Amnesty International is 50

From Amnesty’s Blog on how it came into being and on its 50 years of campaigning for Justice around the world.

"Yet if these feelings of disgust all over the world could be united into common action, something effective could be done.” Peter Benenson

May 1961. Elvis Presley is on the radio. Spurs fans are celebrating topping the football league. President Kennedy announces plans to put a man on the moon.

And one man is outraged by a news report on two Portuguese students imprisoned simply for raising their glasses in a “toast to freedom”. Amnesty International is born.

Because that man, British lawyer Peter Benenson, resolved to turn his outrage into action. He wrote an article called The Forgotten Prisoners which was first published in The Observer on 28 May 1961 and reproduced around the world.

In it Benenson highlighted cases like that of the Portuguese students, coining the phrase ‘prisoner of conscience’. He called for like-minded people to unite in an ‘appeal for amnesty’ on their behalf – and readers responded to that call.

In 1962, we were officially named Amnesty International. And since then, what began as a small band of volunteers based in London has grown to a global movement of 3 million supporters, members and activists with 18 national sections and 850 groups in over 27 countries.

We have written letters, signed petitions, issued urgent actions, demonstrated outside courtrooms and embassies, launched hard-hitting media campaigns and lobbied officials directly. More recently, we have embraced the opportunities offered by social media and mobile communications.

As the world has changed, so have we. But our objective – to protect people when their rights are denied, and end discrimination, persecution and harassment – has remained constant. See the faces of some of the individuals helped by Amnesty in this beautiful video featuring the banners produced for our 50th anniversary AGM.

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