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: ARBITRARILY DETAINED LAWYER DENIED HEALTH CARE (Egypt: UA 190.18)
Arbitrarily detained Egyptian human rights lawyer Hoda Abdelmoniem is standing trial by the Emergency State Security Court on bogus charges stemming from her human rights work. On October 11, 2021,…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: PROSECUTORS MUST INVESTIGATE TORTURE (Mexico: UA 122.21)
On August 3, 2021, José Eduardo Ravelo died from multiple internal injuries, after telling his mother the police had tortured him in detention days before in Mérida, state of Yucatán.…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: PEACEFUL ACTIVISTS JAILED FOR ‘DEFAMATION’ (Democratic Republic of Congo: UA 117.21)
Activists Claude Lwaboshi Buhazi (32), Faustin Ombeni Tulinabo (26) and Serge Mikindo Waso (33), members of the citizen movement, Jicho la Raiya (The Eye of the Citizens) were arrested on…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: TIBETAN MONK HELD INCOMMUNICADO FOR 2 YEARS (China: UA 72.21)
Tibetan monk Rinchen Tsultrim was sentenced to four years and six months’ imprisonment in a secret trial for “inciting secession” after expressing political views on his WeChat account. Held incommunicado…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: SAHRAWI ACTIVIST RAPED BY MOROCCAN FORCES (Morocco/Western Sahara: UA 33.21)
On November 15, 2021, Moroccan security forces broke into the house of Sultana Khaya, Sahrawi woman activist and defender of Sahrawis’ right to self-determination. They raped her and sexually abused…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: TEENAGE GIRL DETAINED FOR FACEBOOK POST (Bangladesh: UA 120.21)
Dipti Rani Das, a 17-year-old girl from the Hindu minority community in Bangladesh, was arrested by the police for a Facebook post and has been held at a correction facility…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: Law initiative endangers NGOs, HRDs and media (El Salvador: UA 121.21)
On November 9, 2021, the Minister of the Interior in El Salvador presented the legal initiative “Ley de Agentes Extranjeros”. The proposed law, which would prohibit “foreign agents” from carrying…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: JAILED ACTIVIST TRANSFERRED TO MOSCOW (Russian Federation: UA 114.21)
On November 17, 2021, a court upheld on appeal the pretrial detention of activist Lilia Chanysheva, and she was transferred out of her hometown of Ufa on November 21, 2021.…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: REFUGEE CHILDREN AT RISK (Peru: 119.21)
Thousands of children and adolescents asylum seekers in Peru face increased risks because authorities are denying them humanitarian immigration status, a type of temporary legal residency which they are entitled…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: OPPOSITION ACTIVIST AT RISK OF TORTURE (Turkmenistan: UA 163.21)
Azat Isakov, a Turkmen activist with the opposition movement Turkmenia, Unite! went missing in Russia on October 20, 2021, and reportedly reappeared later in Turkmenistan. According to a statement by…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: UNJUSTLY DETAINED STUDENTS HARSHLY BEATEN (Iran: UA 76.20)
Iranian university students Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi, arbitrarily detained without trial in section 209 of Tehran’s Evin prison since April 10, 2020, are at risk of being convicted in…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: COVID-19 JOURNALIST AT RISK OF DYING IN PRISON (China: UA 170.20)
Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who has been on partial hunger strike in protest of her incarceration, is at grave risk of death and her family do not expect her to…