Urgent Actions
What are Urgent Actions?
“Urgent Actions” are an effective way to save the lives of acutely endangered people. You’re the fastest conceivable form of intervention: When Amnesty arbitrary arrests, death threats, disappearances, torture or upcoming executions learns the organization launches an Urgent Action.
Nothing fear States more than that their human rights are dragged into the public eye.
Within a few hours a network of almost 80,000 people in 85 countries (in Germany 10,000) become active. These activists appeal by fax, email or airmail letter to the authorities of the countries where human rights are violated. The addressee receives thousands of appeal letters from all around the world. It is this rapid and massive protest which always protects human life.
Countless people – from China to Chile, from Syria to Zimbabwe – could be saved since the first Urgent Action in 1973. Alone in 2007, Amnesty International has launched 350 new Urgent Actions – about 35 percent of which attracted positive results: releases, detention facilities, the abolition of the death penalty or charges against those responsible for human rights violations.