Patrick Okoroafor was just 14 years old when he was arrested in May 1995 in Nigeria, Amnesty International’s Web site reports. “Two years later, he was sentenced to death for robbery, along with six others. He did not have the right to appeal and was reported to have been tortured while in police detention.”

    As a 27-year-old man now, he has spent almost half of his life in prison, despite the fact that his death sentence was pronounced illegal, null and void in 2001. His brother said that Patrick was sent to the police station because the police wanted to inspect a car their mother had bought from one of the other suspects. He never got to return home. It is suspected that the Nigerian police have beaten him and pulled out his teeth with pliers.

Amnesty International, a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all, has called for his release.

This is one example of the many possible issues Belmont’s chapter of Amnesty International writes letters about each week. Since the fall semester of 2003, Belmont students have sent over 2,600 letters campaigning for human rights and against genocide in Darfur.

    Alternating each week, Amnesty International of Belmont and Belmont Coalition Against Genocide are able to offer letter writing every Friday at 10 a.m.

“It’s a simple process, and it makes such a big impact,” said Marti Johnson, a junior sociology student and president of Belmont’s Amnesty International chapter. “I know students have a hard time conceptualizing that their one letter is going to make a difference, but Amnesty is such a large organization that their one letter is joined with thousands. I believe it really does make a difference.”

Meeting in room 140 of Inman Health Science Building, students can earn one hour of community service convo credit by writing at least one letter. All materials and information are provided, and students are asked to donate $1 for postage costs.

“There are relatively few opportunities to do community service on campus that you can fit an hour here and an hour there the way you can with other convo categories,” faculty advisor Daniel Schafer said. “I think it fills a need from the convo perspective.”

On the Fridays that BCAG hosts it, the issues are about the conflict in Darfur, and students write letters to put pressure on the government of Sudan and selective divestment from international corporations that do business with Sudan. When Amnesty hosts the letter-writing, the issues come from the international headquarters in London and are about all kinds of human rights violations, such as torture, execution and “disappearance”. The focus is often on prisoners, and frequently the people are in prison because of what they believe.

“[Writing letters] has been the basic bread and butter of Amnesty International for over 40 years,” Schafer said. “It’s about gathering information on people whose basic civil rights are being violated, putting together action reports and distributing them to people around the world.”

About 25 to 35 students come to the letter writing sessions each week. Participants hear a brief introduction and then collect the information papers and spend the next 40 minutes writing.

“We give them all the information that they need,” Johnson said. “We give a form letter that makes recommendations about how to address the person you're writing to and specific recommendations on what to say and what not to say and how to do it with respect.”

The cases are almost always about specific individuals who are in danger from their government or an armed group in conflict. They are urgent and considered to be at risk right at this moment. These cases come with a time frame and are replaced when they are expired.

Johnson is particularly interested in writing about child soldiers because of her past work with the Invisible Children movement. She said they offer a broad scope of issues. Johnson knows students can get so overwhelmed with things going on in their own lives that it’s easy to lose focus of the world around them.

“I think we all potentially would like to make a difference in some kind of way,” she said. “That’s why we offer letter writing. It’s a simple opportunity for students to participate.”

Handwritten letters are more time-consuming but are believed to be more effective than email communication or petitions. These letters are sent to domestic and international leaders that can do something to help the situations.

“When you can actually see the stack of letters or bags full of letters that have come in on an issue, that sends a different kind of message than a bunch of cut and paste e-mail letters,” Schafer said.
There is evidence that the letter writing truly has made a difference. Though it’s sometimes difficult to know whether it was the letter writing or other organizations or governments working on the case, Amnesty estimated several years ago that about a third of the circumstances of the individuals in question improved due to the efforts of Amnesty’s members.

“What I tell people is that this is an extraordinary success rate for a bunch of people around the world taking up pen and paper,” Schafer said. “You didn’t have to apply sanctions, didn’t have to send in military forces, didn’t have to get the U.N. involved. That’s the power of publicity.”

    Other than host letter writing campaigns, these two organizations have held other events such as a movie series and a benefit concert last year. They have meetings every other week, and to find out how you can be involved in the fall, send Schafer an e-mail at schaferd@mail.belmont.edu.

“Students need to know that there are lots of ways they can be a positive force for human rights,” Shafer said. “We don’t have to just sit down and let evil have the final word.”