The Urgent Action Network


Questions & Answers About the Urgent Action Network


General Questions

Writing Letters

Information on Urgent Actions and Participation in the UA Network

Government Replies

Other Forms of Involvement in the Urgent Action Program

How many members are in AIUSA's Urgent Action Network and how large is the UAN worldwide?

There are about 10,000 participants in the Urgent Action Network in the United States. Globally, there are approximately 80,000 members in 80 countries.

How does Amnesty International receive its information?

AI's International Secretariat in London receives information about possible UA actions from a variety of sources including the families, colleagues, friends and lawyers of victims, local human rights groups, and even newspaper reports. If the relevant research specialists in London decide that the situation is pressing enough to require a UA, an appeal is drafted and forwarded to the UA staff where it is edited and issued as an action.

Is there a fee required for participation in the Urgent Action Network and is Amnesty International membership required to participate?

There is no separate fee required to become involved in the UAN, however, we do want you to become a member of Amnesty International. Membership includes the Amnesty Action quarterly and news of many other programs and events happening within Amnesty International in the USA.

What sort of letter is the most effective?

An effective letter is both firm and courteous. It gives an indication of who you are and why you are concerned for this person. It is written on the assumption that the government is open to reason and that the official may not know of the specifics which pertain to the individual victim for whom you are writing. The letter should emphasize personal concern for the prisoner and for the country's international reputation. Stress the fact that your concern for human rights is not politically-motivated but in line with basic principles of international law. Remember that you are writing on behalf of a specific individual who can be harmed as well as helped by our efforts. It is for this reason that it is important that we consider the tenor and content of our appeals. Always ask that the official not only improve the human rights situation of the victims, but also keep you informed as to the developments in the case. Finally, to be effective it is important to keep your letter brief and focused, no more than a page in length.

Should I write on my company letterhead? Can I hand write my letters?

We believe that in general, the more diverse a letter-writing campaign is the better its chances for getting the attention and respect of the government official. We encourage people to express themselves in a variety of ways as long as the message is polite, non-political and legible. Some companies may object to the use of their letterhead for human rights advocacy; others will be pleased. Unless you are authorized to make such a decision, ask your supervisor before using company letterhead.

Is it thought to be more effective to send letters clearly representing myself as a member of Amnesty International or simply as an interested person without naming Amnesty as my information source?

We encourage letter-writers to use their professional or academic affiliations in their correspondence with government officials. You can refer to Amnesty International as your information source but it may be more effective to simply state that you have learned about this person's plight and are concerned.

Why don't you include a sample letter with the Urgent Action, much like is done with the Freedom Writers program?

There are three answers to this: first, we issue an average of 4 actions a day, each one going to an average of 5 different officials. Logistically we could not put together 20 good sample letters daily. These actions arrive from London with a turnaround time of a couple of hours before we need to get them into our postal, fax, and email systems in this country. Second, in many cases, the addition of a sample letter would also increase the postage, something we can not afford. Third and most importantly, we believe that much of our effectiveness comes from the diversity of letters, postcards, faxes, telegrams and telexes which we, as a network, produce. From elementary school students adding drawings to their handwritten letters to the professional person writing for her colleague on letterhead, we express ourselves in different ways which, together, result in a rich mix of expressions of concern that help A.I. be more effective in campaigning.

Should I send copies of my appeals to you?

No. We only ask for a copy of your very first letter so we can establish that you are on the right track. Every few years we will send a survey to the Urgent Action Network to collect important data about the network and at that time we ask how many letters are being written by you or your group.

I would like to write to the prisoners as well as to the officials, but you never give their addresses. Why not?

The purpose of the Urgent Action program is to stop torture, executions and other forms of ill-treatment, so our strategy is to intervene with the officials to get the abuse stopped immediately. Many of the people we are trying to help are in short-term detention, may be transferred to other penal institutions, or have not even had their place of detention acknowledged by authorities yet.

Other AIUSA programs and projects encourage members to write directly to prisoners likely to be incarcerated for long periods. As a member you will get information about these opportunities via the organization's newsletter, Amnesty Action, and other mailings.

