against overseas labour activists.

One case involves the 15-year jail sentence handed down on China's Liu Jingsheng for trying to organise a trade union.

Amnesty International is spotlighting the abuses as part of its Trade Union Campaign starting today.

And the organisation's Bermudian section is throwing its weight behind the effort which coincides with International Worker's Day.

Also helping out are the Bermuda Industrial Union, the Bermuda Public Services Association and the Bermuda Union of Teachers.

"The three local unions have agreed to circulate case information throughout their membership who will then sign letters condemning these human rights violations,'' said Bermuda Amnesty International in a statement.

Five cases are being focussed on in the AI campaign. As well as the Jingsheng jail sentence, they include: The political killings of trade unionists Hernando Cuardos and Rodrigo Florez in Colombia; The killing of four people, including a child, when security forces broke up a sit-in at a textile factory in Egypt. Dozens were also injured, and 70 arrested; The four-year jail sentence Muchtar Pakpahan received in Indonesia for organising an independent trade union; and The incommunicado detention of four trade union leaders in Nigeria without charge or trial.

AI Bermuda is appealing for people to sign protest letters at a campaign table in the Walkway outside Pink's Deli every Friday noon to 2 p.m.

Said an AI Bermuda spokesman: "Members of the unions and the public who signed letters during last year's trade union action should know that their work helped.

"Of the nine cases publicised in the 1994 action, four trade unionists were released.

"One of them, Francisco Ramirez Cuellar, a Colombian trade union organiser, expressed thanks for letters written on his behalf: "`On my own behalf ... I thank you for the letters that saved my life'.''