participate in a 43t letter-writing group for amnesty international

Amnesty UK has belatedly come up with an email to send to David Miliband – you can get at it here.

I’ve just sent it off.

This letter is from the Amnesty UK website here.

Dear Rt. Hon John Hutton MP,

I welcome the commitment that Gordon Brown has made to support a request put to the UN Security Council by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to add a further 3,000 soldiers to the 17,000 strong force currently stationed in the DRC.

I urge the UK to encourage other members of the UN Security Council to also offer their support by the time they next meet to discuss the deployment of peacekeepers later this month.

In particular I urge the UK and other Security Council members to act and agree to:
· Urgently reinforce MONUC peacekeeping contingents in North-Kivu province and in the Ituri and Haut-Uélé districts of Orientale province
· Urge all parties to the conflict to ensure that humanitarian aid agencies are not hindered in their work to provide aid to displaced people,
· Press the governments of the DRC and Rwanda to refrain from providing moral or material support to armed groups operating in eastern DRC.
· Assert that justice and an end to impunity must now have a central place in the search for durable peace in the Great Lakes Region.

Huang Qi, a human rights activist based in the southwestern city of Chengdu, was detained by plainclothed police officers on 10 June.

He is held on suspicion of ‘illegally acquiring state secrets’. No one has been able to visit him in detention, and Amnesty International believes he is at risk of torture and ill-treatment.

The “subversion” charges in Chinese Criminal Law are used to arbitrarily detain and prosecute activists, journalists and internet users, and have discouraged reporting of sensitive issues, such as human rights concerns or disagreement with the government.

Your Excellency

Re: Release Huang Qi

I am calling on the Chinese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release human rights activist Huang Qi, who was detained by plainclothed police officers on 10 June.

I urge you to guarantee that Huang Qi is not tortured or ill-treated while he remains in custody and ensure he has access to his family and lawyers and any necessary medical treatment.

I call you you to end the use of vaguely defined crimes such as ‘illegally acquiring state secrets’ to clamp down on human rights defenders.

Furthermore, I am deeply concerned that detention of peaceful human rights activists runs counter to promises made by Chinese officials that human rights would improve in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

Sent to: WEN Jiabao Guojia Zongli – Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China – email address: gazette@mail.gov.cn

I noticed that they have a new campaign, Unsubscribe Me, which is against human rights abuses in the name of the war on terror. Seems like a good idea.

Senior General Than Shwe – Chairman
State Peace and
Development Council,
Ministry of Defence,
Signal Pagoda Road,
Dagon Post Office,
Yangon,
Union of Myanmar

Dear General

Re: Please release Saw Naing Naing

I am writing to you in regards to 64-year-old Saw Naing Naing, who is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence simply for the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. I urge you to please release Saw Naing Naing immediately and unconditionally, as he is a prisoner of conscience.

I am particularly concerned for the health of Saw Naing Naing who I believe is suffering from a hernia and heart disease. Saw Naing Naing’s age and ill health should also be considered as humanitarian grounds for his release. Pending his release from prison, he should receive regular and unrestricted access to appropriate medical care and adequate nutrition, and he must not be tortured or ill-treated in any way.

Actions must be taken to improve the conditions of detention for all prisoners, in compliance with international standards, with emphasis on meeting nutritional needs and medical requirements. All prisoners of conscience in Myanmar must be immediately released, including, on humanitarian grounds, all those over the age of 60 and those with severe health problems.

The right to freedom of expression should be respected. Any legislation which allows the imprisonment of people who peacefully exercise this right should be repealed or amended to bring it into line with international standards.

Yours sincerely

Alyaksandr G. Lukashenka – President
ul. Karla Marxa 38
220016
Minsk
Belarus

Dear President Lukashenka

Re: Please release Tsimafey Dranchuk and make Mikalay Astreyka’s release unconditional

I wish to express my grave concern over the imprisonment of Tsimafey Dranchuk, a member of the independent election monitoring group Initiative Partnership, who was arrested on 21 February 2006 by State Security Committee officers.

Tsimafey Dranchuk is a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of association, and should be released immediately and unconditionally.

I am pleased to learn that another member of Initiative Partnership, Mikalay Astreyka, who was arrested together with Tsimafey Dranchuk, was released on 17 November. However, I am concerned that restrictions continue to be imposed on him and call on you to ensure that all conditions on Mikalay Astreyka’s release be immediately dropped.

Measures should be put in place to ensure that civil society activists, promoting and defending human rights in Belarus, do not suffer any form of obstruction, harassment or intimidation in relation to their peaceful and legitimate work.

Laws, regulations and practices on the registration and activities of non-governmental organisations, in particular the law on Public Associations adopted in August 2005, should be reviewed and amended to ensure that they fully accommodate and respect the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.

Yours sincerely,

Apart from the occasional burst of energy when I go onto the Amnesty website, find the latest appeals and churn out 8 emails in a row (this has happened, er, about twice in the last year) I don’t seem to be doing much on this goal.

Why not? Here are some of my reasons (many of them stupid):

• I don’t know what to say in the letter.
• I don’t have a printer at home.
• I simply forget to do it.
• I don’t know how to go about sending letters to strange foreign countries.
• I’m scared I might repeat myself because I can’t remember which appeals I’ve done and which I haven’t.

• there’s a site here that offers hypertext letters where they have written a variety of sentences and you choose which ones you like and combine them to make up your own letter. If I use this a few times, it would give me a better sense of what needs to be said. They also offer a letter-writing service.
• I have access to a printer at work and as long as I don’t abuse it, nobody’s going to mind if I print out the odd letter.
• I need to set up a reminder to do it every month. When I get my new diary, I shall do this.
• The post office website has info. about prices, airmail, and all that sort of thing. There is a post office near where I live, so it’s quite easy to go before work when the queue isn’t too bad.
• I could quite easily set up a file of AI stuff so that I know which appeals I’ve already responded to.

Tonight I’m going to make a start on this.

Amnesty is stepping up its campaign on freedom of speech on the internet, an issue that is particularly relevant for us 43Ters. It’s timed to coincide with the start of a week-long UN-organised conference that will debate the future of the net.

The BBC has a story about it here and if you haven’t already, you can sign up to the campaign itself here (you don’t have to be a member of Amnesty to sign up, by the way).

...here’s the Amnesty website which has links to all their campaigns. Let’s get writing!