Daedalus escaping from the labyrinthReady-Made
Human Rights Letters

Here are short letters that you can easily print and mail.

Select the address and text; copy and paste them into Word or whatever you use for writing. Arrange on the page to your liking.

Even better is to spend a few moments individualizing the text. You could change words, add your own remarks, use different points from the fuller information given.
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Get back to us if you have a question. Or if you have the luck to receive a reply—it could be important. We'd love to know that you've written.

—Guy Ottewell and Tilly Lavenás, founder members of the Amnesty International groups of Greenville, South Carolina, and Lyme Regis, England.

The top letter on the home page is new. Others are about some long-term cases on which we keep working. More letters on them are always needed.
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Updates on past cases

You may submit a letter appeal for possible use. Please make it easy for us: Keep it short. Provide a summary of the fuller information (which we like to get in chronological order). Expect to be edited. Provide a web link if possible, or a citation of the authority for the information, e.g. for an Amnesty International Urgent Action, its number, date, and "write no later than" date. Send to guy@universalworkshop.com

Do letters do any good? Mostly they get no apparent response. But they bother the authorities and have been known to play a part in a prisoner's release. Often they cause atrocious conditions to be improved. If known about by a prisoner or other victim, they mightily ENCOURAGE.

“When the first two hundred letters came, the guards gave me back my clothes. Then the next two hundred letters came, and the prison director came to see me. When the next pile of letters arrived, the director got in touch with his superior. The letters kept coming and coming: three thousand of them. The President was informed. The letters still kept arriving, and the President called the prison and told them to let me go.” —Julio de Peña Valdez, trade union leader, after his release in 1974 from underground solitary confinement in the Dominican Republic

These “remhurls” have been sent by email to a list of friends at irregular intervals (monthly, sometimes less, sometimes more) since 1996. Since 2008 we have used this better method of distribution. We are responsible for them; they are not an official production of Amnesty International, Survival International, or any other of our sources.

Another resource for easily sending human-rights letters (it provides individualized texts or printed letters, for small fees per year or other period):
Appeals Worldwide, www.appealsww.com

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posted Aug. 23, 2008; updated March 2009

>> A recent visit to Ricardo and what we learned from it. >>

Ricardo UcánLic. Ivonne Aracelly Ortega Pacheco
Gobernadora del Estado de Yucatán
Palacio de Gobierno,
Calle 61, Col. Centro
Mérida 97000
Estado de Yucatán
Mexico

Señora Gobernadora,

I urge you to re-open the case of Ricardo Ucán, who has been in prison at Tekax since 2001.

His trial was conducted in Spanish, without an interpreter, though he understands little Spanish. It seems to be a case of discrimination against Maya-speaking people.

Yours respectfully and sincerely,

Having written your letter, you could send it also to:
Lic. Armando Villarreal Guerra
Procurador del Estado de Yucatán
Km 46.5 Periférico Poniente
Polígono Susulá-Caucel
Tablaeje Catastral 20832
Mérida, Estado de Yucatán
Mexico
("Señor Procurador")

_________________________

Information condensed from an Amnesty International document "Injustice and impunity: Mexico's flawed criminal justice system", which can be found at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR41/001/2007/en/dom-AMR410012007en.html, and from some later sources:

Ricardo Ucán Ceca, of an indigenous Maya community in Akil, Yucatán State, was arrested for the murder, in self-defense, of a neighbor, Bernardino Chan Ek, on 5 June, 2000, and sentenced in June 2001 to 22 years in prison.

He signed a statement in Spanish that he had shot his neighbor during a dispute over a plot of land. He understood and spoke little Spanish, could not read or write, and was not allowed an interpreter. He did not understand the legal process, so could not fully explain the circumstances. The public defender appointed for him did not discernibly participate in the process, nor did she sign the record of his statement.

In 2003 the Yucatán State Human Rights Commission concluded that Ricardo Ucán's right to adequate defence and a translator had been violated, and recommended an investigation. Yet petitions filed to the State Superior Court and federal courts against the sentence were subsequently rejected. The courts failed to place any burden on the judge or prosecutor to ensure that the defendant fully understood the judicial proceedings, and ruled that the translator is for the benefit of the judge, not the defendant.

Ricardo Ucán's conviction and the failure of appeals appear to have been the result of discriminatory treatment by the judge, prosecutor, and public defender. His case is an example of discrimination against indigenous suspects, which often results in their receiving unfair trials and excessive sentences. In January 2007 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples expressed concern at the discrimination and called for legal measures to ensure his effective access to justice.

You can send postcards or greeting cards that will be taken to him:
Ricardo Ucán
c/o Equipe Indignación
Calle 17-A s/n entre 20 y 22
Chablekal
Mérida, Yucatán
Mexico