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: LIFE OF ARBITRARILY DETAINED ACTIVIST IN DANGER (Egypt: UA 132.19)
Concerns are growing over activist Alaa Abdel Fattah’s life and wellbeing after his family and lawyer learned about his suicidal thoughts due to his unjust detention and cruel prison conditions.…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: THREAT TO SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS (Dominican Republic: UA 36.21)
With the beginning of the new parliamentary term, a preliminary draft of the Criminal Code is being debated by the Dominican Republic’s Congress with the objective of approving a reformed…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: STOP U.S. ABUSES AGAINST HAITIAN PEOPLE (USA: UA 99.21)
Thousands of Haitians are traveling to the US-Mexico border to seek asylum in the U.S., with many settling in camps after being denied entry. The US government is responding with…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: SHAMAN CHALLENGES INDEFINITE HOSPITALIZATION (Russian Federation: UA 98.21)
On September 23, 2021 the Supreme Court of Sakha (Yakutia), will consider shaman Aleksandr Gabyshev’s appeal against the decision to confine him to psychiatric hospital. Meanwhile he is in pretrial…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: PARLIAMENTARIAN CONVICTED BY MILITARY COURT (Tunisia: UA 97.21)
Yassine Ayari, an outspoken parliamentarian and whistle-blower who exposed several corruption cases in Tunisia, has been held since July 28, 2021 in the Mornaguia prison to serve a two-month sentence…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: IRANIAN KURDISH MAN AT RISK OF EXECUTION (Iran: UA 146.20)
Iranian Kurdish prisoner Heidar Ghorbani is at imminent risk of execution for “armed rebellion against the state” (baghi), despite serious fair trial violations and the trial court confirming that he…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: MAN WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY SET TO DIE (USA: UA 96.21)
Ernest Johnson faces execution on October 5, 2021. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995 for the 1994 murders of three employees of a convenience store in Missouri.…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: AUSTRALIAN BLOGGER AT RISK OF EXTRADITION (Samoa: UA 93.21)
Talalelei Pauga is a vocal critic of the Samoan government’s policies and is known for protesting the former Samoan Prime Minister’s 2018 visit to Australia by presenting him with a…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: LECTURER JAILED FOR WHATSAPP MESSAGE (Indonesia: UA 76.21)
Saiful Mahdi, a university lecturer at the Syiah Kuala University in Aceh Province, was sentenced for defamation to three months in prison and a fine of Rp 10 million (approximately…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: PROTECT AFGHANS STRANDED AT POLISH BORDER (Poland: UA 95.21)
32 Afghans are stuck at the Polish-Belarus border following pushbacks by Polish authorities to Belarus in August. They have been stranded for weeks without adequate shelter, food, water, and medical…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: PROTECT JOURNALIST AT RISK (Colombia: UA 91.21)
On July 7, 2021 a local civil society organization received confidential information about a plan to kill journalist José Alberto Tejada. Since April 28, 2021 he has faced more than…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: ILL-TREATED FOR SEEKING TRUTH AND JUSTICE (Iran: UA 94.21)
Prisoner of conscience Maryam Akbari Monfared has been held in cruel and inhumane conditions in a distant prison in Semnan province far from her family since March 2021, in reprisal…