دیا
Relief
During the past 12 months the administration of relief funds to the families of needy prisoners of conscience has occupied an increasing amount of Amnesty International's attention. Upwards of £50,000 (US $120,000) worth of relief money has, during 1974-75, passed through the International Secretariat to a wide variety of countries. An approximately equal total was sent by individual AI adoption groups and national sections.
To match the growing scale of Al's relief work, new procedures for speeding the flow of relief funds to those who are in need of them have been evolved at the International Secretariat and implemented with the cooperation of national sections and coordination groups. In November 1974, the International Executive Committee sanctioned the establishment of a Relief Committee at the International Secretariat with the task of supervising the expenditure of relief and deciding on the allocation of such relief funds that are not specifically ear- marked for a particular country or project.
Between November 1974 and April 1975, the Relief Committee met nine times to earmark some £15,000 (US $36,000) worth of monies for prisoners of conscience and their families in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. Combined with new procedures for the recording and transmission of relief payments through the International Secretariat, and a closer supervision of relief work by individual adoption groups, the committee's work has marked a significant step toward the re-organization of an important aspect of Al's assistance to prisoners of conscience.
While pressure on governments and the psychological support provided to prisoner and family by the traditional adoption process remain the principle weapons which AI uses in its fight against political persecution, the concrete benefit provided by financial relief is also of the utmost importance. To a family whose breadwinner who has been unjustly imprisoned, and perhaps detained for a number of years without trial, the previously simple problems of dealing with such financial necessities as school fees, rents, and travel money become insuperable difficulties. It is here that relief assistance, provided either directly by the adoption group, or from general funds held at the International Secretariat, can be of crucial importance.