From Avaaz.org’s Paul Hilder – Obama peace prize?

Dear friends,

Barack Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize! Let’s define this moment as a challenge to be bold — let’s flood Obama with worldwide congratulations, urging him to go further and turn hope into change:

The winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize has just been announced — and it’s US President Barack Obama.

Obama himself says he’s “surprised, humbled” and doesn’t yet deserve it — but he’s accepted the Prize as a call to action, “to confront the common challenges of the 21st century” together. On too many pressing issues, the US President seems boxed-in by stubborn interests and has not yet taken courageous action. He deserves to hear our congratulations — and our message to be bolder.

Let’s do our part to define the challenge this Prize poses to Obama and us all — let’s flood Obama with a million messages of encouragement and urgency, pressing him to turn hope into action in the coming months on nuclear disarmament, climate, and desperately-needed peace in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Sign the Obama Peace Petition now and we’ll deliver it directly to the White House — then forward this email to all your friends.

In his Cairo speech this June, Obama spoke of “the world we seek” — one where “extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own” and nuclear energy does not trigger conflict — a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all are respected.

Obama’s words have offered a vision of profound change: all this can perhaps not be achieved overnight. But his push for Middle East peace has not yet been strong enough to overcome the resistance of hardliners in the region. Meanwhile, hawks and conservatives in the US are pressing him to commit 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, instead of changing course to focus more on peace, development and diplomacy.

From Avaaz.org’s Alice Jay – No sanctions for massacre and rape?

Dear friends,

A bloody massacre in Guinea could undermine peace across West Africa. Sign the call for targeted sanctions on the Guinean junta and let’s raise a popular outcry worldwide against this crackdown:

Last week, over 150 civilians were killed when the military opened fire on a peaceful pro-democracy rally in the West African country of Guinea. Women were raped and people were bayoneted on the streets as they tried to escape — a terrifying message to a nation crying out to elect a democratic, civilian government for the first time.

In spite of the international community’s condemnation of the violence and calls for the regime to allow elections, the junta is clinging to power, warning ominously that the army is acting beyond the chain of command. The tense situation threatens to spiral into inter-factional fighting or a counter-coup, which would likely see violence spill over and destabilize the whole region.

We need to act fast. The international community must send a clear message that unless the regime agrees to step down and allow a peaceful democratic transition, they will face immediate, tightly-targeted sanctions. The African and European Unions have discussed invoking travel and banking sanctions on the ruling elite, who love to fly and shop: this could be the best chance to have quick impact, without hurting Guinea’s people — who desperately need our help. We’ll deliver this campaign to European and African leaders before they meet later this month — click the link below to sign the petition.

The military ruler of Guinea, Capitan Moussa Dadis Camara, seized power in a military coup last year. He had agreed to step aside and allow for democratic elections next year — but after months of tension, recently reneged on that promise. The people of Guinea have suffered over 50 years of brutal and corrupt dictatorships. Tens of thousands of civilians who attended last week’s rally were clamouring for an end to military rule and opposing his candidacy in elections.

The violence against civilians was brutal. A human rights watch witness stated: “I saw the Red Berets [an elite unit within the military] catch some of the women who were trying to flee, rip off their clothes, and stick their hands in their private parts. Others beat the women, including on their genitals… the women were crying out.”

From Avaaz.org’s Ricken Patel – Wow — wake up call was amazing

Dear all,

Wow. Monday’s Wake Up call was unbelievable – 2632 events in 134 countries, tens of thousands of phone calls crashing government lines, unbelievable creativity and diversity of events, directly reaching heads of state and cabinet ministers from Australia to Europe. Words can’t describe it — this video gets close:

Watch the Video!

The Wake Up call was covered by hundreds of major news outlets and made the evening news everywhere from Germany to New Zealand. Europe’s environment chief praised “the mobilisation of so many people by Avaaz.org”, the UK Prime Minister became the first major world leader to agree to our demand to go to Copenhagen and said that with “the pressure that can brought by organizations like yours…what people think is impossible can become possible”. The Spanish environment minister called the action “extraordinary”.

World leaders have heard us. But as Tuesday’s UN summit showed, one day of action won’t be enough to get real progress on climate. We need to come back again and again, louder and louder, until we get a fair, ambitious and binding climate treaty.

We’ll keep the pressure high through the TCKTCKTCK campaign until Copenhagen, with another global day of action on October 24th, and start planning right now for the LARGEST CLIMATE MOBILIZATION IN HISTORY ON DECEMBER 12th, in the final days of the Copenhagen negotiations.

Avaaz is now 3.6 million members strong in 14 languages, in every country of the world. On Monday, our movement took a huge step forward — we showed that we can not only send millions of messages to leaders or donate millions to worthy causes, but that in just a few days we can flood the streets and crash phone lines from Mexico City to Mumbai.

If we stick together, anything is possible.

With hope and excitement for the future,

Ricken, Ben, Paul, Milena, Alice, Luis, Brett, Taren, Margaret, Iain, Pascal, Graziela, Paula, Benjamin, Rajeev, Veronique, Raluca, Julius, Yuri, Saravanan, Vladimir, Tihomir, Sam, Emma and the whole Avaaz team

PS – the video above was made from over 10,000 wake up call pictures and 600 videos uploaded to Avaaz in just 24 hours! There were many tears among people making the video as we saw the amazing dedication of everyone, from the Avaaz community to our TCKTCKTCK campaign partners to people joining the first climate action of their lives. Click here to see the video of this amazing movement in action: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/sept21_hub

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