Amnesty International Nepal (Amnesty Nepal) convened a planning workshop on 26 November 2022, at Ratnanagar, Chitwan to train and empower its members to take Amnesty’s global Write for Rights (W4R) campaign to the local communities in Nepal in generating the community support and actions towards securing the release and justice to the human rights defenders whose lives are at risk because of the human rights defense work they have done. A total of 85 Amnesty Nepal members representing various Groups, Youth Networks and supporter members actively participated in the one-day residential event.
Amnesty International’s W4R campaign is the world’s biggest human rights event held annually since 2001 where people in more than 200 countries and territories take millions of actions in support of people whose human rights are under attack. Reflecting the growing global threat to the right to protest and tying in with Amnesty’s new global Protect the Protest campaign this year’s W4R is campaigning for 13 individuals who have paid a great price for speaking out.
Bipin Budhathoki, Chair of Amnesty Nepal, welcomed the participants appreciating their time and commitment to be part of the campaign. He shared that the workshop was organized to strengthen the participants’ knowledge of the W4R campaign and equip them with the necessary skills and materials to independently carry out the campaign in their locality. He also informed them that Amnesty Nepal would campaign for the five cases in 2022, including a local case demanding investigation into custodial deaths during the one-month-long campaign.
The program also praised the exemplary performance by Group 55 of Pananuti which generated the highest number of actions (26,455) in the campaign in 2021. Likewise, Group 2 of Surkhet and the United Youth Network of Kathamndu – who had collected 26,307 and 14,381 signatures respectively – were also praised for their excellent performance.
The session was started with a discussion on the concept of Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) and their roles and responsibilities. Then, there was a session on the W4R campaign’s conception, mobilization, and impacts followed by group discussions on the six cases selected for this year’s campaign. The cases included: Chow Hang-Tung from Hongkong, Shahnewaz Chowdhury from Bangladesh, Aleksandra Skochilenko from Russia, Joanah Mamombe, Netsai Marova and Cecillia Chimbiri from Zimbabwe, Yren Rotela and Mariana Sepulveda from Paraguay and a local case of Nepal making a petition to the Prime Minister for the investigation into custodial deaths.
The latter sessions were dedicated to dry runs and planning strategies. The participants presented their various strategies to reach out to larger and unreached audiences.
The workshop concluded with firm commitments from participants to demand justice for the six cases Amnesty Nepal is profiling using the power of their pen and words.