IRVINE : Students Examining Human Rights Issues

Nilab Osmani never met Pedro Carzajal.

But for the past month, Osmani and some 15 other Irvine High School students have sent letters to the government of Colombia, where Carzajal was allegedly tortured and killed by army troops.

The students are members of the Irvine High chapter of Amnesty International. Their goal is to pressure the Colombian government to investigate Carzajal’s death and crack down on what they say may be human rights abuses in the South American country.

“It’s very cruel and unfair,” said Osmani, 15. “I try to put myself in their shoes. If I was captured or tortured, I would want people to help me.”

The group was formed this fall and has already launched letter-writing campaigns for several “prisoners of conscience.” On Friday, the club will hold a candlelight vigil to mark Human Rights Day.

Beginning at 6:30 p.m., the public is invited to march from Irvine High to the Woodbridge lake, where participants will light candles in honor of those whose human rights have been violated.

The theme of this year’s march is “the disappeared”--people who are kidnaped and often slain, but whose bodies are rarely discovered.

“We just think that cruel punishment and torture is wrong,” Osmani said. “I feel I need to do as much as I possibly can to stop it.”

The club meets regularly at Irvine High to plan projects and talk about human rights. The group deliberately has no officers or hierarchy, the traditional club structure that some consider barriers to free and open debate.

‘We don’t have a president,” she said. “We want people to express their ideas without having a higher person to answer to. It makes things more comfortable.”

Amnesty International’s San Francisco office suggests subjects for the Irvine students’ letter-writing campaigns. But the students write and mail the letters themselves.

“I just want to do what I can,” Osmani said.