Write for Rights

WRITE FOR RIGHTS AND CHALLENGE INJUSTICE

When we promote and defend human rights, we can create a better world for ourselves and others.

23 years of writing for rights

Write for Rights is the world’s biggest human rights event. It brings millions of people together as one to take action and stand up for freedom, justice and equality.

Every year in the lead up to World Human Rights Day (10 December), Amnesty supporters and activists from 170 countries take action – writing letters, signing petitions, and much more – telling governments to challenge injustice and right wrongs.

People power works

Real positive change takes place because of those actions: people under attack are protected, people wrongfully imprisoned are released, torturers are brought to justice and people in prison are treated more humanely.

We run Write for Rights every year because it works – your words have freed people from human rights abuses and changed lives.

Magai Matiop Ngong

Magai was just 15 years old when he was sentenced to death by hanging in November 2017. A secondary school student, Magai was convicted of murder, which he says was an accident. 

Magai caught global attention through Write for Rights 2019, with over 750,000 letters, emails and petitions calling for his death sentence to be commuted. In Australia, almost 18,000 actions were taken for Magai.

On 22 March 2022 the High Court of South Sudan finally freed Magai Matiop Ngong.

Yasaman and Monireh

In 2019 Yasaman Aryani and her daughter Monireh Arabshahi were sentenced to 16 years in prison for speaking out against Iran’s forced veiling laws. The two women’s rights advocates were accused of “inciting and facilitating corruption and prostitution” by promoting “unveiling”.

As a part of Write for Rights 2019, Amnesty started a petition calling on Iranian authorities to release Yasaman and Monireh. An incredible 100,000 supporters in Australia and over one million supporters around the world took action to demand their freedom.

In February 2023, after nearly four years in prison, Iranian authorities released Yasaman and Monireh.

Melike and Özgür

Student activists Melike and Özgür were taking part in a peaceful Pride march for LGBTQIA+ rights at their university in Ankara, Turkey, when they came under attack from police, who used pepper spray, plastic bullets and tear gas on the protesters. Melike and  Özgür, along with 17 others, were then charged with “unlawful assembly” and “failing to disperse despite being warned,” and they faced three years in prison.

During Write for Rights 2020, 445,000 people from over 43 countries demanded the activists’ acquittal. After two years on trial, all 19 activists were acquitted on 8 October 2021. 

How Write for Rights has changed lives

• Read more about our previous Write for Rights success in defending human rights