Bloggers Unite is an initiative designed to harness the power of the blogosphere to make the world a better place. By challenging bloggers to blog about a particular social cause on a single day, a single voice can be joined with thousands of others to help make a real positive difference; from raising awareness for cancer, to an effort to better education systems or support 3rd world countries. The initiative’s site is hosted on blogcatalog’s site: http://unite.blogcatalog.com/



The latest event is just running today, 15 May 2008. Bloggers are challenged to participate in Amnesty International’s* selected initiatives:

• Urge your U.S. representative to press the Chinese government to release Shi Tao and others who were jailed simply for their legitimate use of the Internet: ask Yahoo Not to Violate Human Rights. Here is the template letter you can send to Yahoo:

"I am writing to you to express my deep concern over recent allegations that your company has assisted authorities in China in events which led to the imprisonment of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist. On April 27, 2005, Shi Tao received a ten-year prison term for sending information about a Communist Party decision through his Yahoo email account to a website based in the United States. Amnesty International considers him a Prisoner of Conscience, as he was imprisoned for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression and opinion.

I am alarmed that in the pursuit of new and lucrative markets, your company is contributing to human rights violations. Yahoo should urgently give consideration to the human rights implications of its business operations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights calls upon every organ of society, which includes companies, to respect human rights.

Yahoo's conduct in Shi Tao's case has exposed your company to the risk of being complicit in human rights violations.

You have publicly described your commitment to develop a global code of conduct for operating in repressive countries around the world, including China. But since that time you have signed yet another pledge to voluntarily censor in China and you reportedly misled Congress about how much you knew about Shi Tao. Yahoo must take concrete steps to ensure that the company ends its collusion with repressive regimes like the Chinese Government to restrict access to information, and never again assists in the imprisonment of a peaceful internet dissident.

I therefore call upon Yahoo to:

• Use its influence to secure Shi Tao's release.

• Exhaust all judicial remedies and appeals in China and internationally before complying with State directives where these have human rights implications.

• Develop an explicit human rights policy, that states the company support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and complies with the principles articulated in the UN Norms for Business, and ensure that all parent companies, subsidiaries and partners do the same. In this light, make clear to the Chinese authorities, as well as to the global community, that Yahoo is not willing to assist governments in implementing their systems of internet censorship, nor providing information directed at restricting freedom of expression.
  

Thank you for your consideration of these concerns.”

• Illegal Detentions at Guantanamo Bay: since first detainees arrived on January 11, 2002, the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become a global symbol of U.S. human rights violations. Infractions have included: illegal detention, denial of fundamental legal rights, and torture. The only proper recourse is to close the detention facility. Amnesty International calls for detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, other U.S. facilities, and secret CIA sites to be charged and given fair trial before independent and impartial tribunals such as U.S. federal courts. Tearitdown.org is Amnesty International’s global initiative to end illegal US detentions. Sign the tearitdown.org pledge:
  

"I sign up to Amnesty International’s framework for ending US illegal detention, the first step of which is closing Guantánamo in a way that respects the rights of detainees.
The US government must also end the practice of enforced disappearance, secret transfer of detainees to locations where they may face torture and other ill-treatment and indefinite detention without charge."(130,033 people were protesting before me!)

• The third ongoing initiative is “Crisis in Darfur”: one of the worst atrocities and abuses of human rights in the world today is taking place in Darfur, Sudan. The conflict in this country has led to the worst human rights abuses imaginable — the systematic and widespread murder, rape, abduction, and displacement of peaceful citizens. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in deliberate and indiscriminate attacks by both sides of the warring factions. Today, more than 2.5 million civilians have been displaced in the Sudan. Write about the human rights abuses taking place in Drafur and ask your readers to take action for the people of Darfur. They have no voice so the world has to their voice for them.

*Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of more than 2.2 million people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights.

Visit Bloggers Unite site and raise your voice!