Please help annual Write for Rights | Letter to the editor

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The Olympic Peninsula Amnesty International chapter invites everyone to join us in Write for Rights, writing letters to free prisoners of conscience from prisons around the world. Amnesty organizes this every year to honor Human Rights Day, Dec. 10.

This year’s theme is “Protect Our Right to Protest!” We’ve all noticed that protests are global, widespread, and increasing. This campaign aims to stop worldwide attacks on peaceful protesters and to support movements striving for positive change.

The 13 cases include Vahid Afkari, already in solitary confinement for over two years in Iran for attending a peaceful protest (his brother was executed); Shahnewaz Chowdhury, who may be imprisoned for years for writing a Facebook post about the environmental destruction in Bangladesh; and Chow Hang-tung, a young human rights lawyer jailed in Hong Kong for remembering the victims of Tiananmen Square.

The Write for Rights campaign, now in its 21st year, is the world’s largest human rights letter writing event. It’s a grassroots tradition of people worldwide taking action on behalf of prisoners of conscience and human rights defenders.

Letters truly have the power to change lives, and throughout Amnesty International’s 61 years, many people have been freed because of Write for Rights.

Please sign up to write at write.amnestyusa.org. 

If you don’t have much time, Amnesty provides a link to “support all 13 individuals here.” 

We encourage you to join our Olympic Peninsula chapter by emailing us at ptamnesty@gmail.com. We now meet monthly by Zoom.

Wendy Feltham and Gail Pruitt
Co-chairs, Olympic Peninsula Amnesty International Chapter #1106
PORT TOWNSEND