There is frequently not enough information on the details of a prisoner's case for me to make a judgment on whether or not to write. Can you give us more information?

It is true that we often do not pass on many details about the charges against a detainee or other reasons for that person's detention. Sometimes this is because we just do not have the time or opportunity to get more information. Other times it is because of our own space limitations. We design each Urgent Action to be the equivalent of no more than two pages so that it can be quickly and economically distributed throughout the world. But in fact, many times the inclusion of more case details may not be necessary. Just as AI staff relies on its members to write appeals, members rely on the careful and considered documentation from the AI research staff. All concerns expressed in Urgent Actions conform to our organizational mandate, without exception.

Why don't you personalize the salutations by adding the name of the official?

This is not necessary when using "Your Excellency" but could be useful with "Dear General" i.e., "Dear General Abacha". We believe that one could use either method, with the name or without. If you do use the official's name with the proper salutation, please use his or her last name (in the case of Spanish surnames, use both last names). Many African and most Asian names are referred to with the last name first. We often capitalize the surnames of prisoners for clarity at the top of an Urgent Action.

Are the addresses listed in priority order?

Urgent Actions are initially written by different Amnesty International researchers in London. They are then edited by a three-member UA staff at the International Secretariat (IS) and sent to national section UA coordinators globally. Most researchers but not all list the government officials in a priority order, the first official being the most important for the specific appeal and the last listed official being the least important. A.I. really never knows for sure which official may respond to our appeals in a way that will stop the abuse or potential abuse. If you, the writer, can write to each official listed on the Urgent Action, great. It is also fine for you to pick just one or two officials, knowing that other UA letter-writers will choose to write to the other officials. Addresses listed in the "Copies:" section are not listed in any specific order, just send copies to as many as you can handle each time.

Often there is a telex number for a government official. What is a telex and does it apply to me?

A telex is a communication much like a fax. A telex terminal is connected to a phone line and types out the message which is sent.

Fax and e-mail technology have replaced telex use in most parts of the world and soon we will see the last of telex use. However, most government officials do not yet have email addresses and many still do not have fax machines, so we put in an official's telex number in case you have access to a telex terminal at your workplace. There are some companies which can turn your e-mail message into a telex (or fax) so you may want to inquire about this of your internet provider. Otherwise, don't worry about using the telex information and send your appeal as an airmail letter, fax or telegram instead.

Can more email addresses for government officials be included in Urgent Actions?

We do include e-mail addressees of government officials when they become available and useful to us in our human rights work. We have already used e-mail addresses on selected actions in the past and you will likely see more in the future.

Explain how we should list and use the addresses listed in the "Copies To:" section of each UA.

Use of the "Copies To:" section of UAs is explained in the UAN Activist Letter Writing Guide. Each UA participant should have and use the guide as a reference. Any UA participant who does not have this comprehensive letter-writing guide can let us know and we will send you one.

Why is the name and address of the US ambassador (or UN Mission) in the offending country not listed in the "Copies To:" section?

AIUSA has a government program office in Washington DC and is in touch with many of these embassies both directly and through the State Department on a regular basis. It is thought that thousands of appeals going to these embassies directly from UA letter-writers may not be the most productive way of obtaining their help. This also applies to the listing of UN Missions, although we have listed UN Missions on some past Urgent Actions when it was thought they may prove useful to a case.

I would like a wider variety of countries presented in the appeals I receive. Can you do this?

We try to give each UA participant a political and geographic variety of Urgent Actions throughout the year, but are not always successful for the following reasons:

Can I receive more UAs each month? Can I receive actions just involving people of a specific profession?

Yes. You can receive as many or as few Urgent Actions as you like each month. We only ask that you attempt to write on each UA we send you.

Why are there time limits on appeals?

We list a final date for action at the end of each UA to help us coordinate the UA campaign. If we receive important news before this end date, we relay that news immediately to you. If we receive news after the action period expires, we know that you aren't still working on the case, and we can include the new information in the next follow-up newsletter. The "end date" of each action can also serve to remind us that the action is "urgent" and letter-writing should not be put off past that day.

I am frequently confused by the name and gender of some subjects of Urgent Actions.

