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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
The reason we could resist the ban and move forward was the international support and solidarity by Amnesty International activists around the world. We could not have gone further without your support.
I am very grateful for all the support I received while I was in prison. Life in prison was very difficult and I was treated badly, but the support of those who believed in me made me strong.
My case once again showed how important solidarity and attention are in protecting the freedom of speech and human rights. I admire your noble work and boundless courage, dear activists.
Browse Urgent Actions
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: Assistant Judge Risks Double Prosecution (Iraq: UA 10.20)
Assistant judge Hatsyar Wshyar faces up to seven years in prison as new charges have been brought against him, over the same social media posts for which he was sentenced…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Victory! Four of Five Families Freed from Detention (USA: UA 116.20)
Over the course of 2020, Amnesty International campaigned to free five families from immigration detention in the USA, with the broader call for all detained families to be freed. Of…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: Release Detained Boğaziçi Protestors (Turkey: UA 2.21)
Nine people, the majority university students, are in pre-trial detention and 27 others under house arrest in Turkey for participating in peaceful protests following the appointment of Professor Melih Bulu…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: Activist Subjected to Torture and Charged with Subversion (China: UA 119.20)
Prominent legal scholar and activist Xu Zhiyong, who has been detained since February 2020, has for the first time been allowed to meet with his lawyer through two video calls.…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Victory! Deportation of Chechen Man Suspended (France: UA 24.21)
A.S., a Chechen man who was held in immigration detention in France facing imminent deportation to Russia, was released on 20 February. His deportation to Russia, where he would be…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: British-Iranian Labor Activist Detained (Iran: UA 26.21)
Mehran Raoof, a British-Iranian national and a labor rights activist, is being arbitrarily detained in Tehran’s Evin prison. Revolutionary Guards agents arrested him on 16 October 2020. He is being…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Victory! Peaceful Protester Released After Sixteen Months (Russian Federation: UA 82.20)
Prisoner of conscience Konstantin Kotov, who was convicted for “repeated violations of regulations of public assemblies”, left prison on 16 December after having spent one year and four months behind…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action Update: Transferred 1,000km From Family; Medical Care Needed (China: UA 19.18)
Prominent human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng was transferred without notice to Nanjing Prison in Jiangsu Province on 26 January, 1000km away from his family. Yu’s wife only found out that…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: Two Baluchi Prisoners at Risk of Execution (Iran: UA 22.21)
Death row prisoners from Iran’s Baluchi ethnic minority, Hamed Rigi and Mehran Naru’i, are at risk of execution. They have been subjected to serious human rights violations including enforced disappearance…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: Attacks Against Xinca Leaders Continue (Guatemala: UA 21.21)
On 7 February 2021, Luis Fernando García Monroy, member of the Xinca Parliament, received a death threat by a man in Aldea El Volcancito (east Guatemala). Three weeks earlier, another…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: Assaulted Peaceful Protester Denied Justice (Russian Federation: UA 19.21)
Margarita Yudina was seriously injured by a police officer in front of cameras on 23 January during a peaceful protest in St. Petersburg in support of Aleksei Navalny. Instead of…
Urgent Action
Urgent Action: Protect Environmental Defenders at Risk (Colombia: UA 18.21)
On 8 February, unidentified persons distributed threatening pamphlets giving 72 hours for Luis Alberto González López to leave the territory before the military would place a target near his residence…