IN November, Harlow Amnesty International held its second public event following on from their successful quiz night in November. Write for Rights is an international letter writing campaign where people from all warps of life and political background can write messages of solidarity. This could be to people who are political prisoners or prisoners of conscience across the globe as well as those people who have been harassed or threatened just for standing up for their communities.

This year the campaign is particularly focusing on women including Atena Daemi who was jailed in Iran for speaking out against the death penalty and Geraldine Chacon persecuted for youth work in Venezuela.

Amnesty International chair Chris Vince said, “this is a great event where we can show people imprisoned, often in terrible conditions, that there are people who care about them and that groups like Amnesty are campaigning for their release.”

The group were joined by Alex Mayer the MEP for the Eastern region as well as a host of local residents and Amnesty International supporters. Alex said, “it is great to have a new and active Amnesty Group in Harlow and it was great to meet them and show support to their campaign.”

Group secretary Shannon Jezzard said, “as a relatively new group it is our first attempt at running something like this and we were overwhelmed by the amount of people who came along to write messages.”

Harlow Amnesty International will be organising more events in the new year.