On 28th May 1961 an article appeared in the London newspaper The Observer. Its author was Peter Benenson, an English human rights lawyer. Entitled The Forgotten Prisoners, the article expressed concern at an account he’d read of two Portuguese students sentenced to seven years in prison simply for toasting to freedom during António de Oliveira Salazar’s regime. While the actual case was revealed to be hearsay, the sentiment of the piece touched a global nerve. It was a time during the Cold War when three world leaders in power, John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Pope John XXIII seemed open to diplomacy. Benenson’s article was to lead to the foundation of the human rights organisation Amnesty International.
BIG INFLUENCE
Since 1964 Amnesty International has had special consultative status at the United Nations. It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for its campaign against torture. Key achievements include the 1986 release of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti from prison, where he was serving a five-year sentence for criticising Nigeria’s military government in his songs. In 2008, the UK government ratified the European Convention Against Trafficking following years of AI campaigning.
NOT FORGOTTEN
Benenson was the privileged son of a British army officer father and a Russian mother. During the war he worked in army intelligence and after it as a lawyer representing prisoners in Spain, Hungary and South Africa. He was one of a group of British lawyers who in 1957 founded the human rights and law reform organisation JUSTICE, and he was a member of a body set up by the UK Labour Party that sought fair trial in Spain for opponents of the Francisco Franco dictatorship.
PEOPLE POWER
Benenson, however, increasingly felt that a purely professional or political organisation would always be —as he put it— “excessively cautious and would never catch the public imagination.” In 1958 he became ill and went to Italy to recover. It was there that he decided that it was better to appeal to the moral values and aspirations of people everywhere in a way that transcended party politics.
MORAL MESSAGE
In his article, Benenson cited the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He coined the term ‘prisoner of conscience’, which he defined as one who has been imprisoned or persecuted for the non-violent expression of their beliefs. He launched an appeal for amnesty, a worldwide campaign aimed at ordinary people. The article was reprinted in newspapers across the world and by July, the organisation Amnesty International had been established. It rapidly evolved into the world’s largest human rights body, and it is still funded through its membership and personal unaffiliated donations. This allows it to maintain full independence from governments, political ideologies, religions or economic interests.
Prisoners of Conscience
Prisoners of conscience (POC) are the only prisoners who Amnesty International demands should be immediately and unconditionally released. Controversies arise as to what defines a POC and whether this includes political prisoners, given that many governments deny that the latter exist, claiming they are just criminals. The organisation changed Benenson’s original definition of a POC to include anyone imprisoned because of race, sexual orientation, religion or political views, but always excluding those who advocate violence or hatred. Thus, Nelson Mandela initially qualified when he was imprisoned in South Africa in 1962, but the decision was reversed after he turned to violently opposing the regime. In February this year, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s status as a POC was removed due to comments he had made on migrants fourteen years earlier which Amnesty International regarded as ‘hate speech’.