What is the Urgent Action Network?
The concept is simple: Take Action, Change a Life.
Urgent Actions ask our community of volunteers to flood the mailboxes, inboxes, phones and social media of authorities when someone is in imminent danger of human rights violations. Your letters, emails, phone calls, faxes and Tweets have helped to halt executions, support human rights defenders and free prisoners of conscience—people jailed solely for the peaceful expression of their beliefs and identity.
Please note that the US postal service has suspended service to some countries in light of COVID-19 – reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions.
How Does It Work?
STEP 1: Sign Up Today!
Sign up to receive Urgent Action emails. You can choose to receive all emails or a more limited number. You can also choose to receive emails on specific issues or regions.
STEP 2: Take Action Now!
Urgent Action emails specify the case, local and international government officials to contact, their contact information and suggestions about what to write, say or Tweet.
Our Educator’s Guide
Are you an educator looking for ways to engage your students in human rights? Find out how your students can show their power through letter writing!
In many cases, your action on these cases leads to better conditions for prisoners and their eventual release. Those individuals at the center of these Urgent Actions often send their thanks to Amnesty International, citing that these messages serve as a source of hope.
Browse Urgent Actions
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: FEARS FOR HUNGER STRIKER HELD INCOMMUNICADO (Egypt: UA 132.19)
Egyptian-British prisoner of conscience and prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah is held incommunicado, amid the authorities’ refusal to allow his family or lawyer to see or contact him. In his…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: STUDENT LEADERS ARBITRARILY DETAINED (Sri Lanka: UA 96.22)
Sri Lankan student leaders Galwewa Siridhamma Thero and Wasantha Mudalige, have been detained by the Sri Lankan authorities since 18 August 2022. On 21 August, authorities issued a Detention Order…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: VETERAN RADIO HOST SENTENCED FOR PEACEFUL ACTIVISM (Hong Kong: UA 84.22)
Detained veteran internet radio host “Giggs” Edmund Wan, who had been remanded in custody for over 19 months, was sentenced to 32 months’ imprisonment on sedition and money laundering charges…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: PALESTINIAN LAWYER’S DETENTION EXTENDED (Israel/OPT: UA 22.22)
French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hammouri remains held without charge or trial in Israel after suspending his 19-day-long hunger strike in protest at the renewal of his administrative detention. The human rights…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: AILING RIGHTS LAWYER DEPRIVED OF HEALTHCARE (Egypt: UA 190.18)
Lawyer Hoda Abdelmoniem has been arbitrarily detained for four years and is on trial by an Emergency State Security Court on bogus charges stemming from her human rights work. The…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: USA: MISSOURI EXECUTION SET FOR 2005 MURDER (USA: UA 93.22)
The State of Missouri is set to execute Kevin Johnson on 29 November 2022. He was sentenced to death in 2007 for the murder of a police officer in 2005.…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER JAILED FOR ONLINE POSTS (Morocco: UA 91.22)
On 9 September, the Casablanca judicial police questioned Rida Benotmane, a member of the Moroccan Association for the defense of human rights (Association Marocaine des Droits Humains) about several social…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: CUBA: PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE AT RISK (Cuba: UA 67.22)
José Daniel Ferrer García, leader of the unofficial political opposition group “Patriotic Union of Cuba,” who was arrested on July 11, 2021, in the context of island-wide protests and has…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: WHISTLEBLOWER ACTIVIST’S CONVICTION UPHELD (Algeria: UA 43.22)
Mohamed Benhlima is a former military officer and anti-corruption activist who exposed the corruption of high-ranking Algerian military officials. He fled Algeria to Spain in September 2019 out of fear…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: 10 EGYPTIAN NUBIAN MEN SENTENCED TO PRISON (Saudi Arabia: UA 112.21)
On 10 October, the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, sentenced 10 Egyptian Nubian men to prison terms ranging between 10 to 18 years following a grossly unfair…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: THREE PEOPLE RISK COURT-ORDERED BLINDING (Iran: UA 87.22)
Three prisoners, two men and a woman, are at imminent risk of judicially-sanctioned blinding after their cases were sent to Branch 3 of the Office for Implementation of Sentences in…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: LAWYER DETAINED ARBITRARILY FOR NEARLY 2-YRS (Burundi: UA 92.21)
September 29, 2022 marked a year that the Court of Appeal of Ngozi upheld the conviction and five-year prison sentence of Burundian lawyer, Tony Germain Nkina. He was arrested on…