Write for Rights and Make a Difference

Each year, hun­dreds of thou­sands of con­cerned cit­i­zens around the globe mark Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Day on the 10^th of Decem­ber by tak­ing part in Amnesty International’s ‘Let­ter Writ­ing Marathon’. The event titled “Write for Rights” calls on Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al (AI) mem­bers and sup­port­ers around the world to write as many let­ters as pos­si­ble in sup­port of indi­vid­u­als who are at high risk of hav­ing their rights vio­lat­ed, ask­ing con­cerned author­i­ties to take actions. In doing so, they offer sup­port and show sol­i­dar­i­ty with those suf­fer­ing from human rights abus­es and try to bring about real change to people’s lives. Indi­vid­u­als at risk range from peo­ple who are pris­on­ers of con­science to human rights defend­ers receiv­ing threats because of what they do.

Being a mem­ber of Amnesty, I applied to be a vol­un­teer for the marathon and was select­ed to orga­nize a let­ter-writ­ing event for 2011. I was tru­ly ecsta­t­ic.

The aim of the event was to gen­er­ate as many let­ters as pos­si­ble on behalf of 14 select­ed cas­es of indi­vid­u­als from dif­fer­ent parts of the world, rang­ing from Azer­bai­jan to North Korea to Yemen to Mex­i­co to Iran. Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al was fight­ing for their free­dom and rights. Along with oth­er fel­low short­list­ed vol­un­teers, I received copies of case files with details of each indi­vid­ual at risk. We were sup­posed to make these avail­able to our invi­tees to inform them about the issues and to inspire them to write let­ters on as many cas­es as pos­si­ble. We also need­ed to cam­paign with­in our com­mu­ni­ties to mobilise as many peo­ple as we could to write.

The theme of our series of events was “Think Local­ly, Act Glob­al­ly”. These events were orga­nized in Islam­abad, Rawalpin­di and Hyder­abad. Venues ranged from schools to law cham­bers to youth forums. A large num­ber of stu­dents, teach­ers, lawyers, civ­il soci­ety mem­bers, social activists, poets and writ­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed. Some of my friends showed spe­cial enthu­si­asm in help­ing orga­nize the marathon by work­ing uncon­di­tion­al­ly. They were won­der­ful­ly cre­ative and painstak­ing­ly looked for ways to con­vince oth­ers to join the event and write let­ters. We made our own posters and also used mate­ri­als pro­vid­ed by AI, like col­or­ful paper, case cards and pam­phlets. These con­tained Amnesty logos and eye-catch­ing images with the Amnesty brand colours of black and yel­low. One of the vol­un­teers also made an online peti­tion that we got signed by thou­sands of online users to build pres­sure on author­i­ties to act for human rights.

Our efforts bore fruit. The joint voice we raised was heard! Our pas­sion­ate appeals and per­son­al mes­sages result­ed in two cas­es yield­ing suc­cess­ful results. A long-pend­ing case of indige­nous rape vic­tims in Mex­i­co was offi­cial­ly tak­en respon­si­bil­i­ty for by the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment and a stu­dent activist in Azer­bai­jan was released. This was indeed a great suc­cess for all of us and we were over­joyed.

One par­tic­i­pant reflect­ed:

“This is the first time I did work of this nature and I found it sur­pris­ing that there are so many peo­ple will­ing to help out the inno­cent peo­ple around the world. I felt hon­ored to be of some help and I want to make it very clear that these peo­ple are not alone in their mis­eries and dis­tress.”

In total, AI sup­port­ers from around the globe sent more than 800,000 let­ters as part of Write for Rights. So glob­al­ly, it was a huge suc­cess too. AI’s work was high­ly admirable and appre­cia­ble. Their online com­mu­ni­ties offi­cer went the extra mile and made every pos­si­ble effort to facil­i­tate us and make our events a suc­cess. Indeed, it was a tru­ly unique way to stand for human rights. AI great­ly appre­ci­at­ed our efforts and sent all the orga­niz­ers and helpers thank-you notes in Feb­ru­ary this year to express its pro­found grat­i­tude to us.
If you are inter­est­ed in help­ing end human rights abus­es, sign up as inter­na­tion­al mem­bers of Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al by going to this link and fol­low­ing the instruc­tions — http://amnesty.org/en/join

You will receive emails about human rights cam­paigns includ­ing fre­quent online peti­tions that are tar­get­ed to your inter­ests as well as infor­ma­tion on oppor­tu­ni­ties to take action. You can also become a vol­un­teer, and lead activism ini­tia­tives in your com­mu­ni­ty. Fur­ther­more, you will have full use of AI online com­mu­ni­ties.

Good luck, future activists!