The Clarion

Issue date: 10/23/07 Section: Features

Media Credit: Nate Knife DU chapter Amnesty International co-presidents, from left to right, Abbas Jaffer, Rabah Kamal and Anandi Ramaswami talk about the issues. [Click to enlarge]

Human rights is a hot-button issue on almost every college campus, and the University of Denver is no exception. Next month, the DU chapter of Amnesty International is planning a week of events on topics such as torture of prisoner and treatment of prisoners of conscience.

The group will kick-off the awareness campaign on Nov. 11 with the documentary "Guantanamo" as part of Amenity International's anti-torture campaign. The group also hopes to screen other films dealing with human rights. The group is considering hosting a concert in the spring.arter.

The local chapter was formed in 2005 with five active members, according to Rabah Kamal, one of the chapter's three co-presidents this year. This year, the chapter's 20 active members and has already organized a candlelight vigil for the democratic protesters in Myanmar.

"It's amazing how many people are interested this year," said Kamal. "We have a huge turnout for all our meetings."

"It's great because it's one of our short-term goals to have a lot of enthusiastic members," said Abbas Jaffer, one of the other co-president.

"Statistics show that most of Amnesty International's most active members are in high school. We want to make that true for college as well."

Anandi Ramaswami, and the third co-president, is also optimistic about the coming year.

"I'm really happy with the turnout," said Ramaswami of the attendance at the meetings. "When you compare seeing five people show up last year and sometimes 30 people show up this year…it's really great seeing people so dedicated."

The current presidents came to Amnesty for a number of different reasons, but they share a common goal of ending human rights abuses and humanitarian crises the world over.

"I actually had no previous experience with Amnesty International before this summer," said Jaffer. "Then I interned at their Washington D.C. policy office, and I got really fired up about it."

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools