Archive for the ‘Individuals at Risk’ Category

Twitter action for Eynulla Fatullayev has impact in Azerbaijan – not all of it what we expected!

25th May 2011 by Steve 10 Comments »

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Categories: Individuals at Risk Social Media & Campaigns

Our Twitter action yesterday for wrongly-imprisoned Azerbaijan journalist Eynulla Fatullayev certainly had an impact in Azerbaijan and here in the UK.

Our message to President Aliyev – “Eynulla Fatullayevi Azad et!”, or “Free Eynulla Fatullayev” was tweeted about 600 times to the President’s account. Top journalists at our Media Awards lent their support, including Jon Snow from Channel 4 News, John Mulholland from the Observer and Private Eye’s Ian Hislop. The message was tweeted and retweeted by supporters in Azerbaijan too.

But it seems that not everyone in Azerbaijan likes what we’re saying…

Some government supporters in Azerbaijan have reacted angrily online. If you took the action, you may have got some flak from these tweeters in response.

This was then taken a step further, presumably by the same people. Some of the photos taken at the Media Awards, of people holding up our “Eynulla Fatullayevi Azad et!” placard, were photoshopped with pro-Azerbaijan or anti-Amnesty messages and tweeted back. Cheeky.

To say that Amnesty is picking on Azerbaijan is ridiculous – take a look at our ‘actions’ page and you’ll see that Eynulla’s is just one of many cases we’re working on. It’s not even accurate to imply, as the doctored pics do, that we’ve failed to comment on the conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. There’s this comprehensive report that we issued at the time, for instance.

As far as we’re concerned, we’re happy that our action has rattled a few cages in Azerbaijan. After 50 years of speaking truth to power, Amnesty’s got a very thick skin: we’re quite used to governments and their supporters reacting angrily to our criticism of their human rights records.

We certainly won’t stop campaigning for Eynulla. In fact, supporters in the USA are now picking up the baton and promoting the Twitter action. We’re planning more work on his case, as part of a sustained campaign. Keep an eye on the www.amnesty.org.uk/eynulla page for updates.

Eynulla Fatullayev is a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned for the peaceful expression of his beliefs, and should be released immediately and unconditionally. A few photoshopped pictures aren’t going to stop us campaigning for him. Or you, we hope – thank you for making our Twitter action a success.

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Join us and urge Azerbaijan to free Eynulla Fatullayev

24th May 2011 by Emerson 19 Comments »

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Categories: Individuals at Risk Social Media & Campaigns

Eynulla Fatullayevi Azad Et!

Two years ago at the Amnesty UK Media Awards, we honoured Azerbaijani newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev with the AIUK Special Award for Journalism Under Threat. Eynulla is an outspoken journalist who has been imprisoned since 2007 on a series of trumped up charges, including defamation, terrorism and incitement to ethnic hatred.

Even though the European Court of Human Rights have quashed some of the charges and called for his release, he remains under lock and key on a more recent conviction for drugs possession brought to dodge the ECHR ruling. We firmly believe that all the charges against Eynulla have been fabricated to silence his critical reporting of the Azerbaijani government, and that Eynulla is a prisoner of conscience.

As we prepare for the 2011 Media Awards, we’re renewing our calls to free Eynulla Fatullayev with a twitter action led by Channel 4’s Jon Snow. Journalists will be taking the action at tonight’s awards – we need you to join them.

Take our twitter photo action – Eynulla Fatullayevi Azad Et!

What to do:

  1. Download and print our Amnesty placard (on white, or on black), or get creative with the message “Eynulla Fatullayevi Azad Et!”, which is  “Free Eynulla Fatullayev!” in Azeri.
  2. Take a photo of yourself with our placard or your own version
  3. Tweet your picture with the following message:
    I’m calling on @presidentaz to free wrongly imprisoned journalist #Eynulla Fatullayev in #Azerbaijan [link to your pic]
    Please keep both of the hashtags so we can find your image and so the message reaches people interested in Azerbaijan.
  4. Send a second message encouraging your followers to take part:
    Join me and send your own message urging the release of Eynulla Fatullayev – find out how at http://amn.st/eynulla
  5. If you don’t want to take a photo, please join in and send a tweet to @presidentaz – remember to add both hashtags so we can see it!

