Holiday Card Action 2007

Each year during the winter holidays, *Amnesty International* asks friends and members to send messages of support to prisoners and human rights defenders around the world.  Holidays can mean little to those who fear they've been forgotten by the world.  A simple greeting card, however, can bring renewed hope. The prisoners and human rights defenders featured here need your support. Please let them know they are not forgotten.

Join us on Saturday, December 22 at the Richland Public County Library on Assembly St.  We'll be meeting in the Bank of America Conference Room from 1:30-4:30, making cards.  Bring Holiday Cards that are plain, without a particular holiday indicated, bring crafts to make your own cards or just come and fill out a card.

Click on http://www.amnestyusa.org/action/holiday/2007_HCA_versionA_letter.pdf
for a guide.

You can continue reading about the Holiday Card recipients  if you like, visit
http://www.amnestyusa.org/Individuals_at_Risk/Holiday_Actions/page.do?id=1361002&n1=3&n2=34&n3=86

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*Zmitser Dashkevich*, a leader of the opposition youth movement Young Front, is a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for the peaceful exercise of
his rights to freedom of assembly, association and expression in Belarus.

*Unknown assailants abducted *Martha Cecilia Díaz Suárez*, president of the public services workers union (Association of Departmental
Workers?-ASTDEMP), on August 15, 2006 in Bucaramanga. They accused her of being a guerrilla, beat her, and demanded information about local officials of the Trade Union Congress (CUT).

**Abdul Kareem Nabil Suleiman* did what thousands of young bloggers around
the world do every day: he logged onto his computer and typed in his
thoughts about the politics of his country, criticizing both the Egyptian
government and religious authorities. For this the 23-year-old former
student, widely known on the Internet as "Karim Amer," was arrested and
sentenced in February 2007 to four years in prison on charges including
"incitement to hate Islam," "defaming the President of the Republic," and
"spreading information disruptive of public order."

**I've been arrested four times and beaten twice. But we have still managed
to demobilize over 300 child soldiers,"* says *Bukeni T. Waruzi Beck*,
executive director of AJEDI-Ka (Association of Youth for Integrated
Development--Kalundu). The organization reintegrates demobilized girl and
boy soldiers into Congolese society and maintains long term follow-up on the
welfare of these children. Tens of thousands of child soldiers have been
recruited as combatants by all parties to the conflict in the Democratic
Republic of Congo.

**Troy Anthony Davis* has consistently maintained that he is innocent of the
crime for which he was sentenced to death in Georgia. There was never any
physical evidence linking Mr. Davis to the 1989 murder of Savannah police
officer Mark MacPhail, and the murder weapon was never found. All but two of
the prosecution's nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or
contradicted their testimony, many claiming that they were coerced by the
police to implicate Davis. Nine people have given signed affidavits claiming
that one of the two remaining witnesses against Troy Davis is the person
actually responsible for killing Officer MacPhail. This new evidence has
never been presented to a court because of a 1996 federal death penalty law
that seriously constrains appeals in capital cases.

After thousands of Amnesty International activists from around the world
appealed on Davis' behalf, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a
90-day stay of execution in July 2007 in order to further investigate Troy
Davis' claims of innocence. The board's decision came just 24 hours before
Davis was scheduled to be executed. In August, the Georgia Supreme Court
agreed to hear Davis' appeal to present new evidence.