The local branch of Amnesty International held a Write for Rights event at Javaroma on Saturday asking people to support a letter campaign to oppose human rights abuses taking place around the world. From left are Joyce Gilchrist, Lawrence Wilson, Jessica Florio, Nancy Trotter and Tasha Stephenson. - Simon Whitehouse/NNSL photo |
We've got to write for our rights
Joyce Gilchrist reflects on being a longtime member of Amnesty International; Yk chapter marks Human Rights Day
Simon Whitehouse
Northern News Services
Friday, December 18, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Joyce Gilchrist has been involved with Amnesty International since the organization started up in Canada 40 years ago and has overseen countless letters condemning human rights abuses around the world.
Members of the local branch were at Javaroma for the annual Write For Rights day Saturday - an event which asks the public to write pre-drafted letters on behalf of Amnesty International. Letters are addressed to national leaders and embassies in Canada and ask governments to uphold human rights around the globe.
Two-hundred-and-sixteen letters were written by random people for the event, which beat this year's goal of 200, and last year's 150.
The event marked Human Rights Day, the anniversary of when the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights was created in 1948.
Gilchrist first joined Amnesty International in the 1970s when it first came to Canada and has been involved with the Yellowknife branch since she arrived in the North in 1989.
"It means a lot actually," she said when asked what her tenure signifies. "I just feel that it is an organization that has a bit of power just from ordinary people writing letters. Changes can happen because of that."
This year the organization is focusing its energies on five human rights cases from the United States to Greece to Saudi Arabia.
These days, Gilchrist says the group is relatively small with eight to 10 "core" members but she adds numerous people have kept in contact to remain in touch with the issues.
In Canada, Gilchrist says one of the changes she has noticed during her time is how more attention has been put toward Canada's own human rights treatment, particularly with the treatment of its aboriginal people. News that there will be a national inquiry into murdered and missing women in Canada is a watershed announcement for her organization which has been campaigning for it for 10 years, she said.
"In Canada I know we are focusing more on Canadian situations than we did in earlier years," she said.
"I know there is a big push to work with human rights with aboriginal communities in Canada specifically."
Gilchrist says she has no academic background in international work but has warm memories of either living or travelling in the Congo (formerly known as Zaire), Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Angola.
"My husband had grown up in Africa and had been a doctor and went back. That is what started this off," she said.
"I think about those countries a lot. It was a very interesting time to be in Africa because it was in the '60s. A lot of the countries were gaining their independence at the time so it was very interesting."
Lawrence Wilson, also with the organization, is a refugee to Canada from Liberia who came as a result of ongoing civil war in that country in 2002. He has been in Yellowknife working as a nurse's aid at Aven Manor.
He said the organization has always been important to him because of its sole voice for advocacy during the civil war. He said Gilchrist's experience living in Africa has provided her with a "sense of justice" which he sees reflected throughout the city.
"I think people really care and want to be part of something happening," Wilson told Yelllowknifer this week. "People want to care and want to be part of something bigger. For a small city, the results were remarkable."
Cases Write for Rights is focusing on
Phyoe Phyoe Aung: a student leader activist in Myanmar (formerly Burma) who was attacked and arrested last year during a demonstration and who now faces the possibility of a long jail sentence.
Albert Woodfox: a man in the United States who has spent 40 years in solitary confinement for the murder of a prison guard which he says he did not commit.
Yecenia Armenta: a Mexican woman who allegedly ordered her husband's murder and as a result was tortured into a confession by police and imprisoned.
"Costas": a Greek man who was openly attacked in public by "thugs" who was ignored by police and the Greek government. His real name is being kept under wraps for safety reasons.
Raif Badawi: a man in Saudi Arabia who is serving 15 years in prison for peaceful activism.
Source: Amnesty International