Have a look at the pictures being tweeted to @presidentaz in our lovely twitter widget:

UPDATE, 25th May: What an amazing response! We’ve seen well over 600 tweets so far, and an unexpected response from Azerbaijan – check our new blog post for details.

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2010 Success Stories

16th December 2010 by SamSam Comments Off

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Categories: Individuals at Risk

From women standing up for the rights of a nine-year-old girl in Nicaragua to bloggers lampooning the Azerbaijani government on YouTube we have seen a number of successes this year to be really proud of.

Below are a few of our highlights from 2010 and if you were one of the 2,300 people who took action for these cases, thank you. You’ve made a real difference.

Women’s Human Rights Defenders

In April nine human rights defenders from Nicaragua received formal notification that an investigation against them had been closed.

The women, Ana Maria Pizarro, Juanita Jiménez, Lorna Norori, Luisa Molina Arguello, Marta María Blandón, Martha Mungia, Mayra Sirias, Violeta Delgado and Yamileth Mejía, had spent the previous two-and-a-half years in a legal limbo after a complaint had been lodged against them in connection with their support of a nine-year-old girl who had obtained a legal abortion after being raped.

Convicted of treason

In July, peaceful protester Yusak Pakage from Indonesia was released from prison having served half of his 10 year sentence. In 2005 he was charged with treason after he protested against the detention of Filep Karma who had attended an annual ceremony advocating Papuan independence from Indonesia. Call for the release of Filep Karma

Cuban journalist freed

Also in July Cuban journalist Pablo Pacheco Avila was released from prison and transferred to Spain. Pablo had been arrested in March 2003 during a severe crackdown on the dissident movement in Cuba, and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. Pablo’s release came after a five year campaign and a huge build up of international pressure on Cuba.

Opposition leader released

In October Ethiopian opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa was released from prison, after serving nearly two years of a life sentence. Over half of all UK MEPs took up her case with the European Commission after people from around the country called on their local MEP to push for her release.

Imprisoned for making fun

In November Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade were released from prison in Azerbaijan after serving 16 months of their respective 30 month and 24 month prison sentences for ‘hooliganism’.

The two bloggers had been arrested just over a week after Adnan Hajizade posted a video critical of the Azerbaijani government on YouTube.

Despite this good news, their release was only conditional. Call for their convictions to be overturned

Not over yet

If you haven’t done so already, it’s not too late to take part in the Greetings Card Campaign. Sending a card with a simple, personal message means so much to people facing human rights abuses. It could be the most important card you send this year.

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“Wish you weren’t there” -
send a postcard of your home town for Shaker Aamer

15th November 2010 by Steve 9 Comments »

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Categories: Individuals at Risk Social Media & Campaigns guantanamo

Postcards from London from http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobanblack/

Funny things postcards, aren’t they? It was always the case that you’d usually get back from holiday before your postcards did. Now that you’ll have been showing off about sunny weather and cheap cocktails in tweets and Facebook status updates from the moment your plane touched down, they seem even more like a relic from a bygone age.

That said, my mum and dad still send me a postcard whenever they go on holiday and it’s so much more touching than a text message. You get the feeling that someone cares a bit more if they’ve taken the effort to buy a card, write it and post it.

That’s also the thinking behind our new postcard action campaign for Shaker Aamer, a former UK resident who’s been locked up for nearly nine years in Guantanamo Bay without ever being charged with a crime or put on trial. We want the US authorities to know that people in the UK still care about him.

We’re asking people to send a postcard of their local area to Special Envoy Daniel Fried in Washington, the man tasked with closing Guantanamo. We want people to ask him to ensure that Shaker is either charged and given a fair trial, or released back to the UK to be with his wife and kids in Battersea, south London.

