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: PAKISTANI HELD INCOMMUNICADO AFTER FORCED DEPORTATION (Pakistan: UA 20.22)
Abdul Hafeez, 37, who ran an appliance installation and servicing company in Dubai, was apprehended by Emirati authorities outside his home on January 27, 2022, and subsequently detained. Just eight…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: JOURNALIST IN PROLONGED ARBITRARY DETENTION (Egypt: UA 175.19)
Journalist Mohamed Salah has been arbitrarily detained for 27 months without trial solely for the peaceful exercise of his human rights. In a letter written from inside prison on January…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: SHUHUH TRIBE MEMBER FORCIBLY DISAPPEARED (Oman: UA 16.22)
The Omani Internal Security Agency has subjected Masoud Ali Abdullah al-Shahi, a member of the Shuhuh tribe, to an enforced disappearance, a crime under international law since his arbitrary arrest…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: HALT RESUMPTION OF UNLAWFUL EXECUTIONS (Singapore: UA 15.22)
The authorities of Singapore are poised to resume hangings, after a two-year hiatus linked to pending appeals and the COVID-19 pandemic. In violation of international law and standards, several people…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE CONTINUE IN JAIL (Honduras: UA 03.22)
Only two of the eight members of the Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Assets (CMDBCP), have been so far acquitted and released. Six of them were…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: ACTIVIST’S TRIAL UNDER FALSE CHARGES RESUMES (Russian Federation: UA 138.20)
The criminal court hearing against Yulia Tsvetkova, an artist and activist from Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Russian Far East, resumes on March 14, 2022. She is facing up to six years…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: 60,000 FORCIBLY EVICTED IN PORT HARCOURT (Nigeria: UA 10.22)
Rivers State authorities have forcibly evicted thousands of residents of waterfront communities from their homes in the Diobu area of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, in southern Nigeria. The area is…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: SICK HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER MUST BE RELEASED (Bahrain: UA 11.22)
The health of Dr. Abduljalil al-Singace is now in an alarming state as he enters his seventh consecutive month on hunger strike and has been deprived of his weekly video…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: ACTIVIST AUTHOR REDETAINED AND TORTURED (Uganda: UA 56.20)
On December 28, 2021, armed security operatives arrested activist and author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija and held him in incommunicado detention for 13 days before arraigning him in closed court session where…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: LAWYER’S MOTHER DETAINED IN CHECHNYA (Russian Federation: UA 08.22)
On January 20, 2022, Zarema Musaeva, mother of a human rights lawyer from Chechnya (North Caucasus), was abducted from her apartment in Nizhnii Novgorod (Central Russia) by at least seven…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: PARLIAMENTARIAN FACING TRIAL BY MILITARY COURT (Tunisia: UA 97.21)
Tunisian parliamentarian Yassine Ayari’s trial is set to begin on February 14, 2022, before the Military Court of First Instance in Tunis. He is being prosecuted in relation to Facebook…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: LEONARD PELTIER, SEEKING CLEMENCY, CONTRACTS COVID (USA: UA 16.19)
Leonard Peltier, a 77-year-old Native American man who has been imprisoned in the USA for 45 years and has a clemency petition pending before President Joe Biden, has contracted COVID-19.…