2DkcTXceO

M.W. Gray 135the mathematical sciences to more general defense of human rights. Hands-onexperience began when I represented the AMS in a delegation to Montevideothat also included members of the French Mathematical Society, the MexicanMathematical Society, and the Brazilian Applied Mathematics Society.The goal was to try to secure the release of José Luis Massera, a prominentUruguayan mathematician who had been imprisoned for many years. We visitedprisons, officials, journalists and others, ending up with the colonel whohad the power to release the imprisoned mathematician. We spoke of Massera’sdistinguished mathematics, failing health, and international concern for hissituation. The colonel agreed that the prisoner was an eminent personage andadded, “He will be released in two months.” To our astonishment, he was.Success is a great motivator; it led to work with Amnesty International(AI) and other organizations on cases, not only of mathematicians, but ofmany others unjustly imprisoned, tortured, disappeared, or murdered. Onceat the Council of the AMS, the issue of the people who had “disappeared”in Argentina, several of them mathematicians known to some on the Council,arose. Then another name came up, one that no one recognized, not surprisingbecause at the time she was a graduate student in mathematics. One of myfellow Council members suggested that as such she was not a “real” mathematicianand thus not worthy of the attention of the AMS. Fortunately, thatview did not prevail.Of the cases we worked on, one of the most memorable was that of MoncefBen Salem, a differential geometer, who had visited my late husband atthe University of Maryland before spending more than 20 years in prison orunder house arrest in his home country of Tunisia. As a result of the revolutionin 2011, he became Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Researchthere. Meeting in Tunis several times recently, we recalled the not-so-good olddays and focused on improvements in higher education and the mathematicseducation of young people. Much of my work in international developmentand human rights has come through my association with the American MiddleEast Education Foundation (Amideast) and Amnesty International, whereI served for a number of years as international treasurer — someone not afraidof numbers is always welcome as a volunteer in non-profit organizations. Integratingstatistics into human rights work has now become standard in manysituations.An opportunity to combine human rights work with statistics arose in theaftermath of the Rwanda genocide in the 90s. As the liberating force movedacross Rwanda from Tanzania in the east, vast numbers of people were imprisoned;two years later essentially the only way out of the prisons was death.The new government of Rwanda asserted quite correctly that the number ofprisoners overwhelmed what was left, or what was being rebuilt, of the judicialsystem. On the other hand, major funders, including the US, had alreadybuilt some new prisons and could see no end in sight to the incarceration ofa substantial portion of the country’s population. A basic human rights principleis the right to a speedy trial, with certain due process protections. The