The Beginning of Amnesty International

The organization was founded in London on May 28, 1961 , through the principal efforts of Peter Benenson, who had been a defense lawyer for political prisoners in Hungary , South Africa , and Spain and who sought to establish a collective agency for the advancement of human rights.

A group of lawyers, journalists, writers, and others, offended and frustrated by the sentencing of two Portugese college students to twenty years in prison for having raised their glasses in a toast to "freedom" in a bar, supported Peter Benenson in his early efforts and Appeal for Amnesty was formed. The appeal was announced on May 28 in the London Observer's Sunday Supplement. The appeal told the stories of six "prisoners of conscience" from different countries and of different political and religious backgrounds, all jailed for peacefully expressing their political or religious beliefs, and called on governments everywhere to free such prisoners. It set forth a simple plan of action, calling for strictly impartial, non-partisan appeals to be made on behalf of these prisoners and any who, like them, had been imprisoned for peacefully expressed beliefs.

The response to this appeal was larger than anyone had expected. The one-year appeal grew, was extended beyond the year, and Amnesty International and the modern human rights movement were both born.

The modern human rights movement didn't invent any new principles. It was different from what preceeded it primarily in its explicit rejection of political ideology and partisanship, and its demand that governments everywhere, regardless of ideology, adhere to certain basic principles of human rights in their treatment of their citizens.

This appealed to a large group of people, many of whom were politically inactive, not interested in joining a political movement, not ideologically motivated, and didn't care about creating "the perfect society" or perfect government. They were simply outraged that any government dared abuse, imprison, torture, and often kill human beings whose only crime was in believing differently from their government and saying so in public. They (naively, according to many detractors) took to writing letters to governments and publicizing the plights of these people in hopes of persuading or embarrassing abusive governments into better behavior.

Like the early years of many movements, the early years of the modern human rights movement were rocky. "Appeal for Amnesty, 1961" had only the most rudimentary organization. The modern organization named Amnesty International gained the structure it has mostly by learning from mistakes. Early staff members operated with no oversight, and money was wasted. This led to establishing strict financial accountability. Early staff members and volunteers got involved in partisan politics while working on human rights violations in their own countries. This led to the principle that AI members were not, as a matter of practice, asked or permitted to work on cases in their country. Early campaigns failed because Amnesty was misinformed about certain prisoners. This led to the establishment of a formidable research section and the process of "adoption" of prisoners of conscience only after a thorough investigation phase. In 1977 Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

By the early 1980s AI consisted of an international secretariat of 150 persons, national "sections," or offices, in more than 40 countries, and about 200,000 individual members in some 100 countries.

Aside from generally publicizing governmental wrongdoing in newsletters, annual reports, and background papers, AI relies strongly on the worldwide distribution of "adoption groups," each of which, staffed by three to eight persons, takes on a limited number of cases of "prisoners of conscience" and barrages the offending government with letters of protest until the prisoners are released.

International does not take positions on many issues which many people view as human rights concerns (such as abortion) and does not endorse or criticize any form of government. While it will work to ensure a fair trial for all political prisoners, it does not adopt as prisoners of conscience anyone who has used or advocated violence for any reason. It rarely provides statistical data on human rights abuses, and never compares the human rights records of one country with another. It sticks to work on behalf of individual prisoners, and work to abolish specific practices, such as torture and the death penalty.

A lot of people found this too restrictive. Many pro-democracy advocates were extremely upset when the organization dropped Nelson Mandela (at the time a black South African anti-apartheid activist in jail on trumped-up murder charges) from its list of adopted prisoners, because of his endorsing a violent struggle against apartheid. Others were upset that Amnesty would not criticize any form of government, even one which (like Soviet-style Communism, or Franco-style fascism) appeared inherently abusive and incompatible with respect for basic human rights. Many activists simply felt that human rights could be better served by a broader field of action.