Brno - "Dear Mr. President Putin, I was disturbed by learning about the situation of Artur Akhmatkhan, detained by masked soldiers in April 2003..."
Before this year's Christmas, the Russian president will read letters beginning with these very words. They will be signed by people from Prague, Brno, Olomouc, Pardubice, Jihlava, Ostrava and Ústí nad Labem.
It's because in these Czech cities, Amnesty International (AI) has organized letter-writing events on behalf of victims of injustices. Symbolically, the action took place on Human Rights Day (December 10).
"Like in the Middle Ages"
Hundreds have written or attributed their signatures to letters pleading for a victim "of their own choice".
Some were addressed to officials of countries such as China, Vietnam, or Iraq. Others were sent to the very victims or their families as signs of solidarity.
"I have chosen to write to an Iraqi woman sentenced to death for a murder. To force her to plead guilty, they used torture. I found it terrible. It's like in the Middle Ages," said a student Edita Bezegová, explaining her decision to write a letter in English to Iraqi politicians.
Without doubt, the story of Samar Abdullah is one of the most intense. She was condemned to death in 2005 for killing her uncle, his wife and their child. She however declares herself innocent and says that the real murderer is her own spouse.
Other unfortunates the letters were sent to this year were, for example, a detained Chinese activist Bu Dongwei, a Honduran journalist being threatened or an imprisoned Vietnamese trade union leader.
Tested on former Czech dissidents
According to the AI, about one third of the letters helped to improve the situations of their recipients in the past.
For example, illegally detained Vietnamese dissident and lawyer Bui Thi Kim Thanh was released this summer partially due to letter campaign, informed Lenka Pitronová from the local AI branch.
Letters sent not to officials but rather to the victims of human rights abuse themselves who are languishing in prisons help them psychologically, the activists claim. And former Czech dissidents, who were once helped by the organization in the same way, can prove that.
Last year, Czechs sent 631 letters, contributing thus to some one hundred thousand letters sent worldwide. This year, the numbers are expected to be once again a little higher.
