|
Ready-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.
A short letter in simple language is most likely to be understood.
Stay polite.
Get
back to us if you have a question. Or if you have the luck to
receive a replyit 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.
YOU CAN RECEIVE NEW APPEALS BY EMAIL. Please go to http://groups.google.com/group/humanrightsletters
By clicking "Join this group" (at the right) you can become
a member of our Google Group and will receive sample
letters whenever we have them ready.
If you don't see a "Join this group" link, or if you
have received an email about Ready-made human rights letters,
you are already a member.
Under "Discussions" you can see the emails we've previously
sent.
GET FRIENDS TO JOIN!
|
|
Postage for one sheet (mark envelope AIRMAIL):
from the USA 98¢ (to Canada 75¢, Mexico 79¢)
from Britain 62p (to Europe 56p)
|
|
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
|
|

|
|
Join the team. See yellow box
at left.
|
|
Jianchazhan
30 Fengming Street
Shuangtaqu
Chaoyangshi 122000
Liaoningsheng
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Dear Procurator,
I am writing on behalf of Sodmongol. As
you may know, he is an activist who was arrested at Beijing airport
on his way to a United Nations meeting on Indigenous Peoples in
New York. I understand that he is being held incommunicado. His
family has not heard from him since April.
Sodmongol is a prisoner of conscience. I
strongly urge you to release him immediately.
information on the
case, and some more addresses
|
|
Senior
General Than Shwe
Chairman
State Peace and Development Council
Naypyitaw
Union of Myanmar (Burma)
Dear General,
I ask you to order the release of Myo Min
Zaw.
He was a student arrested in 1998 for peaceful
political activity. He was sentenced to 38 years in prison, later
increased to 52!
I believe that he is now imprisoned at Puta
O in Kachin State.
Many years of his life have been wasted.
Please set him free.
Yours respectfully and sincerely,
The story of Myo
Min Zaw
|
|
Bouasone
Bouphavanh, Prime Minister
Prime Minister's Office
Rue Sisavat
Vientiane
Lao People's Democratic Republic
Dear Prime Minister,
I am concerned about Thao Moua and Pa Fue
Khang, ethnic Hmong men now serving sentences of 12 and 15 years
in Samkhe Prison.
They were arrested in June 2003 for working
as guides to two foreign journalists. They were shackled, and beaten
with sticks and bicycle chains. They had a clearly unfair trial,
with no legal representation, and a sentence written beforehand.
I urge you to:
Review the cases of Thao Moua and Pa Fue Khang.
Ensure that they are subjected to no further ill-treatment.
Release them, if there is no credible evidence of any crime
committed by them.
I look forward to the honor of an early
reply from you about this important matter.
The genocide of the
Hmong, and another address to which you could send your letter
|
|
Governor
of Imo State
Executive Governor's Office
Government House
PMB 1183
Owerri, Imo State
Nigeria
Your Excellency,
Please have Patrick Okoroafor released immediately.
Yours respectfully and sincerely,
They pulled
out his teeth with pliers
|
|
Justice
Minister Eisuke Mori
1-1-1 Kasumigaseki
Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 100-8977
Japan
Dear Minister,
I appeal to you for Hakamada Iwao.
He was convicted of murder after an unfair
trial. He has spent 40 years (28 of them in solitary confinement)
waiting to be hanged, and as a consequence is now mentally ill.
I urge you to ensure that he is released
on account of his age and illness, or at the very least that he
receives a new trial meeting international standards.
I shall be honored to receive your early
reply on this shocking matter.
The barbarity of
Japan's death row
|
|