Sunday 9 December 2012

Participating in Amnesty International's Write for Human Rights


December 10th is International Human Rights day and Amnesty International has invited people to participate in its Write for Rights marathon between Dec 7-16. This is a truly worthwhile event where people write letters to various governments to demand justice, respect and protection for human rights and an end to human rights violations. A friend of mine hosted a write-a-thon at her house and I was pleased to join in this event with several other people. We sat and wrote letters for a couple of hours. During this time, I wrote a letter to ask for justice for an unfairly convicted prisoner in Taiwan, to ask for assistance for a woman in Guatemala who was brutally attacked after she spoke out regarding water rights for her community, and to ask for a national strategy for Indigenous women in Canada who are victims of violence.


This photo shows three of the writers posing with a poster saying that we support the people of Bodo, Nigeria, whose land is being polluted by two oil spills from a Shell Oil pipeline. Shell is not addressing the problems caused by the leak to the health and well-being of the people of Bodo. This is just one of many injustices in the world today, and I feel it is important to write to governments to demand that the rights of people are upheld.  

2 comments:

Jenny said...

Writing the letters really does make a difference.

Knatolee said...

Great work, all of you!