Putting pen to paper in protest

THE local push for Amnesty International’s annual Write for Rights cause is set to take place in Bendigo next month.

Following a session in early November, a second will be held at the Bendigo Library from 1.30pm on Thursday, 1 December.

About 50 letters were signed during the previous session and the local branch’s coordinator Jan Govett said she’s hoping to double the number.

“We virtually took over the library so hopefully we’ll get an even better response now that we have some momentum behind the previous one,” she said.

“We had about 15 people attending and five people who signed up to join the branch.

“The petitions and letters are all focused on people that are, we think, unjustly treated because they protested in some way.”

Attendees will be encouraged to sign petitions and write letters in protest against 11 human rights cases, with one about climate change in the Torres Strait Islands.

Nearly 12,000 Amnesty International supporters are listed in the Bendigo region.

Ms Govett said Write for Rights is an important initiative to get involved in.

“It really has a definite impact. The more people that turn up, the more letters that are written, the more effective we are,” she said.

“From last year, there was a chap in Guatemala who people took over half-a-million actions for. After four years in prison, he was freed.

“Write for Rights has been running for about 20 years across the world. Last year we wrote about four-and-a-half million letters about 10 specially-chosen human rights cases.”