Meetings
We meet the third Sunday of each month to write letters. The regular location is Batch Kolaches at 3220 Manor Road. Letter-writing is any time between 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Everyone is welcome - please come by. We have written over 1500 letters in support of human rights since January 2010.
The next letter writing date is March 15, 2020.
Current News
- Amnesty International Local Group 23 in Houston has been working since March 2001 on the case of Avdo Palic, a disappeared prisoner from Bosnia. Please visit their Palic page at www.mindswithoutborders.org.
How You Can Help
"Write a letter, save a life" is a slogan in AI. It refers to writing letters on behalf of victims of human rights violations throughout the world, based on reports evaluated and published by the central offices of AI. Letters are usually written to the officials of governments that are committing the wrongs.
In fact, we can't be sure that most individual letters actually get any results. Collectively, however, they make a difference. A letter may bring a case to the attention of a government, or let them know that people elsewhere care. If a letter gets through to a political prisoner, or a prisoner finds out that people are writing, it may give the person hope. In the best cases, prisoners are released, or abuses stop. In most such cases, again, we can't be sure that our letters were the reason, but we believe they help.
Outside of the meetings, much of our communication takes place on the mail list. To contact the group, please e-mail: jcbierley1@yahoo.com
About AI 500
AI 500 is the Austin, Texas chapter of Amnesty International.
Amnesty International is "a worldwide movement of 1.8 million members, supporters and subscribers in over 150 countries and territories ... [who work] independently and impartially to promote respect for all the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
The Austin organization was officially chartered as AIUSA Group 500 in September 1994.
Like all AI local groups, we work for:
- the release of all prisoners of conscience
- fair trials for all political prisoners
- abolition of the death penalty, torture and other forms of cruel treatment of prisoners
- an end to extrajudicial executions and "disappearances".
Misc.
Amnesty International Canada: Please visit the website of Local Group 27 in Victoria, BC.