Here’s the text that we suggest you write:

Dear Special Envoy Fried
Please release former UK resident Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo Bay to be with his family in the UK, or charge him promptly and give him a fair trial.
President Obama has committed to close Guantanamo. Returning Shaker Aamer to the UK, a safe country that is willing to take him and where his family lives, would be real progress towards closure.
Yours sincerely,
NAME (plus address if you want to include it)

SEND YOUR POST CARD TO:
Special Envoy Daniel Fried
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington DC, 20520
USA

We’re also keen to get as many people as possible doing this, so please tweet a link to this post and send it to your facebook friends.

If you’re really keen you could even get a load of people to send postcards – hold a stall in your town centre and invite local people to fill in postcards that you have already bought and addressed, or host a “postcard writing marathon” where you ask people to write postcards for Shaker.

You can find out more about Shaker Aamer at www.amnesty.org.uk/shaker

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An update on some of our cases

10th August 2010 by Fiona McLaren 3 Comments »

Categories: Individuals at Risk

Throughout July we’ve had some significant news in a number of our ongoing cases: Some has been very exciting, with a number of people being released from prison. Unfortunately there’s been some bad news too, which highlights how important it is for us to continue supporting these individuals as they face grave human rights abuses and are unable to defend themselves.

Some good news from Burma

U Win HteinU Win Htein, a senior assistant to Aung San Suu Kyi was released from prison in Burma on 15 July. His son, Hsan Win Htein, wrote to Amnesty immediately following his father’s release. Here’s what he had to say:

‘Thank you for your concern and all your tireless effort on pressing for my father’s release’

U Win Htein was just one of over 2,200 political prisoners being held in Burma so as we approach the first elections in the country for  20 years we’re asking people in the UK to stand in solidarity with those still wrongly imprisoned for their peaceful political activity. Get involved now by adding your photo to our collection.

More releases

Pablo Pacheco Avila

Photo by www.rsf.org

Pablo Pacheco Avila, a Cuban journalist was released from prison and transferred to Spain on 13 July. Amnesty supporters have been campaigning for Pablo’s release for the last 5 years and in this time the international pressure on Cuba to release him has grown and grown. Thank you to everyone who took part in this campaign.

Earlier in the month in Indonesia Yusak Pakage a peaceful protester was released from prison on 7 July, meanwhile Filep Karma, who was arrested at the same time as Yusak has also received the urgent medical treatment he needed.

The campaign continues

On 23 July 2010, the Azerbaijani government contested a European Court of Human Rights judgment that ordered Eynulla Fatullayev to be freed.  Eynulla, a 33-year-old newspaper editor, has been beaten, received death threats and faced libel suits because of his work. Our campaign for his release continues with a new urgency: Send a letter now.

We also recently issued an urgent appeal for Johan Teterissa who is being denied medical treatment in an Indonesian prison. He’s currently serving a 15 year sentence for being involved in a peaceful protest and we are concerned about reports of his deteriorating health.Please call on the Indonesian prison authorities to provide him with the urgent medical attention he needs.

Finally, to mark Patrick Okoroafor’s 30th birthday on 11 July, Amnesty youth groups sent hundreds of cards to him in prison. Many also joined a demonstration outside the Nigerian High Commission in London.

Photo by Marie-Anne Ventura

Patrick’s brother Henry was in London to attend the demonstration and read out a personal statement from Patrick to those present. The message thanked Amnesty supporters for their letters of solidarity to both him and his mother and appealed for people to ‘not give up’.

‘Thank you very much for the thousands of letters and petitions you signed and sent to the Nigerian authorities asking them to release me. Your efforts have not been in vain, it has yielded positive results.’

We should be proud of our efforts in helping to secure the release of U Win Htein, Pablo Pacheco and Yusak Pakage in such a short space of time, but for individuals such as Eynulla Fatullayev, Johan Teterissa and Patrick Okoroafor, the campaign for justice goes on.

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