Dear friend,

It's not often we send an email like this, but I have some fantastic news from our team on the ground in Egypt.

Since Friday afternoon more than 5,000 of us took action calling for the release of a group of human rights workers and journalists, including two Amnesty staffers, detained in Cairo.

Over the weekend, we learned that all 35 detainees had been freed. We’re massively relieved that they are now safe.

If ever we need a reminder of the power of the Amnesty International movement, this surely is it. Along with the thousands of Australians who took action, our friends in the UK sent 11,000 emails to Egyptian officials, and hundreds of Americans phoned their Egyptian embassy regarding the crackdown on peaceful protests.

Amnesty’s campaigns have never been the work of one person alone; they are the work and success of millions like you. This event demonstrates the strength and determination of our movement.

We’re now scaling up our response to the ongoing crisis in Egypt: our team on the ground continues to monitor developments, and across the globe we’re planning more actions to support people’s right to peaceful protest and ensure the authorities rein in their security forces to avoid further bloodshed.

We’ll be in touch again soon to let you know how you can continue to help.

Thank you for your part in this success.

In solidarity,

Jenny Leong
Crisis Campaigner
Amnesty International Australia

PS. “It remains unclear why they were detained; and we wonder if the Egyptian authorities will provide answers“. Our team in Cairo are blogging about their personal experiences of Thursday’s sudden crackdown. You can read more here.