On Friday, January 9, SBHS’s Amnesty International hosted its annual Write for Rights event. The event is a letter-writing effort that seeks to get justice for activists and families facing inhumane conditions around the globe. The goal of the letters is to spread awareness of injustice and flood world leaders’ and governments’ desks, pressuring them into ceasing their acts of cruelty, attacks on people’s human rights, or general neglect.
These letters have saved lives. With the help of Amnesty’s advocacy, Rocky Myers was released from death row by Alabama Governor Kay Ivey after three decades of waiting and no evidence to charge him. Neth Nahara was released from prison after publicly criticizing Angola’s president. Lawyer and media commentator Sonia Dahmani was released from prison after being raided for addressing inhumane Tunisian prison conditions and racism.
This year, seven letters were sent: for Ellinor Guttorm Utsi, a Sami woman fighting for her indigenous land in Norway; to release the Mother Nature Cambodia activists from prison for defending Cambodia’s environment; for Unecebo Mboteni, a three-year-old who lost his life due to poor bathroom infrastructure for villages in South Africa; in memory of Juan Lopez, defender of rivers and forests from mining projects in Honduras, whose assassins have not been held accountable; for Guerreras por la Amazonia, who are fighting the state of Ecuador to defend the climate in their country; for journalist Sai Zaw Thaike, who was arrested is being beaten for reporting undercover on a Burmese cyclone; and for Damisoa, whose newborn niece died due to the mass famine and displacement affecting thousands across Madagascar.
The event consisted mainly of the signing of the letters and the viewing of the 2014 documentary E-Team, which covers a team of undercover reporters sneaking into the heart of the Syrian and Libyan conflicts to document the real situation of the countries affecting hundreds of thousands of families each.
Senior Souryashubhra Chatterjee said, “I think—in the best way possible—Write for Rights was very busy. That is, at no point did I feel like we were wasting time. Amnesty, through showing us a documentary, telling us to write letters, allowing us to chat to friends, et cetera, packed as much as possible into the little two-and-a-half hour space we got. I went with my friends and we learned a lot about human rights, and the club’s dedication to the event really showed. It was fun!”
The board had to work on Amnesty International’s timeline, meaning to arrange the event by early January because of the deadline to send all letters by January 31. To advertise the event, the club started pouring out promotional materials, such as VTN segments, posters, and offering a presale for weeks leading up.
In the end, the event turned out to be a success. More presale tickets were sold to non-club members than club members, an unprecedented achievement likely credited to all the promotional work leading up.
