Karin Bashir said students often talk and don’t take action, which is one of the reasons she participated in signing letters Tuesday at Case Hall as part of a week-long write-a-thon.
Bashir, a James Madison College freshman, signed letters for the Global Write-a-thon held by MSU Amnesty International. The write-a-thon gives students the opportunity to send letters to world leaders requesting the protection and release of victims of human rights abuse. The group will have a table set up from 11 a.m. until 12 p.m. today in Case Hall and at other on-campus locations during the week.
“It’s important to do the things you can where you are,” Bashir said.
The group has collected about 400 letters from campuswide stations on Monday and Tuesday. Christina Field, a comparative cultures and politics senior and the vice president of MSU Amnesty International, said letter writing is more efficient because e-mails aren’t as personal.
“This is a kind of a tangible way officials can see how many people are concerned,” Field said.
Ken Harrow, an English professor and the group’s adviser, said the letter campaign is part of a large global concern to take action.
“We’re all aware of how other people have suffered in countries from unjust incarceration and have been beaten for their views,” Harrow said.
Field said students have the opportunity to sign 10 different letters requesting the release of those imprisoned and abused for speaking out against their government.
“In a lot of our cases, governments are perpetuating or not upholding human rights issues,” Field said.
Nehal Amer, an international relations sophomore and president of MSU Amnesty International, said the goal for the week is to pressure authority figures to release detained individuals.
“We hope to apply enough pressure, and even if we don’t see progress on all these cases, we want to see progress in at least one,” Amer said.
One of the cases for which students can sign letters is a Guantanamo Bay case in which prisoners have been detained without having first gone to trial. Harrow said it’s an important topic for citizens in the U.S. to notice.
“It’s the core of our democracy that we follow the rules of law and respect human rights, and that hasn’t been done,” Harrow said.
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