Urgent petition
The term express petition was originally coined to describe one of the measures that Amnesty International is taking as part of its urgent actions against acute human rights violations. It is now also used for urgent petitions in the traditional sense.
history
In May 1999, an employee of Amnesty International Konstanz created the term urgent petition for ready-made, urgent appeals (requests or complaints, English Urgent Action) that should be sent to the responsible authorities from different, mostly non-national sides in the event of acute human rights violations.
Addressees of urgent petitions in this original sense were and still are often foreign prosecutors, judges, governors, state presidents, ministers, military personnel, prison directors, ambassadors, consuls, police stations or even companies. Thus, express petitions differed fundamentally from the petitions customary up to then, which also made it necessary to introduce and register a new domain eilpetionen.de with the development of the associated website. There, such appeals can be downloaded as pre-formulated text suggestions, individually modified and then sent by letter, fax, email or Twitter message. The proposals are usually written in English, Spanish or French, sometimes with a translation into German.
The suggestions are not a substitute for individual formulations, but help with insufficient language skills and shorten the time required for letters that are written completely independently. Many Amnesty supporters are convinced that they can significantly increase the effectiveness of urgent actions, because what matters most to them is quick reactions and the largest possible number of appeals. On a long-term average and with regard to all countries, they are successful in 40 percent of all cases. This means, for example: nonviolent political prisoners are released, torture is prevented, death sentences are commuted, or prisoners are at least made easier.
Since 1999, the term express petition (or express petition) has also been used increasingly for conventional petitions that appear urgent (e.g. due to imminent danger ) but have no relation to human rights work in the narrower sense or are addressed to domestic addressees . Examples of such urgent petitions are without reference to human rights
- An urgent petition to the Bavarian State Parliament was to prevent a school from closing in 2010.
- With an urgent petition to the German Bundestag , the destruction of Fritz Kühn's artistic estate through the threat of eviction is to be prevented.
Individual evidence
- ↑ What we achieve. Amnesty International Germany, accessed February 15, 2014 .
- ↑ Middle school: Parliament throws down urgent petition. Dachauer Nachrichten , August 7, 2010, accessed on February 15, 2014 .
- ^ Klaus Graf: Saving the cultural heritage of Fritz Kühn (1910-1967) - urgent petition to the German Bundestag. Retrieved February 15, 2014 .
Web links
- Petition proposals for human rights violations. Amnesty International Germany, accessed February 15, 2014 .