Amnesty International is 40 years old this week. The organisation was founded in London by Peter Benenson, a Catholic lawyer of Jewish descent. He read about students jailed in Salazar's Portugal for proposing a toast to freedom.
On May 28th, 1961 he published The Forgotten Prisoners, about the students. Many offers of support for the idea of an international compaign to protect human rights followed.
From this grew the idea of a campaign to draw public attention to the plight of political and religious prisoners worldwide.
A year-long campaign, Appeal for Amnesty 1961, was launched. Mr Benenson's office became a centre for information on prisoners of conscience worldwide and the focus for a growing band of supporters.
Today Amnesty has an estimated one million members, subscribers, and donors in more than 160 countries, including Ireland.
It has nationally organised sections in 56 countries, with headquarters in London.
A former chairman was the late Sean McBride, who won a Nobel Prize for his work with the organisation. In December 1972 he launched a worldwide one year campaign for the abolition of torture.
Many believe it was the 1973 coup in Chile, following which torture in that country became epidemic, which gave this Amnesty campaign and the organisation's reputation its greatest boost.
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