Amnesty International Canada: Amnesty

Racial Discrimination Dept: This year three UN expert committees rated the country s performance on meeting rights commitments and returned a failing grade, according to The Star. An Amnesty report released Wednesday says that committees on racial discrimination, prevention of torture and children s rights found a range of ongoing and serious human rights challenges, especially for indigenous peoples and for Canada s international human rights standing, 2012 was an annus horribilis. These mandatory reviews are carried out every four or five years, and it just happened that this year Canada was the focus of three, said Alex Neve, who heads Amnesty International Canada. It s a wake-up call that although we have things to be proud of, there are many fronts where we have long-standing issues that need to be addressed. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.