Letters for Amnesty

Authorities can easily throw away the emails they receive from us, because there is less unity among people that send them. Deleting an email goes just as fast as signing a petition digitally. – Ellie, writing since the 1980s for Amnesty in Almere, 2013

Text message campaign against torture, ca. 2000-2005
Courtesy of Archive Amnesty International Netherlands, IISH, Amsterdam

Since the 1960s, the world of technology has known an explosive growth. Amnesty International has had to find a new strategy in the fast world of emails, text messages and online petitions. It made taking action easier and quicker. But there are other opinions about the effectiveness of digital campaigning. Prisoners won’t receive the text messages and an inbox full of emails is deleted with one click on the computer screen. Although the world has become largely digitized, volunteers still have to make the effort of writing paper letters to get the intended results.

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