As those involved with our Demand Dignity campaign would be aware, a focus of our campaign is on the activities of the Shell Corporation in the Niger Delta. A large part of this involves writing letters to Shell Corporation asking them to 'Clean up their Act'. Activists who have been writing letters to Shell (hardcopy & online) have been receiving a written response from the company in defence of their operations.
A detailed and thorough response from Amnesty to this letter from will be available in the coming weeks from our researchers in London. In the meantime, the following points might be helpful for those interested:
- Shell has been sending out the same response to everyone globally.
- Amnesty International's campaign and our calls on Shell are based on thorough and rigorous research conducted between March 2008 to May 2009.
- The research involved fieldwork carried out in the Niger Delta and desk research. The research was conducted by a multi-disciplinary research team, including experts in the oil industry and environment. Amnesty International research teams visited eight sites in Rivers and Bayelsa States, and interviewed members of the communities affected by oil pollution and by the human rights violations associated with pollution..
You can access the report here: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR44/017/2009/en
- Amnesty International continues to assert its calls on Shell Petroleum and the Government of Nigera (as per petition) and encourages activists to continue taking action. Those writing individual letters to Shell (not those signing the petition, as their contact details will not be forwarded) can expect to receive Shell's standard response.
- In the meantime, AI Australia has contact the AI researcher in the IS, has asked her to respond to Shell, and is waiting on her advice regarding how we should respond.
No comments:
Post a Comment