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.