5 Minutes for Human Rights, 9/6/09

Hi Everyone,

Hope everyone had a good summer! For those of you who are new to our Amnesty International chapter, we focus on several human rights issues each week and encourage our members to write letters for them. Letter writing is one of the most important things Amnesty does: it has helped to free over 40,000 prisoners of conscience and Amnesty was awarded a Nobel Prize for its work! If you want to read some human rights success stories to see how much letter writing has done, check out http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-successes/page.do?id=1011281.

Here are this week's human rights actions--sign the petitions online, then come to our meeting on Tuesday to hand-write a letter to make an even bigger impact! We will also be having letter writing picnics on Memorial Glade at various points throughout the semester--so we will keep you posted about that!

1) STOP VIOLENCE IN THE CONGO: Did you know that the current conflict in the Congo, which has lasted over a decade, is the deadliest conflict since World War II? However, there's something you can do about it: many of the armed groups that are fighting in the Congo make money to continue their fighting by mining and selling minerals that are used in electronic devices like cell phones (if you remember the campaign about conflict diamonds/blood diamonds, conflict minerals are pretty similar). Want to make sure that the minerals in the electronics you buy don't end up supporting these armed groups? Learn more about conflict minerals and sign the conflict minerals pledge at http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/1647/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=135. Learn about the Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009 and write to your Senators about it at http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/1659/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6273.

2) FREE AUNG SAN SUU KYI: Aung San Suu Kyi is a pro-democracy activist in Burma. She is a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and a truly inspiring figure (for more information about her and the pro-democracy movement in Burma: http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/myanmar-burma/background-information-on-aung-san-suu-kyi/page.do?id=1011688). In August, she was sentenced by the military junta to 18 additional months of house arrest, and Amnesty international believes that her sentence was politically motivated and fails to meet international legal standards. Call on the government to immediately and unconditionally release Aung San Suu Kyi at http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=12656.

I hope to see you all on Tuesday at 7 (we will post our meeting location here ASAP)!

-Elizabeth