Providing protective publicity and support to unjustly jailed lawyers

Lawyers you can send a greetings card to

You’ve probably got a card, and possibly quite a few more, that you’re keeping in a box somewhere. Sent by a friend, a family member or a lover, carrying a touching or funny message. You didn’t recycle the card or just tore the stamp off, because it meant a lot and made a difference at that very time.

It is with this sentiment that at this time of the year Lawyers for Lawyers organizes a greeting cards campaign. Receiving a greeting card can mean all the difference to a lawyer in prison. Messages of solidarity strengthen and cheer up those suffering human rights abuses because of their work. And if you are wondering if the lawyers actually receive the cards? Many of them do! We received many messages from lawyers expressing their thanks for the cards they received from their international colleagues.

So join us, and send a card to a lawyer in prison! Please send your cards to the post office box below and mention the name of the lawyer you would like to address your card to in the card. Do not send any religious card or political statements. The team of Lawyers for Lawyers will make sure that your cards will be forwarded to the lawyer to whom you have addressed your card!

Lawyers for Lawyers
Greeting cards
Postbus 7113
1007 JC Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Oya Aslan and Ayçan Çiçek

Oya Aslan and Ayçan Çiçek are lawyers from Türkiye and members of ÇHD, the Progressive Lawyers Association. They have been arrested in September and November 2017. The case against them had already started in 2013. On 15 November 2022, the Heavy Penal Court in Silivri Court House sentenced Oya Aslan, in a case against her and other members from CHD, to 16 years and 3 months in prison. The charges were that she was a “member of and made propaganda for a terrorist organisation”.  Ms. Çiçek has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for “membership of a terrorist organisation”. Read more about their cases here and here . You can write a letter to either Oya Aslan or Aycan Çiçek.

Tony Nkina (French)

Tony Germain Nkina is a well-known lawyer in Kayanza, Burundi where he used to be a representative of the Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons until the Burundian government suspended the organization in 2015 as part of a larger crackdown in civil society. He was arrested on 13 October 2020 when visiting a client who was arrested with him. He has been convicted for “collaboration with rebels who attacked Burundi” and sentenced to 5 years in prison. The Supreme Court has recently overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal which convicted Mr Nkina, referring the case back to the Court of Appeal. Even though this is great news, Mr. Nkina will await the hearing in detention. As he is francophone, the cards to mr Nkina should preferably be written in French (for French examples click here). Click here to read more.

Buzurgmehr Yorov

Yorov is one of Tajikistan’s most eminent human rights lawyers, a reputation developed by taking on a number of high-profile legal cases, representing individuals prosecuted by the government of Tajikistan on politically-motivated charges. Yorov was arrested on 28 September 2015. At the time of his arrest, Yorov had just started to represent thirteen senior leaders of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). After various trials that ignored international due process, Yorov received a combined sentence of 28 years. His sentence has twice been reduced as a result of government amnesties, but he is still in prison with eleven years to serve. Click here to read more.

Ding Jiaxi

Ding Jiaxi, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer, began his activism in 2010 by pushing for the right of migrant workers’ children to take college entrance exams at the location of their current residence rather than needing to return to a place of origin. Following his involvement in the New Citizens Movement, Ding was disbarred and sentenced to three and a half years in prison in 2014 for ‘gathering a crowd to disrupt order of a public place’. After serving his full sentence in 2017, Ding was released. However, on 22 June 2022, Mr. Ding was tried again for charges of “subverting state power”. He has been held in pretrial detention for more than two years and has been subjected to torture and ill-treatment during his arbitrary detention. Click here to learn more.

Salah Hammouri

Mr. Hammouri is a renowned human rights lawyer who advocates for Palestinians in Jerusalem and represented many political prisoners. Mr. Hammouri was arrested in March 2022. His detention order was renewed three times. It is believed that the continued administrative detention and the harassment through judicial proceedings of Mr. Hammouri is connected to, and serves to unlawfully restrict, his legitimate activities as an attorney and human rights defender. He is currently fighting the revocation of his Jerusalem residency, losing his residency makes him illegal in his home country and would lead to the Israelian authorities forcibly deporting him to France. While awaiting the outcome of the deportation hearings, Mr. Hammouri remains in detention. Click here to read more.