Conference Targets Rights Violations

T. C. Duong had just finished competing in the hurdles event at an Irvine High School track meet Saturday when he dashed inside a classroom for another event important to him: a meeting about political imprisonment and torture.

Sweat still beading on his forehead, the 16-year-old sophomore from rival Woodbridge High School said he didn’t want to miss either the track meet or the Amnesty International conference this weekend at the school. Both, he said, mattered.

Duong and some of his fellow classmates organized Woodbridge’s first Amnesty International chapter two months ago, joining an increasing number of students nationwide paying $15 each to belong to the international organization that works for the release of political prisoners.

Conference Continues

“I think we’ve gotten out of the yuppie stage and we’re getting more into values now,” Duong said. “We plan to write lots and lots of letters to help free those prisoners.”

About 400 students and adults attended the organization’s western regional conference at Irvine High, which continues today. Aware of the growing teen-age membership, Amnesty International scheduled a special workshop on how high school students can start campus chapters.

Charles Henry, Amnesty USA’s chairman, said interest among teen-agers has increased since a series of “Conspiracy of Hope” rock concerts in 1986 publicized the human rights cause. Since then, the number of campus chapters nationwide has increased from 200 to about 800, he said.

Like Duong, Nick Rizza, Amnesty USA’s national refugee coordinator and a former ‘60s activist, said the numbers show that “a second generation of activists is coming along.”

Activist Killed

In the Irvine High theater Saturday, the audience heard human rights activist Mirna Perla de Anaya, a prominent Salvadoran lawyer and judge, describe the abduction and assassination of her husband.

Anaya said Salvadoran police arrested Herbert Ernesto Anaya in the presence of his family.

“My children didn’t understand what was happening,” Anaya, speaking in Spanish, told the audience through an interpreter. “They said, ‘They’re stealing my father.’ ”

Her husband was tortured for 15 days, including five days when he was forced to stand upright without food or water, she said. In October, a few months after his release, he was shot to death outside his home.

Fearing for their lives, Anaya said, she fled with her three children to Canada. But she said she plans to return soon to El Salvador to work for human rights.

“In my country, the human rights situation is very bad,” she said.

Amnesty International leaders later asked members of the audience to send telegrams of protest to countries such as El Salvador, where they said political activists are routinely imprisoned.

Saturday’s workshop also drew university students and adults, such as Phyllis Boney, 33, a bookkeeper from San Diego.

“I came here to find out what I can do,” said Boney, who joined Amnesty International a few months ago after watching a television program on human rights abuses in Chile.

Some new Amnesty International members said their work already is showing results. Peter Finestone, 23, organizer of the group’s campus chapter at Cal State Northridge, said his year-old group sent letters to Tunisia protesting the detention of 19 prisoners. Recently, he said, the chapter received assurances from the Tunisian government that it was looking into the matter.