The election of Barack Obama to the US presidency opens new opportunities for an end to the seven-year assault on human rights by the US administration.

Amnesty International urges US President-elect Obama to make human rights central to his new administration. In the first 100 days, Amnesty International is calling on the new administration to:

• announce a plan and date to close Guantánamo;
• issue an executive order to ban torture and other ill-treatment, as defined under international law;
• ensure that an independent commission to investigate abuses committed by the US government in its “war on terror” is set up.

These demands are part of a “checklist” of actions Amnesty International is asking the new US President to take during the first 100 days in office.

Call on President-elect Barack Obama to demonstrate a commitment to human rights in his first 100 days in office.

On May 8, 2008 AI Northern Ireland celebrated the book launch of Murat Kurnaz’s best-seller Five years of my life: A report from Guantánamo at the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival in Belfast at a sold-out Black Box.

Murat Kuraz is a Turkish national who was born in Germany in 1982. His prolonged detention in Guantánamo had been complicated by his status – lacking German citizenship, the German authorities had refused his return to Germany. The Turkish authorities had shown little interest in his case. It was only after intense lobbying from his family, lawyers and AI members around the world, including in his home town of Bremen, that the German authorities began to act on his behalf, finally paving the way for his return.

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