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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rick C. who wrote (26451)	12/3/1998 1:21:00 AM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I'm very active in Amnesty International, Rick, obviously for the same reason you are active in the Foundation for HR in Guatemala. In fact, (speaking of the link you gave, which discusses Human Rights Day,) a friend and I organized a slightly early commemoration of Human Rights Day this year to which almost 300 people came last week. This year it focused on the human rights situation in Tibet. Human Rights Day is December 10. This year is the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as I'm sure you know; but heck, I'm following your lead in promoting a humanitarian cause here. Many of those who attended our occasion agreed also to participate in Amnesty's Holiday Card action this year. Everyone comes together in a public place, (we do this annually at a cooperative Barnes and Noble), and we AI members urge passersby to join us in sending messages of hope to a select group of individuals from all over the world, individuals whom Amnesty calls "Prisoners of Conscience." At the same time we're sending our messages of support, thousands and thousands of people, organized by Amnesty International groups on every continent, are writing those cards, too. There are usually 12 or 15 "POC's" chosen for the focus of this particular action each year. Their stories are horrendous. But this action elicits so many thousands and thousands of cards, so very much attention that many of these people are freed. Essentially we embarrass the governments into releasing these people whom they have imprisoned for their beliefs, their religion, ethnicity, nationality. (And no AI Prisoner of Conscience has used or advocated violence.) If I've managed to interest anyone in writing a few words of encouragement on some (secular) holiday cards this year, usually in early December, you might contact your local AI group for information. If there is no listing in your phone book, you may inquire further at AI in Washington, DC, or from the New York AI office at 212 807 8400. If you're in the northeast, the regional office from which to get information about a group in your area is in Somerville, MA, phone: 617 623 0202. Here's a letter quoted on an AI brochure that explains much better than I can why readers of this thread might consider participating in an AI Holiday Card Action: (From Julio de Pena valdez, a trade union leader in the Dominican Republic): 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.... After I was released, the President called me to his office for a man-to-man talk. He said, "how is it that a trade union leader like you has so many friends all over the world?"