Avaaz Under Attack

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Please read this e-mail I received today from Avaaz. It shows just how successful this campaigning team are and how frightened despotic regimes are of their power to reach people who matter.


We may be living in France where we are relatively safe, but that does not mean that we are not part of the world community.


We have only to see how Putin's actions are putting the whole of Europe at risk!



Dear friends,








Avaaz staff are under threat! Wissam, one of our campaigners, was delivering an urgent Avaaz campaign when he was detained in Egypt, dragged into a deportation room, interrogated for hours and finally deported. This is just the latest in a string of threats against Avaaz staff -- and we need to protect the team that speaks our community's truth to power by triple-reinforcing our security systems.



Click to pledge what you can:

€18 €27 €45 €68 €113

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I just got off the phone with Wissam, one of our campaigners, who was just detained at the Cairo airport, dragged into a deportation room and interrogated for hours while he tried to deliver our million-strong petition to stop the biggest mass execution in Egypt's history.

Two high level Generals drilled chilling questions about Wissam's personal life, his work with Avaaz and our campaigns while our team waited anxiously for word. Then they confiscated his computer and deported him.

As our community gets more effective, this kind of thing will happen more and more. Some of our team have already received death threats, had their computers and emails hacked, their cars tampered with, and been threatened on television and radio.

Avaaz needs to triple-reinforce our security systems, including legal counsel to stand ready for emergencies, media support to create scrutiny of cases, better encryption and the resources to move staff to a safe location when the pressure gets to be too much. Let's come together to support the kind of infrastructure we need to protect the team that speaks our community's truth to power.

Click below to quickly scale up the protection Avaaz needs -- pledges will only be processed if we raise enough to fully fund our security plan to safeguard our staff:


YES, I'LL PLEDGE €18

YES, I'LL PLEDGE €27

YES, I'LL PLEDGE €45

YES, I'LL PLEDGE €68

YES, I'LL PLEDGE €113

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The Avaaz poll just out on the net today is very interesting. 34 million supporters is encouraging but still very few of the world population over 134 of the world's 198 countries.However, no other organisation is working as hard to defend values some of us hold dear and the state of our planet, have a look and think about supporting them and voting with others to defend the world against threats they have the courage to campaign against.

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I totally agree Brian, we all need to participate to keep us as safe as we possibly can!

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I already donate to them and have since it was only Ricken and two volunteers. People may laugh at all the petitions and say that they do nothing, change nothing or whatever. By not supporting organisations like avaaz they are simply avoiding acknowledging the things we should all share in changing by the act of turning their backs on the issues. Then perhaps they don't care, their loss because it is still their world and when things go wrong they are often the first to complain and say somebody should have done something. Those people are trying and believe me, human (and other) rights is not something to get involved in if people want to get rich, have a life of privilege, comfort and be left alone.