Amnesty used an email campaign to encourage people to sign a petition to send to the Nigerian government, asking it to free Amina Lawal, who is sentenced to be stoned to death as punishment for adultery. The campaign has seen thousands of supporters accessing the charity's website and a seven-fold increase in visitors from the UK.
Since the beginning of August, traffic to Amnesty's , which is linked to by the petition, has risen by 150% in Australia and by 700% in the UK. Traffic from the US is up by 880%.
Amina Lawal's appeal case is to be heard on Wednesday August 27. She was sentenced to death for being an adulteress by a traditional Shari'ah court after bearing a child outside marriage.
Simon Chamberlain, general manager of Hitwise UK, said: "This viral campaign by Amnesty International has had a clear and measurable impact and has likely spread awareness of Amina Lawal's plight, as shown by the increased use of Amnesty's Australian site."
He said that charities were increasingly using the internet as a cost-effective way of reaching people for an instantaneous response.
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