Members gather together at the annual Holiday Writing Party last December which generates over 200 cards for prisoners of conscience around the world .
February 2008
Welcome to Our Group on the WWW
We are a dedicated group with an active membership of 35 based in Webster, MA and affiliated with the Northeast Regional Amnesty International Office. We work toward the goals of Amnesty International by letterwriting to free prisoners of conscience, sponsoring a prisoner of conscience, campaigning for human rights issues, co-organizing events with local colleges, fund raising, non-violent protest, and much more. Our call to action is directed from Amnesty International USA.Active in 2007
Our group was very busy last year. After the release or Reid Saif we received
our new group case Emanuel Asrat of Eritrea.
He was jailed with other journalists early last year. Our
Special Focus Case, Gurbandurty Durdykuliev was released as well. In
replace we received an urgent plea from Mesfin Woldemariam's family to release
Mesfin who was imprisoned in Ethiopia early last year and was in poor health.
Some of us were introduced to his daughter Meqdes Mesfin at the Northeast
Regional Conference. With the support of Clark University and a little research
we sponsored a talk with Meqdes in April 2007 and screened Betrayal of Democracy:
Ethiopia.
Get on the Bus and Road to Guantanamo
Get on the Bus focused on human rights worldwide and education. A rally was held in NYC and Meqdes Mesfin was also a speaker pleading the Ethiopian Government to obey human rights laws. Also around the same time we screened the movie Road to Guantanamo, a first hand account of prisoners tortured at Guantanamo. It was held at the Southbridge Library. Also at the library we held a book talk from the author of a book on torture, Michael Otterman. In September we were part of the first Peace Day Celebration in Northeast Connectictut held in Rotary Park in Putnam. Before the holidays we received news that Mesfin Woldemariam was released. Our hard work paid off. We ended the year with a great showing at our annual holiday writing party. All and all it was a productive year. The busyness is brought on by the evergrowing human rights abuses happening here and around the world.
