A big pile of greetings cards bearing messages of hope to people facing persecution around the world were written out at a Charity Fair in Diss on Friday.

Amnesty International Diss had a stall at the fair at the United Reformed Church where people took part in the Write for Rights campaign by sending season's greetings to people facing human rights abuses.

The aim of the cards is to bring comfort and hope to prisoners of conscience, to families whose relatives have disappeared, and to people in danger for defending human rights. They offer encouragement and support, and can also improve the way individuals at risk are treated by the countries' authorities.

Some of the people sent cards included families still looking for Masood Janjua and Faisal Faraz who disappeared in 2005 while on a bus in Pakistan; the parents of student Ragihar Manoharan who was shot dead by security forces in Sri Lanka; youth activist Jabbar Savalan, who is being persecuted by the Azerbaijani authorities because of messages he posted on Facebook criticising the government; Chen Guangcheng and his wife Yuan Weijing, who are facing persecution for standing up for human rights in China; journalist Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand, who is in prison in Iran for setting up a human rights group; In�s Fern�ndez Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cant�, who were raped by soldiers in Mexico in 2002 and have faced threats as they pursue justice; and Natalia Estemirova, who was abducted and killed because of her human rights work in Russia.

For more information about Amnesty's Write for Rights campaign, visit www.amnesty.org.uk