3000 Postcards Sent to Benefit Prisoners

Hundreds of students signed almost 3000 postcards addressed to foreign governments officials urging the release of political prisoners in a campus-wide drive this week sponsored by Harvard-Radcliffe Amnesty International (HRAI).

The postcards demand the immediate release of three political prisoners in the Phillipines, South Africa, and the Soviet Union, including journalist Mila D. Aguilar, the aunt's of Eric A. San Juan '88, said HRAI member Astrid Guttman '87. San Juan has been working with his family to secure his aunt's release, according to a report in The Crimson last month.

The drive will continue through tonight, said another member, M. Timur Friedman '86.

Postcards, which the 30-member HRAI writes and mails, require only a signature, but Guttman said that some students still do not participate.

Not Political

"While we were tabling, a lot of people would just walk by, saying 'I'm not political. I don't want to deal with it. 'I found it somewhat shocking," she added.

However, she noted that the government of Pakistan last year released a prisoner who had been targeted in a similar HRAI campaign.

HRAI is separate from Amnesty International, the Nobel Prize-winning worldwide human rights organization, but does receive information and non-financial support from the larger group.

"We don't have the resources to do our own research," said Guttman.

But Freidman said that the organization is supported "generously" by both the Undergraduate Council and Education for Action, a group that funds social action programs.

He added that HRAI tries to remain as non-political as possible.

"Though it's impossible to be completely apolitical, we strive to be by concentrating on individual cases of human rights violations," Freidman said, adding that HRAI was founded in 1982 on this principle.

HRAI's activities throughout the year include a spring forum at the Institute of Politics and bi-weekly, informal letter-writing sessions.

The Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel's Committee for Oppressed Jewry, which also focuses on human rights, is sponsoring a rally tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. on the steps of Widener Library in support of another victim. Nadezha Fradkova, said committee member Shoshana M. Robinson '86.

Fradkhova has been trying unsuccessfully to leave the Soviet Union since 1978 and may now be criminally tried, Robinson added. She said that Law School Professor Alan M. Derschowitz and a Soviet emigre friend of the prisoner will speak at the rally.