How did amnesty internatinal started?

Question

How did amnesty internatinal started?

Answer 1

Some lousy communists started it

Amnesty International was founded in July 1961 by Peter Benenson, an English lawyer who had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1958. Benenson and his friend Alec Digges, an Irish communist [5], who were also the genesis of the International Brigade Association at the same address (2 Parton Street WC1, London) took control of the Amnesty shell in 1961

Answer 2

The better question is Why. Those commies tick me off.

Answer 3

Early history: 1961–1979 and origins

Amnesty International was founded in July 1961 by Peter Benenson, an English lawyer who had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1958. Benenson and his friend Alec Digges, an Irish communist [5], who were also the genesis of the International Brigade Association at the same address (2 Parton Street WC1, London) took control of the Amnesty shell in 1961. At this time, the pressure on their communist front organisation was becoming too great and Peter took Alec's suggestion to operate as a new organisation dedicated to "the call for a general amnesty for prisoners in Spain originally adopted at the Brigade’s 1952 Annual General Meeting" [6]. Peter deflected potential criticism of the communist roots of Amnesty with the story that, while traveling to work, he read of two Portuguese students who had been condemned for having made a toast to freedom [7]. Benenson, without too much fanfare, also quietly traced the idea back to the Spanish Civil War, and he was aware of existing activism in the area, notably the communist-backed 'Appeal for Amnesty in Spain' - not to mention his co-located International Brigade Association in the same office. Thus, Amnesty International began in the summer of 1961 as a year long campaign, 'Appeal for Amnesty, 1961'. The campaign was announced in May 1961 but by July 1961 the leadership had decided that the appeal would form the basis of a permanent organisation, which on 30 September 1962 was officially named 'Amnesty International' (Between the 'Appeal for Amnesty, 1961' and September 1962 the organisation had been know simply as 'Amnesty'). [3]

At the centre of the early organisation’s leadership was the recently retired English lawyer Peter Benenson, an energetic and charismatic figure but also of eclectic and even unpredictable behaviour. The carefully manicured version of events given by Amnesty International and widely accepted until 2001 was that on 19 November 1960 Benenson stumbled across an article in The Daily Telegraph about two Portuguese students imprisoned for a simple ‘toast to freedom’ while riding the tube. Enraged at the injustice, Benenson began an international organisation to speak out for such injustices. [8] After the fortieth anniversary of Amnesty International in 2001, several historians turned their attention to the early history of Amnesty International. Historian Tom Buchanan revealed that, although The Times contained many references to other peaceful political prisoners in November 1960, he could not find the infamous ‘toast to liberty’ article in The Daily Telegraph, meaning that the ‘traditional’ story of Amnesty International’s origins may be somewhat of a myth. [4]

However, the research by historians shows that Amnesty International was born from Peter Benenson’s long history of communist party support that had begun at Eton during the Spanish Civil War, where he organised aid for Basque Orphanages and became radicalised towards the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War. His ideas for Amnesty International-like organisation appears to have formed gradually from a mix of existing campaigns, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Moral Re-Armament. [9] [5] During the 1950s he came across various pro-communist initiatives launched by the pro Spanish Republican International Brigade Association which sought ‘Amnesty’ for imprisoned communists, culminating with the ‘Appeal for Amnesty in Spain’ being launched in 1959 by the Communist Party of Great Britain. [10] However, Benenson’s 1958 conversion to Roman Catholicism influenced him towards a new internationalist thinking based upon Christianity and the teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in which injustice must be struggled against regardless of where it occurs or whom it occurs to. [6] This was compounded by a close friendship to the Quaker peace activist Eric Baker. Upon Benenson’s return to London in later 1960 after an extended holiday in Italy, he and Baker began work on creating an organisation which reflected their collective thinking.

Benenson and Baker, in consultation with other writers, academics and lawyers, wrote via Louis Blom-Cooper to David Astor, editor of The Observer newspaper, who, on May 28, 1961, published Benenson’s article The Forgotten Prisoners. . The article brought the reader’s attention to those "imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government"[7] or, put another way, to violations, by governments, of articles 18 and 19 of the UDHR. The article described these violations occurring, on a global scale, in the context of restrictions to press freedom, to political oppositions, to timely public trial before impartial courts, and to asylum. It marked the launch of 'Appeal for Amnesty, 1961', the aim of which was to mobilize public opinion, quickly and widely, in defence of these individuals, and in particular communist party members, who Benenson named "Prisoners of Conscience". In the same year Benenson had a book published, Persecution 1961, which detailed the cases of several prisoners of conscience investigated and compiled by Benenson and Baker.[8]

What started as a short appeal soon became a permanent international movement working to protect those imprisoned for non-violent expression of their views and to secure worldwide recognition of Articles 18 and 19 of the UDHR. From the very beginning, research and campaigning were present in Amnesty International’s work. A library was established for information about prisoners of conscience and a network of local groups, called ‘THREES’ groups, was started. Each group worked on behalf of three prisoners, one from each of the then three main ideological regions of the world: communist, capitalist and developing.

