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They're coming after our team‏ - Avaaz.org - World

Dear friends, 


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I just got off the phone with Wissam, one of our campaigners, who was detained at the Cairo airport, taken 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: 


The campaign we're running right now to Egypt -- opposing the mass execution of more than 500 people -- has been hugely powerful, reaching the highest levels of the government. Wissam had permission to enter Egypt and had a meeting scheduled with the Grand Mufti Allam -- who has the power to immediately stop the mass killings. This is why we came under attack -- Wissam says the generals who interrogated him knew everything about Avaaz, our campaign, and his own life and travel. The government was clearly watching our campaign closely.

And as soon as Wissam was sent home, news outlets around the world from the Washington Post to Al-Arabiya picked up the story immediately, putting more pressure on the Egyptian government to act to protect human rights.

But we know the threats will get worse as we get more effective. Our people-powered campaigning has been fearless, and we've taken on the world's worst actors head-on, in ways that genuinely hurt them -- from the Syrian and Russian regimes to Rupert Murdoch, Big Oil and organized crime. The Syrian dictatorship even called our campaigner 'the most dangerous man in the world'. 

We're not backing down, and our team is laser-focused on winning our campaign in Egypt -- but we also need to keep the team and the movement safe. We don’t know if Wissam would be free now if we hadn't had such broad legal, media and diplomatic pressure lined up -- and I want to make sure we always have what we need to respond to emergencies like these. With all of our small pledges added up now, we can:
  • Build industrial-scale security and hire top hackers and technologists, so that no attack can stop us campaigning.
  • Increase the physical security of our most vulnerable staff and action teams in places like Lebanon, Russia and Uganda.
  • Have lawyers ready to leap into action to ensure we have the legal and diplomatic support needed when our team is under threat.
  • Build a direct-response media team, which brings global attention to such incidents right away and ensures that the voices of the people aren’t silenced.
  • Take a range of other actions to improve the security of our team and our members.

Click below to pledge now to help protect Avaaz:            
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With nearly 35 million members, we’ve become the largest global civic movement ever, and our campaigns pose a real threat to brutal regimes and corrupt corporations. Two years ago, our website came under massive attack, threatening our ability to keep campaigning. We came together to protect it and now our tech systems are reinforced and fully prepared for almost any kind of cyber-attack. But they’re coming after our staff. Let's prove that no matter what tactics they use, attacking our movement only makes us stronger. 

With hope and deep gratitude, 

Ricken and the Avaaz team


MORE INFORMATION: 

Egypt: Stop the Mass Execution (Avaaz)
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_mass_execution_loc/?fr 

Egypt deports man lobbying against mass death sentences (Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/04/us-egypt-deported-idUSBREA330RY20140404 

Egypt deports activist with death penalty petition (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/egypt-deports-anti-death-sentences-activist/2014/04/04/68da1054-bc02-11e3-80de-2ff8801f27af_story.html 

Egypt Bars Lebanese Man over Death Sentence Petition (Almanar)
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=144362&frid=21&seccatid=19&cid=21&fromval=1 

Egypt bars Lebanese activist over death sentence petition (AlArabiya)
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/2014/04/04/Egypt-bars-Lebanese-activist-over-death-sentence-petition-.html 

Hundreds of Egyptians Sentenced to Death in Killing of a Police Officer (NY Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/world/middleeast/529-egyptians-sentenced-to-death-in-killing-of-a-police-officer.html