Inside Amnesty International on I-talk Amnesty International has been around for over 50 years now. Who belongs to this organisation? How is it funded? And more importantly, are we listening? Joining us on I-talk today is Philippe Hensman, Director of Amnesty International Belgium. I-talk presenter Alex Taylor: "Philippe Hensman, hello and thank you for joining us. Earlier we filmed a few people in the streets of Brussels who wanted to ask you some questions. Here's the first. Hello, my name is Aude, I live in Brussels. I wanted to know, how do you manage to have human rights co-exist with cultural and ethnic specifics? Alex Taylor: "This is a general question. For example, the veil or gay rights in some countries are religious or cultural issues, how do you put things into perspective, how do you decide on a position? Philippe Hensman: "First we base our decision on international law, which allows us to make a decision on certain issues." Alex Taylor: "What kind? The Universal Declaration? Philippe Hensman: "The Universal Declaration is not a law, it's a statement. While international covenants for example, are much more accurate and are more obligatory. So this is the first thing. The second thing is that we consider first the rights that don't contradict cultural traditions or other rights. For example, female circumcision is not a right. Alex Taylor: "You have some very sensitive tasks, like Palestinian Hana Shalabi for example. Israelis say that she belongs to the Islamic Jihad, she made a hunger strike for about 40 days before being transferred to the Palestinian territory, how would you take a position with a sensitive area like this one? Philippe Hensman: "Well, we always try to take account of new international law or humanitarian law when necessary because if it is a conflict, then we will have to look to international law. We also try to consider the rights of the weakest and the poorest. Alex Taylor: "It's difficult, no?" Philippe Hensman: "It's always difficult. Our responsibility is to try with all the powers we have had for years plus the support of the international law to catch the government because they are ultimately responsible for the fate of the people they lead. Alex Taylor: "Second question for Mr. Hensman." Hello, my name is Ange, I live in Brussels. I really wanted to know where the money collected on the streets for Amnesty goes? Alex Taylor: "I Looked on your website, I typed the keyword "budget," it's a bit hard to find your budget. How much money do you have? Because you only depend on your members money, you don't have the financial support of governments? Philippe Hensman: "No. For French-speaking Belgium, which is the thing I know best, our budget is four million euros. One million is used to finance the international movement, that means the support in our sections in the south, research, campaigning and lobbying internationally. And then the rest is used to finance campaigns here in Belgium. We are not a humanitarian organisation, not even a development organisation; that means we do not transfer money to the poorest on the ground. We're not here to build hospitals. We're not even here to help populations in natural disasters. Alex Taylor: "What is the share of wages? What is the share of advertising campaigns? Philippe Hensman: "Again, if I take the budget for French-speaking Belgium: 1.2 million of the four million budget is used to pay wages, only 32,000 euros is spent on advertising campaigns because people work for us for free." Alex Taylor: "And how many paid people are working for the organisation?" Philippe Hensmans "All around the world I think it's around 1,000 members of staff." Alex Taylor: "Ok, third question for Amnesty International on I-talk." Hi, my name is Francis Daza, I am a Spanish exchange student in Brussels and here is my first question. How much influence has Amnesty International had on society today? Alex Taylor: "That's what I said at the beginning of the show, who is listening to you?" Philippe Hensman: "A lot of governments, because there has finally been a study made by an American university to find out which was the most influential think tank in the world and Amnesty has been shown as an example, at least on issues of human rights and International Policy." Alex Taylor: "That's normal because its kind of cool to take you as a reference isn't that right? Have you any examples of changes you've made in government policies? Philippe Hensman: "If you take the example of the death penalty, when we started to fight against it, 16 governments abolished it. Today the trend is completely reversed, there are only 20 countries in the world that still have the death penalty. Years ago the Torture Convention did not exist. The International Criminal Court did not exist. These are results we obtained, not alone, with other organisations, but that's what we changed. Alex Taylor: "How can you pressure governments? You meet the members of governments around the world? Do they welcome you? How about countries like Syria? Philippe Hensman: "No, Syria does not let us in. We will interview human rights organisations, organisations that are dealing with refugees. But we are regularly received. In the last two months, I think here in Belgium alone, we made a dozen visits to embassies. Just this morning, we were at the Embassy of Burundi to discuss events taking place right now. So we meet many governments, many ambassadors and then we pressure our own governments to do the same. Alex Taylor: "How do you do that?" Philippe Hensman: "So what is lobbying? A lot is about being present in the media, organising action. And this morning Burundi's ambassador told me they received thousands of letters from Amnesty members who told them to change them to change perspectives. Alex Taylor: "OK, another question for Amnesty International. I will translate this question from Wanshaxa: "Do the Turkish respect the rights of Kurdish citizens, if so, why do these massacres of Kurds continue today?"" Philippe Hensman: "No, actually there are huge human rights violations against the Kurds in Turkey, and we have denounced these acts on several occasions including the recent events where we saw people who were bombed and attacked by Turkey." Alex Taylor: "Any answers?" Philippe Hensman: "Sometimes, but what matters is that other countries put pressure on Turkey by listening to human rights organisations." Alex Taylor: "We have a written question from Gunther who is German - "What will happen to the right of residence in Europe, especially in times of crisis when there are not enough jobs for everyone?" Does Amnesty International have something to say about that? Philippe Hensman: "Yes, we have something to say. That is to say that we have an unfortunate tendency in Europe to close ourselves in and not allow people with similar brains into the workplace. But we can't reject or outsource the processing of asylum claims to other countries. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 30 percent of the Libyan population, people herded into concentration camps funded by the European Union. This is unfortunate because in fact, the mass population flows are not so huge. If I take Belgium again, the flow of people seeking asylum in our country has decreased in the last 10-15 years. This means that we are not facing a massive influx, but despite that we have a responsibility to manage the issue because international law is there and reminds us of that, there was a time when we needed asylum. Now the tide has changed.  Alex Taylor: "Last question Mr. Hensmans. You said yourself that decisions are often very sensitive. Is International Amnesty sometimes wrong? Philippe Hensman: "I've been with Amnesty International for 30 years and we've only been wrong a few times. " Alex Taylor: "For example?" Philippe Hensman: "We were under the impression that Iraqi soldiers entered a hospital and opened fire on babies in incubators in Kuwait. We conducted three field operations, three missions to reveal the truth. We had it wrong and had to acknowledge the mistake.  Alex Taylor: "And what did you do about that?" Philippe Hensman: "We issued a statement saying that we had made a mistake." Alex Taylor: "Thanks very much Philippe Hensman. You can find all the details on our website. Thanks for watching I-talk and see you again next time. More about: Amnesty International, European Union, NGO