Take Action Thursdays: Investigate War Crimes in Sri Lanka
On Wednesday, I mentioned I’d been inspired to revive Group 133’s blog. As some of you may know, Get on the Bus for Human Rights has become our group’s signature event. The past April marked GOTB’s 15th anniversary. It was a pretty spectacular day. And I’m sure we’ll recap in future posts. Over the last few years we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to utilize social networking and new media tools for GOTB. Our MySpace site is probably defunct (notice how I don’t link to it). Facebook brought us plenty of fans. And we’re finally starting to grow a small following on Twitter. One of the trends I really like on Twitter is FollowFridays — where you tweet the names of Twitter users you’d like others to follow and tag it with #followfriday or #FF. As Amnesty International members, we highlight the cases of individuals we’d like others to follow. We prepare petitions and format letters and emails. And so starting today, Group 133’s blog will be launching Take Action Thursdays.
Say what? The idea is simple. Every Thursday, we’ll post a way for you to take action in support of human rights — and we’ll do our best to include a local angle.
Today we’ll start with Sri Lanka. We’ve been working on the case of J.S. Tissainayagam (Tissa) for well over a year. He’s a Sri Lankan journalist, who was arrested and detained by Sri Lankan police and indicted under Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act for two articles written by him in a monthly magazine criticizing the government’s conduct of the war against the opposition Tamil Tigers. While it was announced earlier this month that Tissa would be pardoned, details remain unclear and we continue to urge Sri Lanka officials for a full and unconditional pardon for him. His case was one of the cases highlighted at this year’s Get on the Bus.
Because of our work on behalf of Tissa, Sri Lanka is very much on our minds, here in Group 133. Even more so because this week marks the first anniversary of the end of the 30-year war in Sri Lanka between the security forces and the separatist Tamil Tigers. During the war, both sides committed violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including war crimes. Despite promises by the Sri Lankan government to hold accountable those responsible for these crimes, there has been no investigation by the government so far. I could tell you more, but Jim McDonald does it so much better than me.
This is your first Take Action Thursday folks: Sign AIUSA’s online petition calling for an investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka today.
But wait, there’s more… step out from behind that keyboard.
Candlelight Vigil for Sri Lanka Remembrance Day
Saturday, May 22nd
7-8.30 pm
Harvard Sq., Cambridge (behind Harvard Sq. T station)
Join Group 133 members in Harvard Sq. this Saturday, May 22nd from 7-8.30 pm for a candlelight vigil calling for accountability for human rights violations committed during the 30-year war in Sri Lanka. We’ve got posters and candles. We just need you. Hold a candle, help us collect petition signatures.
Fathi El Jahmi is what Amnesty International calls a “Prisoner of Conscience.” The original definition being “anyone imprisoned because of their race, religion, color, language, sexual orientation, belief, or lifestyle so long as they have not used or advocated violence.”
Fathi El Jahmi, imprisoned in Libya for his peaceful political beliefs
Fathi’s is one of many cases we have worked on over the years, that have included individuals in Tibet, Chile, Turkey and the United States just to name a few countries. These cases help to personalize the work and to remind us that our efforts to stop systemic human rights violations involve real live human beings who are fundamentally just like us.
I have not met Fathi El Jahmi but I have met his brother who is a wonderful man and who derives great hope from Amnesty’s efforts.
We uses all kinds of methods to work on freeing prisoners, including public demonstrations, the traditional letter writing to government officials, and really anything that we can come up with. A new method is to create a cause on Facebook and one of our group members took the initiative to do so this week. Join Fathi’s Facebook Cause.
You can find out the latest news on Fathi’s health, his cases, and how you can take action on his behalf by subscribing to AIUSA’s Northeast Special Focus Case yahoo group.
