2019 WRITE-A-THON, DEC 29,
1 Benevolent St, Providence, RI
Appeals for Prisoners-of Conscience
The 32nd Global Write-for-Rights write-a-thon at the Providence Unitarian Church was held on Sunday December 29th. There were 3 speakers, 2 were refugees from the war in Syria who barely escaped alive and and one was from Somalia. It was a quiet day of writing letters for prisoners of conscience that were chosen by 3 groups; The World Affairs Committee of the Unitarian Church, Group 49 of Amnesty International and the Benenson Society of Providence. The turnout this year was a smaller than previous years, non-the-less almost 200 letters were written and sent on the behalf of prisoners in Vietnam, South Sudan, Egypt, Iran, Russia and China. A case from the United States , Scott Warren, was removed as he was recently exonerated. The case of the UYGHER Chinese Minority, which was not an individual but a group of over a million ethnic Uyghers, was included due to it being imprisonment based only on ethnic identity.
Prisoner of conscience cases were chosen from lists provided by Amnesty International and the Benenson Society. The information on each case can be found by clicking on names above the pictures:
