Carleton Journalists for Human Rights showed support for silenced journalists (Photo: Allison Render)
“Today I am silent for 24 hours. Some have been silenced for life.”
This was one of many slogans that appeared on posters held by students on and off campus on Oct. 5-6, as Carleton Journalists for Human Rights (CJHR) held their annual awareness campaign, Speak Silence.
Members of CJHR took an oath of silence and stood in solidarity to represent journalists around the world who cannot speak about human rights abuses for fear of repression.
The campaign took place in Porter Hall on Oct. 5 as part of Social Justice Week organized by the Carleton University Students’ Association, and in the Byward Market on Oct. 6.
Proceeds collected will go towards sending Canadian journalists to Africa, where they will train journalists to report on human rights abuses.
Second-year journalism student Alanah Sanche is a member of CJHR and participated in the campaign. She described participating in Speak Silence as “an amazing experience.”
“Just knowing that it was for a good cause, it felt really great to be able to help out in such a simple way,” Sanche said.
Campaigning for the annual event downtown was met with mixed reactions.
“Most people just looked at the posters and walked by, but it felt like we were really raising awareness, at least to some people,” Sanche said.
Sanche also took a 24-hour oath of silence, which she said proved to be a lot easier than she expected, with a few exceptions.
While holding signs that read, “Justice cannot be silenced,” Sanche said it was hard not to defend it or speak about it to passers-by who were openly challenging the slogan.
“I guess that kind of shows what these journalists experience, on a much smaller scale of course,” she said..