Inspired by sustained support for an end to torture from the world community and a clear majority of Americans, Avaaz.org launched a metro billboard ad campaign to remind policymakers that torture is illegal, unethical and a top recruiting tool for the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network.



The ads (which are running at Farragut North Station and in a Washington Paper) feature Osama bin Laden in an "I love Gitmo" t-shirt (an acknowledgement that Al Qaeda uses the prison to recruit terrorists) and include quotes from President Obama and Presidential candidate John McCain.

Click here to download the press release

Thanks go to the thousands of Avaaz members who donated to fund this campaign. Our global voices are vital if we are to see Guantanamo Bay closed, a total ban on torture, and the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into past practices. If you would like to make a further donation for this ongoing campaign - click here.

Some of the media achieved from the campaign is listed below:

Times of Malta

Agence France Press

Yahoo Espana

Middle East Online

This week, Avaaz has been running an advertisement on Washington DC television spoofing ExxonMobil's hypnotically disingenuous ad campaign—you know, the ones where friendly, nerdy people tell you how their work at ExxonMobil will help the environment.

The message of our ad was simple: while ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies now talk a good game on climate change, they're still lobbying full-force to prevent a strong global climate treaty. The kind of treaty Obama can help create—if the rest of us give him the political support to do it.

Well, yesterday, ExxonMobil responded to the ad. Apparently, they were mystified.

"They seem to be critical of our desire to communicate our positions on climate change, which we don't understand," said Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers.

Mr. Jeffers, sorry for confusing you! Perhaps we could be more clear. We have no problem with ExxonMobil's "desire to communicate." It's ExxonMobil's positions on climate change that we're critical of... and the fact that the communications in question don't actually communicate them.

In fact, if ExxonMobil is really eager to communicate their positions on climate change, then they should be welcoming our ad! Take a look:

The truth is, Exxon spent at least $29 million on lobbying in the US last year alone—and is on track to spend even more on a lobbying and advertising blitz this year. While ExxonMobil might not be funding climate denialists to distort science any longer (it lost that battle), it hasn't switched sides in the climate wars. Now, they're just wearing the other side's uniforms. ExxonMobil's strategy is to divert the growing momentum for effective global and national policies by greenwashing itself—and lobbying hard behind the scenes.

Most of their ads showcase research projects or promote the virtues of personal energy efficiency. Unmentioned by the $400-billion-plus company is the fact that their entire business model relies on continually increasing the burning of carbon-based fuels. Watching the ads, a conscientious consumer could conclude that ExxonMobil is to clean energy what the Gates Foundation is to global health. The more appropriate analogy would be Phillip Morris.

(Sometimes the ads are misleading—not just in their underlying message—but also in their particulars: Last year, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority banned an ExxonMobil ad for claiming, falsely, that liquefied natural gas was "one of the world's cleanest fuels.")

ExxonMobil's feel-good ads showcasing hydrogen fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries, and tire technology aren't about "communicating their positions on climate change." They're about calming down a public that has become rightly infuriated by fossil-fuel industry obstructionism of real climate action. And they're about distracting attention from ExxonMobil's own lobbying against the cap-and-trade legislation and binding global treaty that the world urgently needs.

We suspect that, in fact, Mr. Jeffers understands this all too well.

The International Criminal Court indicted Sudan's President Omar Al Bashir for genocide.

Check our ad campaign to support ICC initiative:

The ad below ran, full-page black and white, in today's Financial Times newspaper (9 July, 2008). Click here to download a print-ready PDF file.

This ad ran in glorious full-page colour in all editions of today's Financial Times -- sponsored and endorsed by Avaaz members in 166 countries. (Click here for a print-ready huge PDF.)

This ad ran, full-page in black and white, in all editions of the Financial Times today (Monday, July 7, 2008). A print-ready, 3.8MB PDF file can be accessed at this link. The press release is online here.

More ads will follow on Tuesday and Wednesday.

*Rome Summit Petition Delivery *

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BAN KI-MOON WELCOMES MASSIVE GLOBAL PETITION CHALLENGING RICH COUNTRIES ON FOOD CRISIS

"This petition is very helpful to show that people are pushing for this, and to help build the political will for governments to act," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, receiving the petition before his press conference at the summit.

"The food crisis is a planetary emergency - you can't put a band-aid on it," said Avaaz's Executive Director Ricken Patel. "Rich countries need to stop obstructing and start investing massively in developing nations' food production."

The campaign was launched with a YouTube appeal for help from Sierra Leone's foreign minister Zainab Bangura. "My appeal is for you to talk to your governments and please, please support the campaign," says Bangura, "I am speaking on behalf of the voiceless millions of Africans who cannot speak for themselves."

Launched just one month ago, the petition has already been signed by over 330,000 citizens of every country in the world. Addressed to leaders attending the Rome summit, it says:

"We call on you to take immediate action to address the world food crisis by mobilizing emergency funding to prevent starvation, removing perverse incentives to turn food into biofuels and managing financial speculation, and to tackle the underlying causes by ending harmful trade policies and investing massively in sustainable agricultural productivity in developing nations."

To book interviews or for more information in Rome contact: media@avaaz.org

About Avaaz



Avaaz, meaning "voice" in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages, was launched in January 2007 with a mission to harness new technologies to help ensure that the views and values of the world's peoples better shape global decision-making. It has since grown to more than 3 million members from every country on earth.

The Economist wrote last year of Avaaz's power to "give the world leaders a deafening wake-up call", while the Indian Express heralded "the biggest web campaigner across the world, rooting for crucial global issues." David Miliband, the UK foreign secretary who asked Avaaz to co-host his first major speech, calls the organization "the best of the new in foreign policy."



In the days following the Burmese cyclone, while governments and aid organisations waited for the junta to let them in, Avaaz members raised over $2 million in emergency funds, channelled immediately to the monks and other relief networks already operating inside Burma. http://www.avaaz.org/en/burma_aid_report

Avaaz's 'Stop the Clash of Civilizations' video recently won the YouTube political video of the year award, gaining more votes than other videos centered on the US Presidential race. www.youtube.com/ytawards07winners

Avaaz co-founder and Executive Director Ricken Patel appeared on the BBC one-to-one interview program HARDtalk last week to discuss Avaaz, Burma, the Middle East, and our model of gobal online campaigning. You can watch the interview here, or just click below:

Avaaz.org's Ricken Patel on BBC World's HARDtalk.

Wakey-wakey

Feb 15th 2007
From The Economist print edition
Electronic activism is stirring a lot of citizens into life, whatever leaders think

WHATEVER might unite or divide them, George Bush, Vladimir Putin and the other leaders of the G8 nations will have a fresh topic for small talk, and perhaps serious talk, when they meet in Germany this summer.

They and their underlings will all have been bombarded with e-mails from every country in the world urging them to take faster action over climate change--in a campaign mounted by Avaaz.org, a new web-based protest movement which aspires to be the biggest and broadest such organisation in a crowded field.

Read the entire article here

Wow this is really getting big. Today we were featured in the Independent, one of the UK's top selling newspapers. See it here.

Avaaz has also enjoyed major mentions here in the grist and here in global-cool!!

You can also find mentions of our climate campaign at:
Care2 News Network (thanks Ani Ta)
Oil Change International (thanks to Andy Rowell)#
Independence'05 (thanks Lilianne)
and Sustainability in Hawaii: SusHihttp://kauaian.net/blog/?p=400

Don't forget to check our comments out as well. There's some interesting discussions forming!
Thanks again for all your support! More updates as they happen.

The word keeps spreading-- Avaaz and the TV Ad are a top three story at The Nation's website. See it here