Letter writing campaigners take charge on Human Rights Day

Amnesty International is a great and controversial organization. I wrote an article about their Global Write-a-thon held on Human Rights Day last December.


Letter writing campaigners take charge on Human Rights Day
By Talia Whyte
Copyright 2004

Original Run Date: 11 December 2004

Thousands of human right activists around the world participated in a global ‘write-a-thon’ promoted by Amnesty International on December 10. This letter writing campaign was held in commemoration of Human Rights Day. On this day in 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It affirmed that the "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."

The Amnesty International Write-a-thon was organized to emphasize the importance of the declaration and draw attention to human rights abuses. Participants write letters on behalf of prisoners of conscience.

“A prisoner of conscience is anyone who is persecuted or imprisoned because of their political affliation, religion, race, color, sexual orientation, language or belief, so long as they have not used or advocated violence,” said Marian Chambers, a human rights activist of 36 years. Chambers hosted what she called a ‘radical potluck party,’ where she invited socially aware friends and colleagues over to her Cambridge, MA home for a night of good food, good spirits and an opportunity to make a difference by writing letters in the company of like-minded citizens.

“I think hosting such an event gives an opportunity to discuss radical social change,” said Chambers, “There are a lot of human rights miseries in this world and a lot of people just don’t know about most of them.”

Chambers’ dining room was filled with 30 ‘activists’ sitting around table stacked with letters and information about prisoners of conscience who are in harm’s way for speaking out on a wide variety of reasons, ranging from press freedom to female genital mutilation to AIDS activism. “I am writing a letter on behalf of Rebiya Kadeer, who is a Chinese women’s rights advocate,” said participant and Harvard graduate student Sherry Bonam, “The Chinese government charged Ms Kadeer in September of 1999 with ‘providing secret information to foreigners’ even though the local newspapers she was carrying at the time of her arrest were all publicly available, as were the newspapers she had sent to her husband in the United States. Authorities tried her in secret and sentenced her in March of 2000 to eight years’ imprisonment.”

Gregory Higgins, another participant, felt a personal connection to one group of prisoners of conscience, the Agouza 11. The Agouza 11 refers to a group of men in Egypt who were imprisoned solely because of their perceived or actual homosexuality. In February 2003 the Agouza Court of Appeal upheld the conviction of the 11 men who were sentenced to three years imprisonment on charges of “habitual debauchery.”

“Some people think that because gay marriage is here in Massachusetts, gays don’t have to worry about fighting anymore,” said Higgins, who is openly gay, “We still have to worry about the people who are less fortunate in this world.”

However many opponents to Amnesty’s actions, mostly government officials, believe that letter writing is just another way of imposing Western mores and values on mostly Third World countries and their traditions.

“I don’t see this as a imposing Western values onto others,” said Chambers, a Dutch native, “The fact that someone can be imprisoned or harassed or even murder for speaking up for what they believe is right is simply wrong. I would like to think that most rational people in the world believe that a woman shouldn’t have been persecuted because she is physically beaten up on a daily basis because a man has a right to do that. A parent should not be imprisoned because they don’t want their 10-year-old male child to be recruited to be a soldier or their female child to go through circumcision. I think this letter writing is a way to give a voice to the voiceless. We are writing on behalf of that woman or that parent somewhere. The pen is mightier than the sword.”

The global write-a-thon has made an impact on many lives, including Sheikh Sackor, a freed Liberian prisoner of conscience. Sackor, the executive director of Humanist Watch, was imprisoned and accused of spreading information intended to “tarnish the image” of the Liberian government and of belonging to the LURD, an armed opposition group. He was tortured and denied counsel while in prison.

“…And then one night, during an interrogation session, my captors accused me of being a spy for Amnesty International,” said Sackor during a recent interview, “That was how I learned that Amnesty International had issued an urgent action describing my detention and calling on people worldwide to write letters to ask for my release. Finding out that so many people were concerned about me made me hopeful again that I would be freed.”

After three months, Sackor was released from prison.