Some of those letters take the form of ‘Write for Rights’ cards sent to imprisoned human rights defenders every year in December: more than 6.5 million such actions were taken in 2019. In St Albans that year a stall in the Abbey enabled them to spread the message more widely.
St Albans Cathedral stall candles from Amnesty.
- Credit: St Albans Amnesty
A central plank of Amnesty’s activity has always been writing letters to those in authority over Prisoners of Conscience. In the early, pre digital , pre-‘clickactivist’ days life was rather different: when an Urgent Action needed to be taken on behalf of those at imminent risk of being tortured or killed handwritten drafts would be circulated to members to revise and send.