Writing letters 'a chance to take action'

PROVIDENCE — On the chance that one letter, or 10, or 6.5 million, can make a difference on behalf of a person who is jailed for speaking out about injustice or speaking up for human rights, about 45 people sat at tables at the First Unitarian Church of Providence writing letters on Sunday.

About 12 more people had written during coffee hour and before choir practice. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed and U.S. Rep. David Cicilline came, as they have for the last 10 years. One young man, Oscar Lledo, 14, came in shorts and carrying a tennis racket. He sat down next to his mother, Elena Lledo.

"Even if the letters don't get read," he said, "the sheer volume, even if they only read one," have an emotional effect, he said.

Each place at the tables in the two parlor-like rooms were set with a folder and pen. The folders contained short biographies of the 10 people who are the focus of Providence's efforts this year, plus a sample letter and the addresses of a leader, dictator or ambassador of the country in which the prisoner is held.

The event was the First Unitarian Church of Providence's 31st annual Global Write-A-Thon for Human Rights, which gives concerned Rhode Islanders a chance to join with people from communities throughout the U.S. and the world in writing letters that demand freedom and fair treatment for prisoners of conscience and victims of human rights violations.

As they wrote, Marcia Lieberman, one of the organizers, introduced the speaker, Kamal Elias, a Yazidi Kurd who barely escaped the 2014 Islamic State (ISIS) genocide in Iraq and now lives in Providence with three brothers and two sisters-in-law. He works as an Arabic interpreter at hospitals.

Elias said he and his family are here because his sister wasn't wearing a head cover on the day their mother had a stroke. Soldiers harassed his sister at the Mosul hospital, he said. But the family also met some Americans that day, and the Americans helped them escape.

He told stories that had been relayed by friends who didn't get out. Elderly women were killed or left to die, he said. Young women were sold at a slave market. Young children were trained in the use of weapons and groomed to become suicide bombers.

One woman was forced to watch as ISIS militants killed her husband and raped her two daughters. For two days, she and her infant had no food. Then the militants took her baby. Later, they gave her a big meal, and she ate as much as she could. When she finished, the soldiers told her she had eaten her infant's flesh.

Holly Dobbs, 48, of Providence, who attends First Unitarian Church, said she has attended each session for about the last 10 years, if she wasn't working.

"It makes me feel like I have some agency," she said. "Otherwise I feel kind of helpless, hopeless and distressed by the news. Taking an action helps me to feel more empowered."

With her was William Rider, 18, of Rumford, who sat down in the chair Cicilline had vacated. Cicilline had written nine letters, so Rider finished the list. He planned to write more Sunday evening with a college Unitarian Universalist group.

"My level of awareness is raised," Rider said. "Rather than being bombarded with [news] stories, it's a chance to take action."

Merritt Meyer, 75, of Bristol, who had prepared the packets, said the letter count was 500, with 90 minutes and a youth group to go. Last year's tally was 400.

The event was a joint effort of the World Affairs Committee of the First Unitarian Church, the Benenson Society, named for the founder of Amnesty International, and Amnesty.

— dnaylor@providencejournal.com

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On Twitter: @donita22