Asylum and various persecution-based hardship cases often present an immigration lawyer with the serious challenge of thoroughly documenting that the conditions in an applicant’s country warrant a credible fear of persecution. Fortunately, that task has become much easier as a result of the Internet. The amount of human rights materials accessible on the Internet is very impressive and continues to grow quickly. Here are some of the best places to start looking for this information:
- Amnesty International Online http://www.amnesty.org
Includes the famous annual report on human rights, country reports, a search engine for the entire site and news updates.
- Human Rights Web http://www.hrweb.org
A nice place to start your research, this site contains a well-organized list of human rights resources all over the Web.
- Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/home.html
Web site for another well-respected human rights organization. Contains country news updates.
- United Nations High Commission on Refugees http://www.unhr.org
Text of REFUGEES magazine, repatriation information reports and country reports.
- Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr/
Annual Country Reports, Human Rights Links, and updates.
- DIANA International Human Rights Database http://www.law.uc.edu:81/Diana/about.html
Excellent resource to find human rights information.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk. The information provided in this article has not been updated since its original posting and you should not rely on it until you consult counsel to determine if the content is still valid. We keep older articles online because it helps in the understanding of the development of immigration law.