By the mid-1960s Amnesty International’s global presence was growing and an International Secretariat and International Executive Committee was established to manage Amnesty International’s national organizations, called ‘Sections’, which had appeared in several countries. The international movement was starting to agree its core principles and techniques. For example, the issue of whether or not to adopt prisoners who had advocated violence, like Nelson Mandela, brought unanimous agreement that it could not give the name of 'Prisoner of Conscience' to such prisoners. Aside from the work of the library and groups, Amnesty International’s activities were expanding to helping prisoner’s families, sending observers to trials, making representations to governments, and finding asylum or overseas employment for prisoners. Its activity and influence was also increasing within intergovernmental organizations; it would be awarded consultative status by the United Nations, the Council of Europe and UNESCO before the decade was out.

Leading Amnesty International in the 1970s were key figureheads Sean MacBride and Martin Ennals. While continuing to work for prisoners of conscience, Amnesty International’s purview widened to include "fair trial" and opposition to long detention without trial (UDHR Article 9), and especially to the torture of prisoners (UDHR Article 5). Amnesty International believed that the reasons underlying torture of prisoners, by governments, were either to obtain information or to quell opposition by the use of terror, or both. Also of concern was the export of more sophisticated torture methods, equipment and teaching to "client states."

Amnesty International drew together reports from countries where torture allegations seemed most persistent and organized an international conference on torture. It sought to influence public opinion in order to put pressure on national governments by organizing a campaign for the 'Abolition of Torture' which ran for several years.

Amnesty International’s membership increased from 15,000 in 1969[9] to 200,000 by 1979.[10] This growth in resources enabled an expansion of its program, ‘outside of the prison walls’, to include work on “disappearances”, the death penalty and the rights of refugees. A new technique, the 'Urgent Action’, aimed at mobilizing the membership into action rapidly was pioneered. The first was issued on March 19, 1973, on behalf of Luiz Basilio Rossi, a Brazilian academic, arrested for political reasons.

At the intergovernmental level Amnesty International pressed for application of the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and of existing humanitarian conventions; to secure ratifications of the two UN Covenants on Human Rights (which came into force in 1976); and was instrumental in obtaining UN Resolution 3059 which formally denounced torture and called on governments to adhere to existing international instruments and provisions forbidding its practice. Consultative status was granted at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 1972.

Answer 4

The president of the ACLU crossbred with the president of the  NAACP.

Either that or people saw other people getting hurt by other facist regimes including religious (theocracies) and decided to try to start a non-prophet organization to save the people.

Answer 5

Somebody told them not too.

Answer 6

over a few bears ... just like the MArine Corps. ah yes, 1776 in Tuns TAven in Philadephia.   God Bless the USMC!

Answer 7

More than four decades ago, the story of two Portuguese students sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for raising a toast to freedom horrified British lawyer Peter Benenson. He wrote to the British newspaper, The Observer, calling for an international campaign to bombard authorities around the world with protests about the "forgotten prisoners". On 28 May 1961, the newspaper launched his year long campaign, Appeal for Amnesty 1961, calling on people everywhere to protest against the imprisonment of men and women for their political or religious beliefs – "prisoners of conscience".

Within a month, more than a thousand readers had sent letters of support, offers of practical help and details about many more prisoners of conscience. Within six months, a brief publicity effort was being developed into a permanent, international movement. Within a year, the new organization had sent delegations to four countries to make representations on behalf of prisoners and had taken up 210 cases. Its members had organized national bodies in seven countries.

The principles of impartiality and independence were established from the start. The emphasis was on the international protection of the human rights of individuals. As Amnesty International grew, its focus expanded to take in not just prisoners of conscience, but other victims of human rights abuses – such as torture, "disappearances" and the death penalty. In 1977, the movement's efforts were recognized through the award of the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1978, it was honoured with a United Nations Human Rights Award.