Amnesty International

I hadn't seen this Amnesty poster before - it's by Joop Lieverst, from 1969. The Guardian's posted 20 of the best posters from the last 50 years on its website at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/apr/03/amnesty-international-posters-in-pictures?picture=373248588#/?picture=373248588&index=1 and they are stunning.

I've long been a member of Amnesty. Sometimes it can feel as though your letters (and emails nowadays) vanish into a black hole, but then you get a reply, or hear someone describe how when letters arrived, the torture suddenly ended, or they were moved to a clean cell, or their lawyer was allowed to visit.

And it's so easy for us in Europe to be part of Amnesty. Years ago I belonged to the Amnesty group in Maidstone, a largish town in the south of England. We wrote letters, shared information, held street collections and barn dances to raise money ...

Then we had a visit from an Amnesty member from Sierra Leone. Like us, he belonged to his local group, and like us, they wrote letters, and raised money to fund the organisation. But unlike us, they were living through a civil war. They had plenty to worry about in their own lives. And to post a letter, they had to spot a sympathetic lorry driver, flag him down, and persuade him to carry the letters out of the country, for there was no postal system. And to raise money, in a local economy where people struggled to survive, they had to grow extra vegetables to sell at market.

So if I ever spot an Amnesty Urgent Action email in my intray and am tempted to put it aside because I'm busy, I remember the Sierra Leonean Amnesty members.

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/