amnesty international founded

Key Event: Amnesty International Founded

Date: July 22, 1961

Why It’s Key: The emergence of a foundation would gain worldwide momentum, committed to the defense of human dignity against physical and mental torture and shining a “torch of hope” into the cell of prisoners of conscience.

Peter Benenson was moved to action when reading an article about two college students who were incarcerated for toasting to freedom in a Lisbon bar during the dictator Salazar’s regime. In 1961, British lawyer Benenson wrote the impassioned “Forgotten Prisoners” article, urging readers to launch a one year appeal with the goal of obtaining amnesty. It was met with overwhelming support and generated a maelstrom of stories outlining similar plights of citizens worldwide. This one year action rapidly transformed into an international movement, and Amnesty International was born. It continued to grow as a result of its unrelenting public awareness campaign and commitment to three irrevocable principles: the organization must be neutral, impartial and independent.

Aside from publicizing governmental wrongdoings, Amnesty International relies strongly on the global distribution of “adoption groups,” volunteers who take on a number of cases and orchestrate a barrage of letters to the offending government. An effective method of protest, it has also shown compassion and solicitude to the prisoner. Gradually its aim went beyond individual cases, and in 1972 a global campaign targeting banning of the use of torture was launched, followed by a vigorous campaign against the death penalty.

While fear, violence and acts of terrorism barricade our rights to an “external” peace, Amnesty International, recipient of the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize, upholds the principle that imprisonment because of thought, conscience, religion or faith obstructs our rights to a life of “internal” peace.