nterest in world human rights was again stirred when he read a newspaper account of two young students in Portugal who had been "arrested in a restaurant and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment for raising their glasses in a toast to freedom" (8). Reading this story renewed Benenson's desire to do something about stopping the imprisonment of people guilty of nothing more than protesting against the policies of their own government. In addition, Benenson became interested in going beyond his individual efforts of the past in order to develop a system for "concerted worldwide protests at acts of political injustice" (8). In May of 1961, Peter Benenson composed an "Appeal for Amnesty," which was printed in two prominent European newspapers, The Observer in London and Le Monde in Paris (Wiseberg and Sirett 35).
Benenson then established an office in London and developed a year-long campaign "whose object was to obtain an amnesty for all political and religious prisoners of conscience" (Voices 8). Although Benenson's campaign was originally intended to last for only one year, "the appeal quickly attracted international support and within a few short months the groundwork was laid for a permanent organization that eventually became known as Amnesty International" (8). From these humble origins, Amnesty International has now grown into "a vast international complex coordinating local voluntary action with high-level diplomatic initiatives and a worldwide network of information on political imprisonment, torture and related questions" (Garling 5). As of 1989, Amnesty International was able to claim that it consisted of "more than 700,000 members, subscribers and supporters in over 150 countries and territories, with over 3,985 local groups in more than 60 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East" (Amnesty 2).
The foundations for Amnesty International I s basic goals are contained in the Universal Declarati...