‘We have some really terrific news tonight.’

Addressing the world’s despots from the ease of a suburban home may not immediately be perceived as the daring approach to international justice.

Still, it is a demanding job, suitable only for serious people who can sustain the attack for months or years without result and then draw their satisfaction from a few shreds of equivocal information.

Just that sort of equivocal good news arrived Monday night during the monthly meeting of the San Fernando Valley chapter of Amnesty International, the worldwide organization that monitors violations of human rights by governments and applies pressure to try to stop them.

Twenty-five people showed up in the community room of Mercury Savings.

About half were new members, most of them young people attracted by newspaper articles and a series of rock concerts held in the summer on behalf of Amnesty International.

“It sort of ferments in the mind for a while, and then they show up,” said member Robert Ballenger, who has been with the group a year, all of it dedicated to getting one man out of prison.

With weary foresight, Ballenger said that many of the recruits will eventually find the frustration too great and drop away.

Their first night was about as upbeat at it gets.

“We have some really terrific news tonight,” the group’s coordinator, Betty Moss, beamed. It came from Ballenger, a deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman. He said his prisoner, a Greek Jehovah’s Witness named Theodore Gogas, had been serving a four-year sentence in prison for refusing military induction.

Hundreds of letters had been sent to Greek officials urging the release of Gogas and the adoption of a law recognizing the rights of conscientious objectors.

The letters have never been answered.

Recently, however, Amnesty International received word that Gogas had been released early, Ballenger said.

The room broke out in applause.

But Ballenger said there was no clear evidence that the group’s efforts were responsible.

Probably, he said, Gogas was released merely because he was the sole supporter of his family or his wife became ill.

He said there was little chance that the group would ever get the truth.

“I really am not terribly optimistic,” Ballenger said. “But we got him out. That’s the main thing.”

More good news came from Daniel Kramon, a psychologist, who wrote letters on behalf of a 64-year-old carpenter imprisoned in the Transkei, a nominally independent tribal homeland in South Africa.

Kramon read a letter he had received in reply to his own from the consul general of South Africa in Beverly Hills.

“As you may or not know,” the consul general wrote, “the Transkei obtained independence from South Africa on the 26th of October, 1976. . . . Should you ever have any queries relating to my country, I would be happy to meet with you and discuss them.”

That wasn’t exactly a victory. But it was a response.

A young woman member pretended to be wounded that Kramon got a letter instead of her.

“They must know I’m a woman,” she said. “What did you do, put ‘doctor’ in front of your name?”

Kramon nodded with a wry smile.

After much discussion, the group decided that the response was disingenuous, because the Transkei’s independence has not been recognized by other nations, and that Kramon should write back and ask for the meeting.

“I don’t know much about South African law to know what to tell the gentleman except to shove it,” he protested. “I can’t cite international law.”

Moss said she would call headquarters to get more information.

Several others volunteered to go along.

“I’ll go,” he said at last.

That was the end of the good news.

After the break, Moss informed the group that it would soon start a special campaign concerning Afghanistan.

“Terrible things are happening in Afghanistan,” she said, in a voice that always seemed trembling on the edge of tears.

She also introduced a new batch of prisoners.

“Do you remember a couple of years ago when they stormed the Golden Temple?” she asked, referring to the Indian government’s attack on a rebellious religious order. “A number of people were imprisoned wrongfully. They were just there for religious purposes, and they just got scooped up. We are going to write on behalf of five prisoners.”

Just before the meeting adjourned, somebody asked whether anyone else had seen the report on “60 Minutes” about an American who was burned to death by Chilean policemen while protesting human rights violations in his homeland.

Nobody had.

Moss said he should have videotaped it so they all could watch it at a future meeting.

“It’s happening all over,” she said in her trembling voice. “That’s why what we do is so important.”