Next Monday, 10th December, is Human Rights Day, but Manx Amnesty International members start their week of action before that. And they want the public to join in.
On the next two Saturdays you can be part of ‘Write for Rights’, an international event which will mean thousands of letters being written to and about people who despots wish were long forgotten.
At two Manx venues there will be a display of 15 cases including feisty Afghan womens rights group Young Women for Change, Mehman Huseynov (facing five years imprisonment in Azerbaijan for using the Eurovision Song Contest to draw attention to that country’s appalling human rights record) and the 30,000 displaced people of Tawargha town, in Libya, which was burned down in 2011 by opposition fighters.
You can also hear more about such cases on Manx Radio. For several years now, local Amnesty members have presented the Thought For The Day spot during the week on which Human Rights Day falls, and this year they do so again. Tune in from Monday for some slightly different ‘thoughts’ to the usual ones.
This Saturday morning, 8th December, ‘Write for Rights’ is at Jabberwocky, the Douglas cafe. The following Saturday, 15th December, it is at the Northern Lights Centre, Ramsey, from 2 PM to 5 PM. At both venues, for the price of a foreign stamp, you can send a brief message of hope to people who badly need it.
Manx Amnesty activist Stuart Hartill said: “This is an event anyone can join in with, even if only for a few minutes. Just have a look at a highly varied list of individuals and organisations. Some have simply expressed opinions we would consider common sense. Others live under daily threats of state violence, or have had relatives murdered or ‘disappeared’. There are full case details and we have cards and even foreign language translations of messages to be sent to both representatives of the governments concerned and their victims.”
It might just be the quickest, cheapest and yet in other ways most valuable Christmas present you give anyone this year.
