In a Yellowknife coffee shop, the photos of slain, disappeared and imprisoned activists are displayed over a table crowded with sheets of paper.

It's a sign that Amnesty International's annual letter-writing campaign, Write for Rights, has come again.

Every year, around Dec. 10, dubbed International Human Rights Day, individuals around the world send letters to figures as varied as a public prosecutor in Cairo and the President of South Sudan, written on behalf of victims of human rights abuses.

On Saturday at Javaroma, it's Laurence Wilson who's running the show.

Wilson is no stranger to the atrocities he is now campaigning to prevent. He left Liberia during a period of armed conflict in the 1990s, when Liberian President Samuel Doe was fighting an insurgency led by Charles Taylor.

Over the course of two civil wars between 1989 and 2003, hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed.

"There was so much depravity … there was so much confusion," Wilson said. "People were being killed for no reason."

As a student activist campaigning for human rights, Wilson was at risk of being blacklisted and treated as a "rebel sympathizer," he said.

Volunteers direct visitors to pre-written letters addressed to figures as varied as a Mexican governor and the President of South Sudan. (John Last/CBC)

"They used that as an opportunity to go after the students," he said. "That was enough reason to kill you."

At one point, Wilson was stopped at a checkpoint and accused of travelling to join the rebels. The intervention of a university friend prevented things taking a turn for the worse.

"There were many people who were told to remain at checkpoints and today, we cannot even find them," he said.

'Speaking truth to power'

Wilson credits Amnesty International as one of several organizations "speaking truth to power in Liberia."

"They were holding the warlords responsible, as well as the president," he said. "They put pressure to the extent that there was some improvement in the human rights situation."

After the war, Wilson said Amnesty International was instrumental in advancing the work of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and in securing the conviction of former president Charles Taylor on war crimes.

Taylor is now serving a 50-year sentence in a British prison.

Saturday, in Yellowknife, Wilson's letter-writing campaign hopes to reach places much closer to home than Liberia.

Among the pre-written letters he encouraged passers-by to sign is one addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Volunteer Lois Little holds up a children's drawing sent in support of residents of Grassy Narrows. Mercury poisoning affected the First Nation's fishery, an important part of the local economy. (John Last/CBC)

"I am writing to you out of great concern for the health of the Anishnaabe People of Grassy Narrows Reserve in Northwestern Ontario," the letter begins.

Grassy Narrows, the territory of Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation, is the site of extensive mercury contamination from a local pulp-and-paper mill, which has caused ongoing health issues and disrupted the local economy.

The letter implored the federal government to fund a local healing centre, "as the first step."

Other letters, addressed to officials around the world, asked for intervention in the cases of a disappeared Egyptian human rights researcher, Ibrahim Ezz El-din; a 16-year-old Iranian, Yasaman Aryani, imprisoned for not wearing a veil; and Magai Matiop Ngong, sentenced to death for murder in South Sudan at 15-years-old.

Wilson said a theme of the campaign the human rights abuses faced by youth around the world.

"Young people are fighting some of the biggest battles of their lives," he said. "They find themselves in situations around the world … where human rights have been trampled on."

By the end of the day, Wilson could count 140 letters he had collected from fellow Yellowknifers — and many new names recruited in the fight for human rights.