Letters for Amnesty

In the 1970s, Amnesty Netherlands activated many Dutch people with the so-called December Action.

Greeting card designed by Dick Bruna for Amnesty International Netherlands, 1975
Courtesy of Archive Amnesty International Netherlands, IISH, Amsterdam

For this action, special postcards were designed. In 1975 the world-famous designer of Miffy books Dick Bruna designed the Amnesty cards, free of charge. Local Amnesty teams sold them to collect money for Amnesty. Along with the December cards, small pieces of paper were provided with information and addresses of three prisoners from different backgrounds, all of them adopted by Amnesty International. In this way, people were encouraged to send their ‘December spirit’ to a prisoner of conscience.

The December Actions were a huge success in the Netherlands in the 1970s. Many people from various backgrounds wrote greeting cards to prisoners. Sending a greeting card to a prisoner was a quick and easy way to ‘do something good’, the month of December fit this action perfectly.

Our Amnesty team organizes greeting actions for Christmas and Easter in collaboration with local churches. The churches are very good at this. – Ellie, writing since the 1980s for Amnesty in Almere, 2013

A cheerful greeting from a child, 1976
Courtesy of Archive Amnesty International Netherlands, IISH, Amsterdam

Even though the December Actions of the 1970’s were very successful, there were some disadvantages. It was hard for Amnesty to control how many postcards were sent to which prisoners. It could be possible that one prisoner got a thousand cards, while his fellow prisoners with the same fate were not addressed at all. This overload of cards could also lead to worse treatment of the prisoner. Besides that, the organization did not wish to risk that the wide public might get the wrong idea about these goals, which went farther than just sending support. The international, neutral character of Amnesty was also washed away when prisoners would only get Dutch cards. On top of that, Christmas greetings were not received with the same joy by people of different
religions.

The people we write for usually represent a larger group of people. It is unclear why these people have been selected, and whether their networks can be supported as well. – Ellie, writing since the 1980s for Amnesty in Almere, 2013

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