When there is more than one subject on an Urgent Action, and the people are both male and female, we will designate the gender at the top of the UA when we first list subjects' names. Normally when we refer to someone several times in a letter or document we use both a complete and a shortened form of his or her name, but because we are trying to emphasize the name of a person or persons, it is preferred that the full name of the detainee be used each time he or she is mentioned in your letters. This can be a little awkward but may be useful in making the name more familiar to the government official.

Can you include photos of the prisoners and maps of the countries? This helps our group get more interested and thus more involved in these actions.

We do include photos when we have them and when the inclusion of them will not slow down the distribution of the Urgent Action appeal. We sometimes also use maps to allow the reader to place the country in a global context. These graphics may show up on our web page as well as our printed and faxed versions of Urgent Actions, but not in the emailed versions.

It would be nice if UAs stated which part of the world each country was in, so that I would not have to look at a map whenever I got an Urgent Action about a country that I've never heard of before.

We sympathize. We have also had to refer to our world wall map at times. We would like to have time and space to include a small map showing the country in the context of its surrounding region. Perhaps, we will be able to add such a feature in the future. for now, we suggest you keep an atlas or world map nearby to locate a country in which you are not familiar.

Can there be more background information, and all around better editing on Urgent Actions?

Urgent Actions are written by different researchers, who specialize in particular countries or regions of the world. Each UA represents an emergency, often life-threatening, so there is always an urgency in getting the action written and distributed. History has shown that the one-page case-sheet is the most useful format. Amnesty International has an on-line library of past reports and press releases indexed by country on its web site. These can be useful for learning more about patterns of human rights abuses in specific countries.

Why are most of the follow-ups in the Urgent Action Monthly Newsletter about cases I never received?

We issue approximately 4 different actions each day to portions of the Urgent Action Network. Most individuals receive one to two actions a month; most AI groups receive from 2 to 8 actions a month. We include all follow-up information, both good and bad, on previous cases in the newsletter. This will allow participants to not only look up their own cases but get an overview of cases handled by the UAN worldwide.

Send us more follow-up information. Let us know how effective our letter-writing is. Our group members are not sure we are doing any good.

It is essential that you know that the Urgent Action program is a very effective one. Each month in the UA Newsletter you will see lists of prisoners released, their torture stopped, "disappeared" persons "re-appearing" after AI letter-writing campaigns. It is hard to "feel" the effect of these improvements because of the geographic distances which separate you and the victims, however, we frequently include letters and comments from released prisoners in our newsletters.

You should read and reread these thank you notes to remind yourself that you are making a difference with your appeals.

Statistics on the effectiveness of our UA campaigns are hard to accumulate for a couple of important reasons:

What should we do when we receive a reply to our letters from a government official?

Please send us the original or a copy of each government reply you receive. This information is important to Amnesty International researchers who monitor the reaction of officials to our actions.

Unfortunately, we have a very small staff here in the Urgent Action Network office and cannot acknowledge receipt of any government reply you send us. We also cannot offer a translation service for these replies. We forward these replies to the relevant Amnesty research staff and you may see a mention of the government replies in the monthly UA newsletter. It is suggested that you write a short note to an official who writes to you thanking him or her for their time and asking to be kept informed on developments of that particular case. If the reply is general and does not address the individual you wrote about, ask for a more detailed report of that particular person's condition and restate the concerns originally expressed in your first letter.

How can I involve my young children in this program without exposing them to the horrible details of torture?

We have special information and monthly UAs designed for young activists. This part of the program is called AIKids. Each UA is edited for young readers and graphic details of ill-treatment are not included. For more information, go to our AIKids' Urgent Action webpage.

I find that I no longer have time to write letters but I still want to be involved. Is there another way I can specifically support this program and stay connected on a regular basis?

Yes! You are welcome to join the FIRST APPEAL Pledge Program which is part of the Urgent Action Network. We will send a fax, telex or telegram in your name each month and bill you. For more information about the FAPP, e-mail the Urgent Action Network at uan@aiusa.org

Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and defends human rights.

Urgent Action Network
Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, 5th Fl.
Washington, DC 20003
Email: uan@aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
Phone: 202 544 0200
Fax: 202 675 8566