About 200 volunteers gathered at the Rancho Buena Vista High School auditorium in Vista on Sunday to write letters in support of prisoners of conscience. It was part of a worldwide Amnesty International write-a-thon.
Amnesty International in North County decided to change its tactics to raise awareness about the inhumane treatment of prisoners of conscience.
“We’ve been doing the candlelight walk for human rights for 25 years and we ended with a wonderful attendance and a wonderful program last year in 2013,” said Alessandra Colfi, a volunteer with the North County chapter of Amnesty International.
“So this year we decided to focus on the letter-writing campaign, which is the real work of Amnesty International,” Colfi said.
Letter writing is how Amnesty International started. In 1961 a group of like-minded friends who wanted humane treatment for political prisoners put a spotlight on government human rights abuses through engaging volunteers in mass letter-writing campaigns.
The efforts have made a difference in how political prisoners have been treated over the past quarter of a century and have resulted in releases.
During the public write-a-thon in Vista, two former prisoners of conscience spoke about their experiences and how the letters led to their release from prisons in China and Kenya.
An estimated 11,000 people around the world took part in the global write-a-thon, which was directed at providing due legal process, humane treatment and the ultimate release of political prisoners who are incarcerated.
