow the news through the media of Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, China and other countries) I felt despair for him. The legalistic approach is very much in effect in Asia - unlike Australian and other western societies that consider the reasons for crimes.

`Follow the rules` is heard in Japan and throughout Asia - this even extended to the young Japanese man beheaded in Iraq. The overwhelming opinion in the Japanese media/community was: `Yes, it`s kawaiso (unfortunate) but he was told not to go to Iraq. He didn`t follow the rules.` Like it or not, this reflects the Asian values that Japanese hold in common with their neighbours.

From the start it was clear that unless the Singaporean Government felt inclined to do Australia a favour and return Nguyen, he would die by the death penalty. Amnesty could have done little more, especially as Nguyen said the heroin was to pay off his brother`s drug debts.

From the Asian perspective, particularly Singapore`s and Malysia`s, Nguyen`s crime was compounded by his readiness to inflict his brother`s misery (26,000 doses as the Asian media repeatedly mentioned)on other addicts. Far from extenuating him, those circumstances sealed his fate.

Ultimately it was irrelevant what Amnesty, those of us who oppose the barbarous cycle of the death penalty, and other Governments thought. A campaign turning up the heat on Optus would have achieved nil. The Singapore Government only saw the legalities of the situation.

Those who profess to be concerned about Australia`s image in Asia need to familiarise themselves with the different world-views that operate here, especially that in relation to drug trafficking.

When the fight for human rights employs any available strategy to save a human life it retains its integrity and virtue what ever the outcome. When it selectively looks for short cuts it cuts short human lives eventually. The humanist would not agree with AI's approach. The ethicist will always find a way to rationise shortcomings. The pragmatist would demand that AI defend its approach. But Nguyen Tuong Van's death and the numerous deaths from the illicit drug industry is an indictment on us all.

worldoflight

What are you suggesting exactly? That we all just 'follow the rules' no matter how ineffectual and inhumane they might be? And that groups like Amnesty just give up the fight and acquiesce to governments like that of Singapore's? I don't think so.

You don't have to live in Asia to know these governments are totally unyielding, but surely it doesn't mean you just lie down and give in to them. We have to let them know, as Amnesty does so consistently, that what they are doing is wrong, don't you agree?

You are very critical of Greg Barnes but in many ways the rest of your post actually supports the point he was making. If these governments won't listen to pleas appealing to their humanity, perhaps the only way to get through to them is through applying economic pressure.